TRANSPORT and Technical Services Minister Guy de Faye (pictured) is smarter than the average bear so he must realise that he is fighting for his political life. How else can we explain his attack (JEP, 20 May) on those whose alleged dithering (about replacing the incinerator) he claims has cost the Island £46 million?

Clearly he is attempting to distract the public gaze from his department’s fiasco at the Bel Royal end of Victoria Avenue. He is, in effect, asking us to overlook his latest mess because he claims all these other people have cost the Island far, far more. If this is his best ‘spin,’ he should give up now before the elections.

His absurd view that the delay in commissioning a new energy-from-waste plant has, and will, cost the Island so much more, only holds water if we end up actually ordering a new incinerator. If we instead commission a small portfolio of other technology, methodologies and techniques I estimate that we will save the Island at least £40-50 million up front and much more over the planned life of the plant.

He says that a new incinerator would generate seven per cent of the Island’s current electrical demand. As Jersey’s electricity has very little carbon footprint due to being sourced mainly from France’s nuclear industry, the electricity from an incinerator would not displace importing any fossil fuel. Using another technology can generate just as much electricity but has the vast benefit that it can easily be converted to other uses, unlike incinerators, as the waste supply shrinks and changes qualitatively.

Recycling and reuse will increasingly catch on and most importantly, over the coming decades, goods and materials will be redesigned, at the manufacturing level, to be more environmentally friendly. There won’t be anywhere near the amount of waste they are planning for, particularly when viewed against the 30-year lifespan of any new plant.

The more flexible alternatives can generate synthetic diesel fuel, thus directly displacing fossil fuel imports. Another exciting use could resurrect Jersey’s agricultural industry by giving our struggling farmers something new and profitable to grow – biofuels – not the ridiculous corn-into-ethanol scam that the US is currently destabilising world food supplies with, but short rotation coppiced willow and elephant grass.

I have been corresponding with a researcher at Dublin University who has performed life cycle analyses on these biofuels and they show a very significant environmental benefit, even using current ‘conservative’ assumptions. Once using biofuels with the technologies I mention, a very exciting modification will lead to the production of carbon negative energy whereby atmospheric carbon is sequestrated permanently. Not to mention increasing soil fertility too. No incinerator can even approach that.

So why are TTS so fixated on incinerators? Mainly, their pride will not allow them to change their minds now. Originally, the criteria they specified to potential suppliers excluded virtually anything else. Simplifying, they stated that any acceptable plant had to have been run on municipal waste commercially for at least two years to demonstrate reliability – which sounds sensible.

The plant I favour has run commercially on clinical waste for at least five years but not municipal waste so TTS will not consider it. However, the technology is so different to incineration that, as long as the feedstock contains carbon and hydrogen compounds it hardly matters what form it takes so the position of TTS is really that of a jobsworth – semantic nitpicking rather than an outright technical objection in order to favour what they are used to.

I have prepared a 2,500-word article which goes into these matters more deeply. Anyone interested can e-mail me at greendirectionconsulting@googlemail.com and I will send them a copy.
Winterwood, Rue des Hamonnets, St Lawrence.