Energy Transition Now Podcast – Episode 39 “Turning waste into a carbon removals business”

David Linden [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. You’re listening to Energy Transition Now, and I’m your host, David Linden, the Head of Energy Transition for the Westwood Global Energy Group. Following a short summer break, we continue today with our CCUS mini series, shifting our focus primarily from the transport and storage side of things to the capture part of the value chain. We have here with us today, Mike Maudsley, who is the CEO of enfinium, a leading UK energy firm, waste operator that is taking decarbonisation and carbon capture seriously. Mike, welcome to Energy Transition Now.

Mike Maudsley [00:00:43] Thank you. David. Lovely to be here today.

David Linden [00:00:46] Wonderful. Thank you for taking the time. I guess during a very busy summer period. And I’m very much looking forward to hearing a little bit about, enfinium. But, you know, as is always the case with, Energy Transition Now, we do have quite a broad range of listeners, and it helps to sometimes start off with just covering some of the basics first, Mike. And as I mentioned in my intro there, you’re the CEO of an energy from waste operator. Could you maybe just give us a bit of a one on one or with an introduction? Exactly, what is energy from waste and how does it work?

Mike Maudsley [00:01:23] Sure. No problem. Energy from waste, it’s a hidden gem in my view. I did 30 years in the power industry, and energy from waste was not really a big thing because you don’t create a lot of energy. And that’s the number one point. So why is that the point? The point is, is that what a waste company. And that’s what we need to do. Our role and responsibility in society is to manage unrecyclable waste. Waste, which, has already gone through its recycling process and would be going to landfill. And we take that waste, and we use that and we generate electricity with that from the heat process. So you combust the waste as you would combust other fuels. But it’s our home-grown, non-recyclable waste. And we then generate the steam, it turns the steam turbine and that generates the electricity. And we also create heat from that, so we can distribute heat out as well as electricity. So we create energy but our core job is to manage, millions of tons of unrecyclable waste in this country.

David Linden [00:02:28] Interesting. Fabulous. And if I was to ask maybe a brief  follow up question to that, does that mean the energy from waste’s business model, therefore, is limited to the amount of unrecyclable waste that’s produced in a country, essentially. So, you know, if a country becomes more circular, less waste intensive, etc., therefore it means that that business model means is a smaller pie for you to take part in.

Mike Maudsley [00:02:54] Yeah, I think I think we need to be clear on that. That society, as a society we shouldn’t create waste in the first place. And enfinium is not out that to say “create waste, send it our way”. The second part of that is, is that we must reuse, recycle, repurpose all the ways that we can, but in reality, waste will be created. And we have to do something with that waste, and an energy from waste plant is the best way to manage the waste. The other opportunity or other option rather than opportunity is to put it into landfill. Landfill is not a good place for waste because the way that it would degrade the waste in the land actually can create methane or will create methane. That methane is worse to the atmosphere than CO2 carbon dioxide when it’s combusted. So we we we’re already decarbonising the waste sector by saying don’t put it into landfill. Not good. Energy from waste is the place to go. We will create, we will manage the waste well, and then we will obviously create energy from that. And the other part is, is don’t export it abroad, because, it’s a valuable commodity that we can use. And then just adding to that point of is it a diminishing market? There’s about 60 million tonnes of, of non-recyclable waste, which is managed at the moment through energy from waste plants in the UK. enfinium we, we manage about 2 million tonnes of that. So we are quite a significant proportion and 2 million tonnes of waste will actually generate enough electricity, enough energy for about 500,000 homes. So even though I say we small, we small compared to gas fired power stations or large power stations, but we still do a very good job there. And we do believe that after we’ve recycled everything, after the circular economy has done the best it can in recycling waste, Defra has defined that probably by about 2040, there’ll still be about 17 million tons of of non-recyclable waste out there, that has to be managed well. So that’s the point. It’s energy from waste plants are there to manage waste and recycle waste as best we can.

