A useless 'debate' on Delimara

The debate on the Delimara power station extension is rapidly sliding into a slanging match, with the only result being the scoring of political points.

There is, of course, a place for arguments about the correctness or otherwise of the tendering procedures but, in the end, these will almost certainly lead to a blind alley.

The investigative and coercive powers of the Auditor General's office are too weak; the Public Accounts Committee is finally subject to a vote in the House. So unless the police are persuaded that there is scope for investigation, the present "debate" will produce no useful result. Worse than that, as Michael Falzon has been pointing out, the real technical and environmental problems that exist will get no airing.

From the purely technical point of view, the set of 8 x 18MW piston engines plus one 10MW steam turbine are probably a better fit to our grid than one large combined cycle "gas" turbine (CCGT). This would certainly be the case if our grid has to accommodate significant amounts of wind energy. On the other side, the engines have high maintenance costs, probably increased through use of heavy fuel oil (HFO) as a fuel, and require an expensive conversion to be able to use natural gas as fuel, if and when we eventually have a supply.

It is a fact that both engines and CCGT can use gasoil (=diesel) as fuel but only the engines can use HFO and the CCGT would have no natural gas supply. So the choice of fuel for the chosen solution is gasoil or HFO and Enemalta has chosen HFO on grounds that it provides the cheaper option even when the large cost and difficult logistics of removing SO2, NOx and dust from the exhaust gases are considered.

The choice of HFO as a fuel poses clear problems. Starting from "the end of pipe": the exportation costs are uncertain; export also carries the unsavoury prospect of a Third World repository having to cope with a mass of 30 tonnes a day of the stuff. Locally, that requires significant storage space and a smoothly-functioning transport system for export direct from Delimara, avoiding local road carriage.

At the core lies another uncomfortable fact: the combined SO2-NOx-dust removal set-up is a novel combination, even if the separate components are now mature technology. The manner in which Enemalta has dealt with the far smaller problem of fly ash - simply switching off the precipitators when the contractor taking the ash was found to be lacking a permit - does not inspire much confidence, still less does the appalling charade put up by Enemalta, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and ministers over the "black dust" episode following the switch-off.

There is a further item that seems to have been forgotten. As HFO constitutes the heaviest fraction of crude oil, it has to be strongly heated before it can be fed to the engines. Yet, there is still a residual sludge, which cannot be burnt in the engines. The current proposal is to burn this in the future Delimara incinerator, supposedly intended to burn non-recyclable waste. This suggestion has the potential for an expensive disaster.

Use of gasoil as fuel for the engines has none of these problems. Even if NOx removal equipment has to be used, the end products would be overwhelmingly nitrogen and oxygen, with no solid waste, hence, no storage, no transport, no export, no third world repository. Now, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has said that there is nothing to prevent Enemalta from using gasoil so long as people are aware that that may lead to an increase in the cost of electricity, something his engineers should be able to work out.

The imminent parliamentary debate can be transformed from the expected slanging match into a public-spirited act if both sides of the House agree on a motion requiring Enemalta to use gasoil for the Delimara extension. How about it?