Tansterne Biomass Editorial
TANSTERNE BIOMASS PLANT ….
Heat, Fire, Hydrogen, Tons of Fuel, Battery Storage, High Voltage Wires, Water, Massive lorries, …
”What Could Possibly Go Wrong” !!!!!!!
GB Bio's Planning Application…………21/04544/STPLFE
* Solar 21 … The Dublin based company who raised the Unsecured loan notes from private investors, this company is registered as the owner of GB Bio Ltd.
* GB Bio Ltd ... The UK based company with the same directors as Solar 21 but they are the owners of the Biomass plant and it appears in their balance sheet as a fixed asset.
* Heat Recovery Solutions Ltd … The designers and builders and operators of the plant, the directors of this company are also directors in other companies contracted to build the actual structure.
* www.wesaidno.site … The new web site for all your information
___________________________________________________________________________
In 2016 GB Bio Ltd undertook to build a Biomass plant in East Yorkshire with an anticipated cost of £35 million pounds, having secured ”planning consent”. The proposal was for the plant to use surplus straw from farms within a thirty mile radius and generate through the burning of this Biomass product 22MW of electricity for feeding into the national grid.
A company was introduced to build, maintain and run the plant this company was HRS Ltd this company held the “Intellectual Property Rights” of the process. The directors of this company were also directors in other companies contracted to carry out the build work.
No contracts to supply the surplus straw were ever agreed as most farmers would not commit to a guaranteed amount as this is weather dependant and they certainly would not agree a fixed price with a legally binding contract to supply.
In 2017 Solar 21 proudly announced that they had won awards for the Tansterne Biomass plant, at the Humber Renewable Awards for “Best Renewable Energy Project or Installation 2017” this was despite it not even having been commissioned to operate. ??
In February 2018 it was commissioned for production and given a G59 Certificate and Solar 21 again proudly announces on their web site that the plant is “Operational” and investment is closed.
In the company literature now it states that the plant was designed to operate “24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days per year, AND will burn 150,000 tons of waste wood this being supplied by contractors in the Hull area and this wood would have been destined for land fill”.
This is obviously different from its original “feed” material and is specific in the statement that “Contractors will supply”.
The plant was “fired up” for the testing process in 2018 and subsequently a fire started and the award winning plant sustained significant damage. - It has never run since…!!!!!
In 2019 after a three and a half year investment term the company “exited investors by returning them their initial investment plus a 31% return”…….. How???
In September 2019 the contract with HRS Ltd was terminated ??.
This according to the plant owners Solar 21 / GB Bio Ltd, was always going to be the case and this was scheduled previously in the construction plan.
This resulted in HRS Ltd immediately going into administration at the time 30 men were made redundant and the company closed owing creditors (local companies) around £4,500,000.
A large amount of this figure was owing to the company that had built the structure of this plant.
In addition, a large number of local companies also lost significant sums having done contractual work on the plant prior to the company (HRS Ltd) closing.
If this was scheduled why did the company not honour its obligations prior to closing ??
The final bill for the Biomass plant and showing within the balance sheet of GB Bio Ltd is around £65 million pounds, nearly twice what was originally advised ???
So, to summarise, the cost to build it was nearly twice what it should have been, the initial Biomass material that it was designed to burn and presumably the reason it was placed in the middle of farming communities - was not contractually agreed at the start.
And now they claim they are already operational and burning surplus Waste Wood from Hull ?
The company contracted to build, operate, and maintain the plant have their contract terminated (as scheduled) in 2019 but go immediately into administration owing millions and now GB Bio Ltd the “owners” have announced that it is “business as usual” at the plant despite the company HRS Ltd going into administration.
It is now May 2022 the plant has never ever been in operation apart from in 2018, for testing, despite the company statements saying that it is up and running, and now they are applying to expand the award-winning successful plant and ship around 250,000 tons of wood from Canada, to and then from the docks in Hull by road to the plant in 44 ton trucks at a rate of one every eight minutes.
The route being directly up Marfleet Lane, up to Holderness High Road and then through Bilton, Wyton, Sroatley and Flinton to the plant ????
They propose in the next three years to expand the plant and lay concrete over 70 acres of farmland in order to house uncovered and outside, this untreated wood. Allowing any toxins and other waste to wash into a water treatment plant and then be fed into the local reed beds and drains.
I am reliably informed by local land owners that the resulting amount of rainwater running from this amount of hard standing (concrete) will overpower the area and ultimately end up in the natural drainage system and finish up causing further significant flooding in the Burstwick area..Again!!!!
Not only will this create traffic chaos on the route through Hull and onwards to the plant it will decimate our rural communities, and no doubt massively increase the potential for accidents and possible fatalities especially passing near school children getting on and off buses and leaving the local Sproatley school……… “Future Road accidents or even deaths are a distinct possibility” in my opinion.
It will be a man-made natural disaster waiting to happen apart from the sheer misery it will bring to the people who will be forced to live nearby and suffer the smell, the toxic fumes from the chimney, and the environmental impact on the wildlife and countryside by exposure to airborne or water borne toxic substances.
This will also affect all the Holderness area if the prevailing winds are in the right direction and especially when we have particularly bad wet spells.
This plant should never have been constructed and given a green light in its original guise, it should definitely not be allowed to expand its size and proposed operation and create an environmental disaster to be endured for generations to come.
If this company, who are making wild untrue claims now that don’t stack up and who seem to be very quick to pull the plug on employment and other contractual obligations, go into administration because they are reliant on continual investment from third parties….. What will we be left with?
The government are already starting to say that this is not necessarily the best “Green option” as the carbon footprint to make this happen and the cutting down of wood purely for this purpose will adversely affect ecology systems in these areas AND the resulting energy input into the National grid is negligible and could be produced cleaner and easier with wind and solar technology.
If you don’t want this put your objection in….. write to your local MP, Councillor and file an objection with the planning department asking them to look again at this proposal and consider all the points raised, the more we ask the more they need to answer…….. Truthfully.
ACT NOW – HELP US STOP THIS ABUSE OF OUR PART OF THE COUNTRY
More information is available by visiting our website @ www.wesaidno.site