David Linden [00:05:03] Perfect. Okay. And DEFRA for anyone who’s an non-UK listener. essentially, looks after the environmental agency and those sorts of things. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for that. And I think it’s just helpful for people to understand the who doesn’t who don’t look at waste, and particularly as their day job. This is obviously an energy podcast. And so people focus typically on the energy equation. And it’s important to note and thank you, for for clarifying that. And you started talking a bit about enfinium itself there. Can you maybe just clarify a little bit around, you know, where you are based, what your facilities are doing, are you 100% UK, for example? Just a bit more context and colour for the listeners. That’d be great.

Mike Maudsley [00:05:46] So we are just a UK business. We’re owned by 100% infrastructure fund called Igneo Infrastructure Partners. And there are long term investor which is good for us. That means we can think about the long term. We have four operational assets, very large assets. We have one in North Wales where we manage all the non-recyclable waste across the whole of the counties of North Wales. We have one in Kent, where we use the waste from the Kent area and actually create heat to produce, for a paper mill next door to our cardboard manufacturer next door to us called DS Smith, and that he actually in the in the positive sense, it diverts, gas that would have been burnt at that paper mill. And we, we use our non recyclable waste and create the heat for them. They create cardboard for Amazon for instance. So that’s a good part of the circular economy. And then we have two very large plants in in Ferrybridge. That is the largest energy from waste site in the UK. So we have full state of the art technology plants, very, very modern technologies, very clean emission technologies do do exactly what it says on the tin. And we’re building two new ones. We’re building a new one, which should come online next year in Leeds called Skeleton Grange, and one which should come online in early 26, in Birmingham, in Sandwell, in Birmingham. So right at the edge of the M5 there. We will have six plants by then and we will be processing about 3 million tonnes of non-recycle waste by 2026. We don’t collect waste. That’s another important part. We do just manage the waste. So we so the waste comes from local authorities. It would come from big, big companies that collect the waste that we might see out there on the, on the streets. Veolia would be one Suez, Biffas, they’re all our suppliers of waste. So they’ve already recycle this waste, but it’s gone through processes. And then it comes to us, we are that final step where it’s a bit like wringing the cloth out, you know. Well, so let’s get some more out of this. And that’s what we do.

David Linden [00:07:55] Fabulous. Okay. And and the locations you’ve described where you have that is that is that essentially because that’s the best place for your suppliers? Let’s say your Biffas of the world, they are, that’s where they’re located. So they can go to you. Is that where the industries are such located? And that makes the most sense to be located there.

Mike Maudsley [00:08:17] Yes. The number one thing is that you need to be located close to the supply of, of the waste. And generally it doesn’t travel too well, you know, cost money to travel and it actually pollutes the atmosphere by travelling. That doesn’t mean, say it doesn’t travel. What there are in the UK, there’s about 50 plus energy and waste plants in this scattered around the UK. And they take local waste where you can. And then obviously you’re trying to divert what was going to landfill into these plants. So it needs to be close to a good road network. And ideally we can take some in by rail at Ferrybridge as well.

David Linden [00:08:53] Yeah. Oh brilliant. Okay. No, one of the questions that I had in my head for when we start to talk about the decarbonisation side of things around location and where you are and what that means, but let’s talk about that decarbonisation side of things. So, you’ve got there’s four operational plants, two new ones you’re constructing, etc., so have six, plants in total. What’s your kind of decarbonisation vision from that. How you know, how are you thinking about the energy transition? For, for these plants.

