From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
It’s behind the usual paywall, but EDP are reporting that Melton Renewable Energy’s five biomass power plants may shut next year when their ROC subsidies run out, unless the Government coughs up more money:
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/25940797.power-plants-eye-thetford-risk-closure-2027/?ref=cprfa
Eye and Thetford both burn chicken litter. Westfield in Fife also burns chicken litter, while Ely burns straw, while Glanford burns meat and bone meal.
Fife Today also report on the Westfield story:
Jobs at a biomass centre in Fife could be on the line unless the company’s owners can find new financial support.
Melton Renewable Energy operates five biomass power stations across the UK including its site at Westfield, Cardenden – but they could all close when the Government’s Renewables Obligation (RO) ends in March 2027.
The company aid that unless it can secure some transitional support after that expiry date, it will begin a three-month consultation leading to the closure of all sites and the loss of 200 jobs with 25 of them at the Fife plant.
Westfield, which is based on the site of one of the UK’s largest open cast coal mines, safely processes around 90% of all poultry litter in Scotland, preventing it from being spread to land and helping the poultry sector keep down its cost of production.
What has humanity been doing with all of that chicken litter since we started having boiled eggs?
According to Grok:
- Poultry litter is nutrient-rich (high in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) and is widely used as an organic fertilizer on cropland, pastures, hay fields, or gardens. Farmers or contractors remove (“clean out”) the litter from houses and spread it on fields according to nutrient management plans or soil tests to match crop needs and prevent over-application (especially phosphorus buildup).
- It improves soil health by adding organic matter.
Melton made £80 million from ROC subsidies, in addition to another £12 million from Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin and top ups from OGFEM from ROC recycling.
Total turnover was £169 million, so more than half of revenue comes from subsidies.
Little wonder they don’t want to give them up!
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09194088/filing-history
Ten years ago on a visit to one of the first biogas units the manager admitted that without the subsidy it would not be economically viable.
Dried poultry manure however keeps it’s nutrients, is easier to store and can be spread when it is agronomically correct.
The only problem is the cost of drying and sterilising which is where partial digestion for methane production could produce the energy required to dry and sterilise it.
They shouldn’t be burning that shit.
With no subsidy, can’t the litter be cheaply composted an be cheap enuf to distribute as “organic” fertilizer?
You know, think space travel and that movie “The Martian”.
Gums ponders…
But doesn’t this just translate into theft which is aided and abetted by massive incompetence on the part of government, regardless of which crowd of total idiots are in office . . . at our expense?!!
Whoever owns Melton Renewable Energy, with turnover of £168 million, of which £93 million comes from taxpayers/customers, these bloody people are turning them selves into multi-millionaires with OUR MONEY!!
It beggars bloody belief!!
There has to come a time where politicians can be put behind bars for this type of – there’s no other way to describe it – THEFT!!
I should have said . . . AUTHORISED THEFT!!
Yes. There are a lot of chicken producers in north Georgia (US). Local farmers spread the litter on their fields. You do NOT want to be downwind of those fields when they do!
Aren’t all these heavily subsidised proto failures – failing when the subsidies dry up – just another glimpse of the obvious? Adam Smith clearly wasted his time.
I think the situation this government has landed itself in, prioritising policies in a most disjointed fashion was summed up by one Ian Gillan: “Can we have everything louder than everything else“?
It’s growth, it’s the cost of living, it’s the cost of energy, it’s net zero, it’s [non existent] defence, billions being thrown around in every direction on a myriad of causes. None of them thought through.
The Curse of Kier
Everything Starmer does turns to **** It seems it also rubs off onto others…
It’s all kicking off in Port Louis as Mauritius’s Deputy Prime Minister has announced he is intending to resign. Paul Berenger said: “My decision is made, but when I implement it, and if I do, I will communicate the details.” – A full-blown political crisis is kicking off in Mauritius, thanks to Keir Starmer…
Guido Fawkes
The surrender deal was all about balancing Mauritius’ books… and keeping China sweet.
Well chickensh|t is chickensh|t and always has been.
If they were never making enough money to sustain their operations they should be shut. And if steal tax dollars was the only way they stayed in “business” they have to be prosecuted and all that money taken back.
Recently bought a box of chicken pellets manure for the garden. I don’t like the taste though.
Recently bought a box of chicken pellets manure for the garden. I don’t like the taste though.
I’m tempted to ask why you thought chicken pellets manure might have tasted nice?
I thought the comment was humorous. But you new that!!
your dog would ..and then need the VET fast!
but burning easily the best soil improver that farmers will take for free or PAY to access from the chook sheds . no removal costs to chook setups.. to burn. is criminally insane . especially as they then buy expensive synthetic byproducts at huge costs per ton instead
Well, that’s always the idea, isn’t it…
Tastes like chicken
So, you do eat crap?
No, I read it.
“Tastes like chicken”
Printed media, apparently….
“The sky is falling!”
Chicken
LittleLitter Subsidy Farmer.That is all.
They should just do waste to energy plants. Rather than burning things like food and fertilizer, which is idiotic.
Then coal and gas for the majority, and ditch the intermittent crap (no pun intended).
One man’s waste is a tree ent’s food and fertilizer?
There was one plant in the U.S. called FibroMinn (in Minnesota, in case you couldn’t guess), that burned chicken litter. It was subsidized by a state requirement that required the local utility to buy the output of the plant, even though it became costly when compared to other renewables. So the utility eventually was allowed to buy it. They shut it down, saving customers $$.
Story Tip:
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/03/17/exclusive-half-a-million-balsa-trees-illegally-logged-in-amazon-rainforest-every-year-to-feed-global-wind-turbine-demand/
This also explains the lobbyists attacking US poultry imports. All the world is a market share war game.
Dumb cluck voters
Cry me a river if you build your business around Gummint promises in democracies-
Australian EV conversion firm collapses, Ford blamed
and be doubly careful you don’t lose your head in tyrannous kleptocracies
The article makes no mention of the size of these power plants. My guess is they are very small and insignificant parts of the overall generating capacity.
In the US biomass plants have proven to be small and of marginal value. The Shasta wood fired power plant in Redding, California, for example, has a nameplate capacity of merely 55 MW, but it takes over 400,000 tons per year of wood waste to feed the beast. The facility might have made some sense 50 years ago when Northern California still had a thriving timber industry, but the industry has been decimated by zealous environmental laws and lawfare. The most limiting factor in its operation today is the waste wood buyer, who has to reach out well beyond 100 miles radius of the plant to obtain any wood-like substance that will burn — peach pits, pistachio shells, urban wood, olive grooves, etc.
Operating air pollution controls is a challenge, because these depend on consistent feed stock to maintain stable operating conditions. With such a wide range of feed stocks with different BTU content and moisture levels, fuel blending annd equalization stymie efforts to keep burners on an even keel.
Key operational, large-scale poultry litter plants in the UK include the Thetford plant in Norfolk (approx. 38.5 MW – 44.2 MW capacity) and the Eye plant in Suffolk (approx. 12.7 MW capacity).