- Bishop Hill blog

As part of their aim to become “carbon neutral” or something equally daft, the University of St Andrews is planning to close the road to Dundee and to the station at Leuchars for several months in the New Year, requiring diversions of at least three extra miles, while they run a water pipe under the road from their new biomass plant four miles away from St Andrews. They intend to generate hot water which will be piped the four miles to heat university buildings and residences in town. The whole "green energy plant" is projected to cost £25 million pounds, £10 million from taxpayer via the Scottish government.

Can anyone give some informed opinion on whether this is possible while retaining enough of the heat to make it worthwhile? Presumably Icelandic district heating systems do something like this but what are the insulating materials used? Geothermal heat will make the whole process cheaper in Iceland than biomass (“fuel sourced from a radius of 50 miles” -until the trees run out) to be used here, as the Icelanders won't have to generate the heat in the first place. My initial thoughts were that the whole University idea is crackpot, but maybe I am wrong? TM

Update on Oct 22, 2015 by

Bishop Hill

A shorter closure but further to drive than I had thought.

Residents and workers in North East Fife are being advised to expect travel disruption during early Spring 2016, when major pipe-laying works get underway on the main A919 Guardbridge to St Andrews road.

Fife Council will close the road, from 15 February 2016 to 8 April 2016, to allow 4 miles of water-pipe to be laid, connecting Guardbridge’s new £25 million Green Energy Centre with St Andrews, and providing the essential infrastructure for ongoing inward investment into Fife, job creation, and renewable energy production.

...diversions will be in place through Balmullo, adding an extra 7.5 miles to journeys north of St Andrews and south of St Michaels.

Update on Oct 22, 2015 by

Bishop Hill

I am sure that there was talk of importing fuel from North America for the Glenrothes plant- it may be the 10% virgin wood they are talking about here.

The [Glenrothes} project was financed, in part, with an £8.1m Regional Selective Assistance grant from the Scottish Government and Forestry Commission Scotland has also helped underpin the investment with a long term contract for timber supply to the plant, providing 750,000 tonnes of timber over the next ten years.

The plant is fuelled by a mixture of 90 per cent recovered wood waste – primarily from the construction industry – which otherwise would end up in landfill sites, and ten per cent virgin wood sourced from a variety of sites across the UK.

When fully operational, the CHP will burn 400,000 tonnes of wood of both types in a fluidized bed boiler and flue gas system – that’s an estimated 67 wagon loads, (1500 tonnes per day) of waste wood supplied from storage plants, the nearest being Cardenden

RWE [npower] said the new contract would see Malcolm Logistics transport around a third of the overall fuel needed for the site by road from two local ports and RWE’s recently opened off-site processing facility at Cardenden..