Mike Maudsley [00:09:24] Well, the first part I did mention is that we’re already decarbonising because we are diverting waste from landfill to energy from waste plants, so we are already part of the decarbonisation. This is not new for us. That’s the point, is that we where we are here in the sector decarbonising. I guess it would be similar to maybe coal fired power stations, gas fired power stations to replace coal fired power stations. We have decarbonised a landfill or we are doing and and so that’s the first part of the process. We are creating energy. That energy is displacing fossil fuel energy, which is decarbonising energy out there. So when we put power onto the grid we’re decarbonising that as well. And then we also, as I said with the heat is we’re looking for heat distribution around the local businesses that are around us and trying to help them decarbonise. So the second part of the step is decarbonise others with our energy. That’s a massive opportunity and it creates the circular economy. It’s the right thing to do. Then the final North Star and I think it’s the golden, the golden goose here that that gives two with one in the process. Because if we put carbon capture on our plants, we capture all the CO2 that we’re emitting. And that’s an important part with the capture the CO2. Now the waste and people will know this, but waste is is two halves. It’s biogenic and it’s fossil. So the fossil part is plastics that were thrown away that can’t be recycled. And the biogenic are things like, you know, bits of cardboard, paper, food that’s in there, it’s all mixed together, so we can’t we can’t split it between us. But when it combusts, it is two different CO2. It’s got the, historic CO2 and it’s got the modern CO2. So the biogenic CO2 – we capture everything, we capture everything – and the biogenic CO2 is part of a natural evolution of CO2 in our environment. So if we were emitting that now as we are, it doesn’t add any more to the atmosphere. So biogenic CO2 doesn’t add any more to the atmosphere than what it would do. But if we capture that CO2, we remove CO2 from the atmosphere. So this is it. This is why I call it the golden goose. It’s the story that’s not being told yet not being seen. It’s basically stopping fossil emissions going up into the atmosphere, but also removing carbon from the atmosphere in the same process. So we will move from an energy from waste business to a decarbonisation business, and that will ultimately be a carbon removals business. And enfinium’s, you know, decarbonisation plan would be to put carbon capture across all our sites. And we’ve committed at the moment we’ve got four, four operational sites that we have now. And we said, well, we will commit £1.7 billion of capital to do that. Obviously we need a commercial framework to underpin it. But the banks out there are there to support us. The technology is there to do it. We need infrastructure around that to be able to transport. But we are at the start of this process, this is our vision. We aim by the mid 2030s to have carbon capture on our four operational sites and be creating negative emissions carbon removals.

David Linden [00:12:47] Wow. Okay. All right. There’s a lot going on there, Mike. Okay, so you’ve got several different levers which are essentially defining you as, well, helping with the decarbonisation journey and then eventually becoming, what you’re saying is the vision of the company essentially to be a decarbonisation business, as a whole. So, I think that’s very interesting, very exciting. And I think the carbon removal side of things is particularly interesting. Just so, you know, we can understand, the biogenic versus fossil side of things. I mean, it’s extremely difficult because I’m assuming depends on the waste that you get. But what’s the kind of typical split that we’re talking about here in that vision. So is 80% of it fossil and there’s a little bit of negative emissions you can pull out because of the biogenic, or is it a 50:50 split. And so you’ve got quite a, you know, significant portion of the typical waste that you get that you can create negative emissions from.

Mike Maudsley [00:13:52] I think you landed on it the second time. Essentially, at the moment it is 50:50. And the more recycling we do, so the positive part is the more recycling society does, the more plastics are removed and the more the higher the percentage, the biogenic or that the fossil goes down and therefore the biogenic goes up in proportion. So at the moment 50:50, some areas slightly higher than others. And the I think the practicalities to go forward in time as this there’s something called the emissions trading scheme, the carbon tax which will be coming in on the waste sector from 2028. That is an important stage in the waste sector. We’re not taxed by this ETS process in the sector yet. So that’s coming in. So that means it will be a tax on on people’s plastic going in their bins in a sense because it has to be managed and removed, not put into the atmosphere. So that should change behaviour. And that behaviour hopefully will change that split from 50:50 to 60:40. And so we’ll be removing more biogenic content, which is removing more or creating more carbon removals.

