Please allow me the same opportunity as you provided Giles Frampton of Powerfuel to argue against his “Merits of the plan” letter.

After spending a total of 25 years in the Coal, Oil and Gas industries in research, production and fuel development, I can’t see any merits in it. I sincerely hope Planning turns it down.

Recently, I was asked by the Minister of Energy to submit a plan to tackle climate change.

I’ll summarise it. In sufficient numbers, solar panel arrays could be installed on houses for a capital outlay of less than £4,000 each. If 1,000,000 installations were ordered, I’m sure the cost of each installation would fall to £3,000. On average, a 4 kW installation generates approximately 3,000 kWh of electricity per annum. Solar panels have a life expectancy of 25 years and require hardly any maintenance.

The cost per Kwh over the life of the investment therefore would be less than 5 pence per kWh! Our government could be obtaining it for that price by investing cash now at near zero interest rates in the project.

Apart from the associated huge reduction in CO2 emissions, every £3 billion invested would create 30,000 jobs and provide a huge boost to the economy.

The biggest problem concerning renewable energy is how to store it. This is already being solved by turning surpluses of truly renewable energy into Hydrogen by water hydrolysis. This can be liquefied and stored to meet both gas and electricity demand at night or when the wind is calm by feeding it into the gas supply network or converting it back into electricity once more by means of gas turbines.

Hydrogen can be used to dilute natural gas, a major source of carbon emissions. Eventually, 50/50 mixes and even 100% Hydrogen gas may become the norm in our gas distribution system.

It can be burned in existing gas-fired domestic boilers to exhaust as just steam. Giles Frampton’s “Energy Recovery Facility” will never compete with the cost of either solar or wind energy and government investment should be focussed on projects that are financially sound.

It could prove to be a ‘White Elephant’ and a potential source of chronic illness demanding its continued existence in the face of much better alternatives because it would be a 25 year commitment.

Far better environmental alternatives are available.

In the first two decades after its release, methane is quoted as being 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide (in raising global temperatures). It is generated in our landfill sites. This can also be turned into Hydrogen.

The residue like that from my own compost heap can safely be returned to nature stabilising eventually as coal! Surely we don’t need to be shipping thousands of tonnes of rubbish from one place to another!

Burning wood (Biomass) as a fuel is another Council plan; an equally absurd proposition.

Make furniture with it instead!

MIKE JOSLIN

Dorchester