Investing in future on Tees
Feb 19 2008 by Karen McLauchlan, Evening Gazette
MAJOR investment has already arrived in - or is planned for - the Tees Valley with a range of green industrial schemes.
These include:
More than £30m being spent on a major green power-from-waste project on Teesside. Sludge remaining after sewage treatment is to be converted into green energy to power Northumbrian Water’s biggest works at Bran Sands.
Teesside is home to the UK’s biggest biofuels plant – Biofuels Corporation’s £45m facility at Seal Sands. The company hopes to expand production from 250,000 tonnes a year to 600,000.
Middlesbrough is home to biodiesel firm D1 Oils. Last year the company sealed an £80m joint venture with BP to plant a new generation of bio-crops.
SembCorp Utilities has invested £60m in Wilton 10, the first totally wood burning biomass power station in the UK. It is also investing £36m in a project to enhance its supply of utilities at the Wilton International site.
Work is underway by local firm Ensus on a £250m bioethanol plant at Wilton.
Tees Valley Biofuels has planning permission for a £47m oilseed rape processing plant on leased land at Vopak’s bulk liquid storage terminal at Seal Sands.
The Centre for Process Innovation, (CPI) based at Wilton, has designed a ground-breaking environmentally-friendly fuel cell to power the lighthouse at South Gare.
CPI has also opened the £12m National Industrial Biotechnology Facility at Wilton, which will transform the way vital chemicals used to make millions of everyday products are manufactured.
Tests are under way off Redcar to pave the way for a controversial offshore wind farm. EDF Energy is carrying out site investigation tests and surveys on the seabed in the vicinity of the proposed Teesside Offshore Wind Farm site.
Middlesbrough-based Helius Energy plans to develop three £100m biomass plants in the UK - on Teesside, near Grimsby and on the North-west coast.
American energy company Losonoco has plans to develop a new £60m bioethanol plant at Billingham which would create 80 jobs.