David Linden [00:15:08] Fascinating. Okay, so that’s adding to the negative emissions side of things. In terms of then the progress that you’ve made. So I want to talk about progress, and I want to talk about some of the challenges afterwards as well. To sort of achieve that vision, but just in terms of progress, so you said that the, you know,  you’re looking to spend, is it 1.7 billion, in the space? And hoping to have by the mid 2030s for four of those operational sites, call it retrofitted or whatever you want to call it with, with, carbon capture technology. Can I then rightly sort of say that at the moment it’s still a plan, and you’d like to do it, but it’s a conversation you’re having. But this is still the vision that you’re keen to do. Is that a fair assessment?

Mike Maudsley [00:16:04] Yeah, that’s very clear. It’s a plan, but it’s a plan unless we’ve published the plan. So it’s not something that might, I work up this morning, thought so I’ve got a good idea, I’m going to say this out there.

David Linden [00:16:13] No, you should go. You should go on your website. Actually, it’s a very well articulated plan, to be fair.

Mike Maudsley [00:16:17] So we we published our, net zero transition plan, earlier in the year. We had this, plan developed and created by an independent by ARUP. We wanted to make sure that it is real. Can we do this? Is it possible? How would we do that? And how would it work? So this is not like before in one go, and let’s trip up over everything. We’ve got a clear process of how we could transition our business in a construction activity to do this. The other part of enfinium, as I said, we’re building two new assets at the moment, which is £1 billion of investment. So we’re used to that, we’re building two assets, £500 million each in Leeds and in Birmingham. So we have the skills and the competence to develop these new systems retrofit add more to what we’ve got. Then, so there’s one on the plan, and then the other part is, is can we do it? So after we got the spec, that’s one thing. And we’ve done a master plan for every site, including the two newest sites. Can we, have we got the space because a carbon capture, you can’t you can’t just run away and say, yeah, let’s build it. And then you just plug it into something. It will take up about a third of your land again. So from a a space perspective, you’ve got to really respect when, when we’re talking carbon capture, people have to understand companies have to understand what it really means. It’s a multi-million, multi-billions of pounds of capital investment. It needs a lot of space. You need to understand how it works. You need to also understand the energy consumption because this is the other part of it. You can’t run away and just build these everywhere. It consumes a lot of energy. So one way in energy from waste business, it will take, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s our plant or a CCTG plant, it will consume a third of your energy, in doing so. Now these things are not discussed, and this is the important thing for energy from waste. We’re not here to create energy. We’re here to manage the waste. The energy is a by-product. So we can use it in any way we want, which is positive. That means we can use it towards carbon capture. And it doesn’t deflect from our primary role of managing the waste. So yeah, we’ve got a clear plan, we’ve got a footprint of how it would work. Maybe if you, I you can take through a few steps of what we are doing would that help as well? So on one side, we need to commercialise this, we need; how does this really work? How do you, you can’t just build it, you’ve got to plug it into a system. So the government has set a process up where it’s identified two clusters, one on the East coast and one on the West coast. And they’re looking and it’s called track one. It’s run by DESNZ, which is the Department of Energy, Security &  Net Zero.

David Linden [00:19:24] That’s it.

