A brand new daybreak for the house of UK’s oldest oil refinery? | EUROtoday

The historical past of Grangemouth has been constructed on fossil fuels – however now its future will depend on its reinvention as Scotland’s inexperienced vitality industrial hub.

The website, on the south financial institution of the Firth of Forth, is residence to the UK’s oldest oil refinery, which dates again to 1924.

It is being closed down by proprietor Petroineos, with the lack of 400 of the two,000 jobs that are based mostly on the sprawling industrial advanced.

The Scottish and UK governments have funded a report – generally known as Project Willow – into the choices for the location, which is predicted to be revealed within the coming days.

It is prone to say that Grangemouth should change to inexperienced vitality to fulfill its huge want for energy, after which use that to provide new sustainable merchandise.

The website already has many built-in advantages.

The location could not be higher. It sits on a sheltered port which already receives weekly shipments of shale fuel from the US.

Since output from the North Sea peaked in 1999, the availability of native fuel has fallen dramatically and the substitute shale fuel started arriving from Pennsylvania in 2016.

Grangemouth can also be central and extremely properly linked, with electrical energy pylons fanning out in all instructions and underground pipelines linking it to the north east of Scotland and northern England.

Some of these oil and fuel pipelines are under-used and could possibly be repurposed to hold greener fuels like hydrogen or exhaust gases for disposal.

One simply transition campaigner – who desires to make sure folks and communities are handled pretty through the change away from fossil fuels – informed me that when you have been on the lookout for the best place to arrange these new inexperienced industries, you’ll select Grangemouth.

With the refinery closing, the principle business on the plant is now the manufacturing of chemical compounds like ethylene, polyethylene and polypropylene, that are elements within the manufacture of plastics.

These are then used for an entire vary of purposes, from making PPE to cabling, constructing supplies and dyes.

But that is extremely energy-intensive, making Grangemouth essentially the most polluting website in Scotland.

The cluster of enterprise there have been chargeable for 7.2% of Scotland’s emissions in 2022, based on the Just Transition Commission.

Prioritising a carbon seize and storage scheme – known as the Acorn Project – is seen as a significant step in lowering Grangemouth’s carbon footprint.

It would catch planet-warming gases earlier than they enter the environment, pipe them underground to St Fergus in Aberdeenshire and retailer them in depleted oil and fuel wells beneath the North Sea.

But the venture missed out on the primary spherical of UK authorities assist and campaigners need a clear sign that it will likely be given full backing by ministers.

One factor that’s positively going to be created at Grangemouth is a brand new import terminal to switch the closing refinery.

That would imply the procession of tankers which ship aviation gas to Edinburgh Airport may be maintained.

In the longer-term, a facility creating sustainable aviation gas may use among the abilities of the present workforce.

It is on the political agenda.

Since January, the UK authorities has mandated that 2% of UK jet gas has to come back from renewable sources – which suggests options to fossil fuels. This will enhance to 10% by the tip of the last decade.

But there’s been no dedication that Grangemouth would be the supply of a few of that gas.

The different potential choices embrace a “biorefinery” which may use waste whisky and meals in chemical manufacturing processes to scale back reliance on fossil fuels.

Advanced recycling strategies is also developed which might produce prime quality plastics in a position for use in meals packaging and well being care.

That would contain a course of known as “cracking” which breaks down the merchandise into smaller molecules.

It’s a method which is already carried out on fossil-fuel based mostly chemical compounds on the Ineos website.

Hydrogen can even play an more and more vital function in our financial system over the approaching a long time as a clear vitality, significantly in heavy transport and business.

Scotland’s abundance of wind means producing inexperienced hydrogen from electrical energy has enormous potential.

Some hydrogen is already made at Grangemouth, and plans have beforehand been introduced to considerably enhance manufacturing by 2030.

That hydrogen would then be used to displace fuel to generate excessive temperatures in industrial processes.

Grangemouth, nonetheless, doesn’t presently have the correct situations to retailer hydrogen in vital portions.

Large underground salt caverns are very best – however the nearest potential websites are in East Yorkshire and Cheshire.

So both costly storage items must be constructed above floor close to Grangemouth, or the hydrogen must be piped tons of of miles.

The Project Willow report, when it is launched, is predicted to place figures to a few of these propositions.

It will cowl the doubtless prices, the potential jobs and the worth to the Scottish and UK economies.

That is not going to be the tip of the matter; the truth is, it is barely the start.

Attracting the private and non-private funding might be far tougher than outlining the choices.

But speaking about it early – and in a co-ordinated means – will certainly maximise the possibilities of securing a long-term future for a website so intrinsically linked with fossil fuels.