Powering the circular economy: why the right energy policy is vital to success

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

To continue meeting the energy needs of the recycling sector, we need to:

• Accelerate shale gas development

• Extract more energy from waste

• Invest in energy storage

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Recycling in the UK:

• Generates sales of over £7 billion and growing

• Employs more than 56,000 people directly

• Avoids wasteful landfill

• Saves energy and emissions

• Makes secondary raw materials available

CURRENT ENERGY POLICY

• Decarbonise the power sector

• Boost renewable energy generation – 20% reduction on GHG by 2020 – 20% share for renewables in total EU energy supply – 20% reduction in primary energy use

• Most notable evidence is the huge growth in

wind, wave and solar power deployment

CURRENT ENERGY POLICY

THE RENEWABLES TRILEMMA

• There are three reasons why wind, wave and solar renewables alone are unlikely to meet the energy needs of the recycling sector

Firstly, they can’t always supply the energy when it’s needed

Secondly, the only supply electricity – yet many recycling processes, for instance, require large amounts of gas

Thirdly, the power they supply is variable

THE RENEWABLES TRILEMMA

• Melting glass in high temperature furnaces uses over 1 million m3 of gas a day. No amount of wind, wave and solar PV can supply this

• Recycling steel via the electric arc method requires large amounts of electricity in concentrated bursts. Wind, wave and solar PV can’t always be relied upon to deliver this when needed

FUELLING THE FUTURE

Accelerate shale gas development

• Extracted safely and responsibly, domestically-produced shale gas could substitute for imported gas used in many of our recycling processes

FUELLING THE FUTURE

Extract more energy from waste

• Biogas, produced by processing food and farm waste, could supplement other forms of gas like shale

• Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), mostly exported to Europe at a cost of around £43m a year, could be burnt in the UK instead to generate 5% of our electricity needs

FUELLING THE FUTURE

Invest in energy storage

• Storing renewable electricity when it’s produced, to use later when it’s needed, will help overcome intermittency

• Storing more gas, that can be accessed quickly to fuel CCGT plants, will enable us to generate electricity when renewable output drops

WHAT’S AT STAKE?

• Unless Britain’s energy policy better reflects the needs of its recycling sector, there’s a very real risk that reprocessing factories will close as operators relocate overseas in pursuit of more affordable, reliable supplies of energy

• The UK recycling sector directly employs over 56,000 people. It would be a great shame to see those numbers fall as a result of mis-matched energy policy

• For more details, see http://bit.ly/PoweringTheCircularEconomy