Mike Maudsley [00:19:24] And and they, they are asking for bidders to say, well, we want to build carbon capture and they want to help, develop, the whole infrastructure to do that. And that is the principle of what DESNZ are trying to do. Now, what it means is there’s a lot of businesses out there bidding, and not everybody’s going to be a winner. But it doesn’t matter whether you’re a winner or not at this point. The government needs to create the infrastructure out there. So we’re working with DESNZ where we’re actually in a bidding process right now. And we’ve bid our Parc Adfer plant in North Wales. So this is a small, a smaller plant which is good. Small is good because small means that you can scale, you can scale up from what’s already out there in the world quite quickly. We can buy modular technology and we could build it fast, and it’s already proven. So I believe that Parc Adfer it’s a 200,000 tonnes per annum, a waste facility, one ton of waste creates one tonne of CO2 so it will capture 200,000 tonnes – round numbers these are – 200,000 tonnes of CO2, which is good. It’s small step in a scale which is easy. And we can connect it to the HyNet system which Eni that you interviewed a few weeks ago, they are building that gas that CO2 pipeline network. So we’re bidding into that. We have pre-qualified, but we’re not at any advanced stage in that we’re looking at, with 2 or 3 suppliers technically how it would fit on the site. Yes. And how it would work. Yes. And we’ve also put planning permission in for consenting to build a carbon capture at Ferrybridge, which is the largest site in the UK on both of those plants. So we’ve put that planning in as well. And that’s part of the process. And I’m proud to say that enfinium, I’m trying to lead the way,  I’m ambitious and to understand and to be intelligent of carbon capture you’ve got to play with it. You’ve got to know it. You know, I’m an engineer. So we’ve worked with HZI, which is a large energy from waste construction company, and they’re building our £500 million plant in Leeds. They’ve built us a pilot carbon capture plant, and it arrived about four weeks ago. It’s in commissioning right now at Ferrybridge. You’re welcome, David, you should come and see it. You will be so excited. Come and see the plant. We’ll take you around. I’ll show you the big ambition, at Ferrybridge and you’ll see this nice containerised pilot plant.

David Linden [00:21:59] It will be a pleasure. It will be a pleasure, Mike.

Mike Maudsley [00:22:03] Now on that, why a pilot plant? What is the value? Well the value is is understanding the solvent technology. There’s only one man proven technology in the world which is scalable at the moment. And it’s called amine. And we’ve got to understand how that solvent reacts with the flue gas of energy from waste. So this is the first of its kind in the UK on an energy from waste plant. And we will trial 2 or 3 amines in the next 12 months and obviously understand how it reacts and what are the best amines that that can be used to scale up into a big scale plant and ideally working with a company like HZI to scale up Parc Adfer or Ferrybridge or wherever we’re looking, this, that will be the next step. So that’s something,I’m calling it being carbon capture intelligent. And that’s what I’m asking my team to do. I want this to be an intelligent, understander, business developer and ultimately operator of carbon capture. We’re also looking at other carbon capture technologies, because it won’t be the only one in the world by 2030 or 2035 that will be out there. So we are looking at others. I want to pilot others. It’s important that we support industry to do that as well, because it’s hard for these development concepts to scale up. So if we can work with 1 or 2 pilot schemes in addition to the aimine, then I’m very keen to do so. And then the other bit that’s the, I guess, an exciting bit for enfinium and we are the first again on, I like being first. Actually first, second, third. If I’m in the game I can run the race. So just being in the race is important. But we’re looking at or we’ve got something called carbon 14 monitoring. It’s a monitor which actually, it collects a sample of the flue gas over a period of time. And then that goes to a lab and it tells you how much of the carbon the CO2 was biogenic and how much was fossil. And that’s a very very important part of ultimately what we want, to trade the carbon removal. So you’ve got to prove by clear, not just by definition, but by the full MRV, process that we know exactly this month that it was 51% at our plant at Kemsley. So we’ve been monitoring for a year, and we’re putting these carbon 14 facilities onto all our flue gas and all our plants so that we can understand more clearly what our CO2 biogenic content emission is.

David Linden [00:24:43] I’ll have to take you up on that Ferrybridge offer. Thank you, I will. But there’s a really, I mean it sounds like you’re doing a lot of, as we always say first, but within what’s possible, essentially you’re moving a lot of things forward. You’re getting involved with the government’s framework to how they want to see some of this move forward. You’re investing in pilots, etc., to make sure the technology is right for you, etc., so, I mean that’s a clear indicator of how serious you are about this as well as your vision of course. As we discussed, I think before, before we started recording and we were just sort of saying hi to each other, you know, I’m not an engineer myself. And, I often think about the commercials of some of these things as well, Mike, and you dropped a few different things in there which highlighted, well, hang on, how are we going to make this work? Part of it’s going to come down to the commercial aspect. Right. And you said I need to you know, use up a third of my space to do this. I need to invest 1.7 billion. I need to give up a third of my energy that I could sell, in theory, to somebody else, etc.. So there’s a lot of things that you’re having to do to make this work. And, you know, waste is not part of the EUTS, as you said. The government framework, hasn’t been, well there has sort of been finalised for track one in some respects, but you obviously need to bid into that. You’d need to figure out how much you can trade in terms of those negative emissions, essentially that removal that you’re doing, etc.. Is that the balancing act here of we’ve got a plan, we’ve got a vision, we know what it kind of takes, but we do still need some of these other call it regulatory pieces essentially to fall into place for that business model to fully function, for us to be able to commit to it. Because of course, you’re a business. It has to make sense for you as well. Is that fair, Mike?

Mike Maudsley [00:26:43] It is, it is fair and it is a juggling act and a balance. The part that’s important for us and again within the team is I’m saying let’s be intelligent about how we juggle, how that balance looks because it is complicated. And but then the exciting part of the complication is it hasn’t been done before. So we are pioneering the world. This is an industrial revolution that’s never happened before. So we can’t just go, well, that’s how it will be. So it’s important that we work out internally in our minds, in our team. And I’ve got a great team around, a very small team in enfinium and a great intelligence building team where we were out thinking of, so how does a carbon removal work? How do you sell a carbon removal? How does the ETS come in you know the ETS the emissions trading scheme, it will come in to the waste sector. How is it going to come in? Because it means the customers, the people creating the waste, eventually it’s a tax. For me at home in my dust bin and it’s going to cost me something. And if this ETS we believe and we know at the moment it’s quite a low number that the carbon tax at the moment in the UK it’s around the 40, £40, £45 type of number. But it was 80 plus, and we know the reasons why it was brought down for good energy purposes and electricity bills. But it will go up. It will go back to its normal levels and the normal level is assumed that by 2028 it will be £100, by 2030 it could be £150 by 2035, £250. Now this is a tax that’s going on our dustbins, or anybody’s waste out there. So, I see it as well, how can I create the solution for the problem in the future? People don’t even know there’s a problem. And I can see that that’s on its way. So let’s make the energy from waste sector be a solution provider of some of these things. So we’re working with again DESNZ on the ETS. And how that, how we can, how that system would work. We’re working you know, internally and with others on now the carbon removals because that would be a saleable product for us. On the principle of everything to sell something, it needs to be ratified and, and verified. And it needs to be a sustainable product because there’s a lot of greenwashing out there that doesn’t work and doesn’t help. And I’m not a greenwasher, I’m an engineer that wants, I want to create solid solutions for the future. And I believe in this. So if we’re working on all these independently, then we say it right, so how do they all come together to become the commercialised solution? Yes. The bits that that we then need to be working with government on, are those policies, but they don’t know what these policies are because they’ve never written them before either. So this is how we’re trying to help that thinking. And it is a massive think tank to get there. And in the process of getting there, if we’re paralleling up the, let’s call it the government support system, which is the infrastructure is being built or will be built on the east and west clusters and hopefully maybe in Scotland and north, but ideally down the south as well, you know, these clusters will be set. So that means that will pipelines that we can connect to and that there will be sequestration systems in the North Sea, Irish Sea where we can store this CO2 forever. I’ve got to believe that other things will happen. Can’t change everything. But what we can say is, if those are happening, we need to be ready, fit for purpose of all these other juggling balls, spinning plates, all nicely aligned and worked with the government. And another area is for instance, the Environment Agency. So to build any of these plants, you need an environmental licence. And, for us to have a pilot plant and for us to test amines the point being is, is that this is not my secret. This is that this is something where enfinium wants to be working and sharing that knowledge with the Environment Agency to say how it does work so that they can learn from this process as well. Get Great Britain great. And we will become the carbon capture storage you know facility system for the world. Got to think big. Yeah.

David Linden [00:31:05] I like it. No look I mean I love the positivity a lot of people when it comes to uncertainty and which obviously there is lots of still in all these new technologies, whether it’s carbon capture in hydrogen or other markets, that but we also spend a lot of timethinking about, you can run away from it and hide, or you can kind of be an active part of it and help make it happen. So I do like your positivity around this, Mike, in terms of, dealing with it and moving things forward, but also being sensible obviously around investments and requiring that framework to be in place so that you can be, a leader in that market, but within the framework of what’s available to you as well.

Mike Maudsley [00:31:44] The thing about that really is combining the government, they’re working very hard and bringing, how you bring the ETS into the waste sector. And I’m saying, right guys, while we’re bringing it in, the commercialisation of this process is removal. So when you bring ETS in, bring carbon removals in at the same time this is what will help help businesses commercialise. And we don’t need government support then going forward. But if you don’t have the carbon removals, we don’t have the we don’t have a way to commercialise.

David Linden [00:32:16] Yeah. No, no I understand that. Absolutely. Okay. Look, I mean, I think we, I’d like to finish off maybe in terms of just talking about the, you know, you started to talk about it there around your sort of vision in generally for energy from waste. I mean, and in the UK and carbon capture and the role of that. You’ve mentioned it, I think in, in part throughout the discussion we’ve just had. I mean, to me, it seems like essentially, you know, as you said, it’s the North Star. It’s the one thing the carbon capture the energy from waste should be doing. And you’d like to see all the different plants in the UK and globally, participate in that because you can maximise the value. From what’s available. Have I interpreted that correctly or what what’s your kind of vision for for energy from waste and carbon capture.

Mike Maudsley [00:33:10] Yeah, you’ve got it absolutely right. And if I start trying to summarise that, is that the energy from waste sector has more to offer. We’re doing a great job already. So the point the most critical point really is, is that we want to be a solution provider for the UK’s transition to net zero. We don’t want to be an obstruction because if we get forgotten about, we’re still emitting CO2. And that CO2 is not it’s not enfinium’s CO2, it’s the CO2 that comes from from the waste that we society create and industry create. So let’s be proactive. Let’s create the solution for that. If you recognise that that is what we are about, then, and we also recognise that we’re not out there to build more of these plants unnecessarily, that they reduce waste, recycle waste, repurpose waste is all at the front of this. Then recognising that even in the, you know, 2040s, there’s going to be about 70 million tons of non-recyclable waste still out there. So how best do we manage this UK Plc? Enfinium has got a solution with other energy from waste companies out there to do this, put carbon capture on these facilities, support that to happen. And it was the Oxford Institute that’s defined quite clearly that there will be about 8 million tonnes of carbon removals that can be created from this industry. And the Climate Change Committee have identified that we need about 60 million tons a year. So we’re not going to be, it’s not going to be the panacea answer. We’re not going to deliver everything, but we can start the process with our own non-recyclable waste. We can get going. We’re already an infrastructure out there. You know, we don’t have to build energy from waste plants, they’re there. If you can fit carbon capture, we should try to do so. We can be capturing that, capturing the CO2 and aiming for this 8 million tonnes of carbon removals and contributing to the UK’s target of 60 million. So it has to be done, and then you think, well, how do you do it without carbon, without carbon capture and EFW and, and it becomes extremely difficult. So let’s be part of that solution. Let’s be at the front foot of that solution and be a decarbonisation business, as I’ve said, be a decarbonisation business in the carbon removals business, not just this waste business that’s just got one role to play. We can do a lot more. And in that role that we play is wherever possible, we should use our energy effectively and efficiently. Effectively and efficiently means a portion of that needs to go to carbon capture. Yes, but there’s still two thirds of that that can go elsewhere. So encourage businesses around us, to build for instance, look for local heat networks. So let’s sell our heat out there so that when natural gas isn’t being used that they can use our heat. And we are talking to local companies in both Leeds and, and Birmingham, where we can distribute heat because the systems out there to do that and we will build new systems and also try to encourage, you know, well, good industrial, demands of electricity because we call it private wire. But private wire, if somebody puts their business at the side of us, you know, like a data centre,  that’s needs a lot of energy at the moment. And they’re trying to build datacentres very, very rapidly and fastly. We have a very good, combination as far as an energy from waste plant. We’re a bit like a small nuclear plant other than that we use in waste, but we’re fixed, we’re baseload, we can run, we’re running all the time. That’s how it is. A data centre needs energy all the time. We need that for AI and such like. So we can contribute to other businesses and almost sister partner up in these. And you never know, some of these businesses might want to say, well, let’s, let’s build a carbon capture with you guys because we like your energy. That’s what we want. We want your carbon removals as well. So trying to think, you know, advance what would 2035 look like. Well I have this great partner that’s taking some of our energy, that wants to support us in building carbon capture. This all part of a circular economy, bringing green jobs to the area, bringing technology jobs to the area. And, then the bit that I’ve not talked about, but it’s something that I have another vision on this is if we have a bit of energy left, we should we should have some electrolysers on our sites and electrolysers to create hydrogen. So when you create hydrogen, it will be green hydrogen, because we’re not emitting any CO2, because we’ve got the carbon capture. And that could go into all the articulated lorries that are bringing the waste in in the first place, and or even the trains that are taking the CO2 away. If we’ve got a CO2 on a train system. So it’s decarbonised transportation as well with a bit of our, electrolytic hydrogen. So let’s be a solution to as many things as we can with as much as we can. But, and we’re here for the long term, be here for the long term and be part of that community.

David Linden [00:38:24] Wow. Okay, so a real decarbonisation partner, essentially. For many things, because what you’re describing there is multiple ways that you can achieve decarbonisation, not just for yourself but others as well. Which requires others to want to be decarbonised, which I think they’re now being incentivised to do so. But, that’s a really benefit. And you mentioned local as well. And I think that’s a really important one. One the other reasons I asked you about where your plants are located is, is they’re not in central London and, you know, and supporting the communities there, you’re supporting it in different parts of the UK all around. And you can provide local decarbonisation benefits to, to different locations in the UK as well. Which is important. So fascinating. Okay. Thank you Mike. I really appreciate your time. That was a very I have to say, that was a very positive story to tell around decarbonisation. You know, a lot of times we get caught up in the difficulty, the complexity, and of course, it’s all there. And that’s part of the challenge and the opportunity. But I really appreciate you, sharing your thoughts on, you know, the role that energy from waste can play and that enfinium is playing at the moment. So I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Mike Maudsley [00:39:35] You welcome. And it is difficult. I might make it sound simple, but if you make it sound simple, you can work at these things. I lived in the Middle East for a long time. And if you see that the world’s tallest building built on sand. And when you when you’re up there at the the Burj Khalifa looking down at every other building thinking phenomenal. This is phenomenal. And why did they build it? Well they built it because they could. And if you build the world’s tallest building, that is at least three times higher than any other skyscraper, we can do a lot here. We can put CO2 pipelines. That’s not that big a problem. We’ve already got the pipelines to sequestration, because fact we’ve been bringing, you know, natural gas into it’s almost the inverse of natural gas going in to the UK economy is CO2 going out. So I really do believe in, in that we have engineering solutions for everything here. You’ve just got to think a bit harder time to some of them. And then obviously it’s the commercialisation which is key. Nothing easy at all. But I wake up every morning thinking I can do it. My glass is 7/8 full, so come to Ferrybridge and you’ll see the vision in reality, and then you’ll see it grow as well.

David Linden [00:40:51] I look forward to it. And I wish you the best of luck also in the process with DESNZ well. And I’m hopefully looking forward to a nice positive outcome from that as well Mike. So much appreciate it. All right.

Mike Maudsley [00:41:02] All right. Thank you, David.

David Linden [00:41:04] Thanks everyone as well. And thanks everyone else for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. Please make sure you subscribe, give us a good rating. And share with your friends, talk to you next time. Thank you.

 

 

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