Malta will have to export 15 containers of hazardous waste every week when the power station extension at Delimara becomes operational, according to an environmental assessment of the planned development.
The voluminous report, more than 300 pages long apart from appendices, was compiled by AIS Environmental Ltd and uploaded on the Malta Environment and Planning Authority's website for consultation.
The report gives the new power plant, for which Enemalta has already signed a contract with Danish company BWSC, a clean bill of health in various aspects but raises some questions over the significant amount of waste it will generate.
The plant, which will operate on heavy fuel oil, will be producing 30 tonnes of hazardous solid waste every day that has to be exported under very strict conditions because Malta has no facility to dispose of it.
The report says that "failure to export in a timely fashion the solid wastes generated could cause a disruption to the provision of electricity supply".
The waste is a by-product of the gas purification systems to be installed at the plant, required to satisfy EU clean air legislation.
"Not installing the DeSox units (air purification units) is not a viable option as the absence of these will result in many tonnes of pollutants being emitted in the air," the report says.
Waste will be held in an ash silo with a three-day storage capacity before being transferred to specialised 20-foot containers for export.
The site at Delimara, known as Area 17, within the present power station complex, could store 80 containers at any one time, which equates to about two months of storage capacity. The report says the containers would have to be exported at a rate of 15 per week to make the operation efficient.
Cross-boundary transport of hazardous waste is governed by the Basle Convention and Malta would have to ensure the treatment facility receiving the power station's waste was up to standard and situated in an EU member state.
The experts drawing up the report concluded that the daily generation of hazardous waste with no possibility for treatment in Malta and in the "absence of firm arrangements for its export, does present potential major and significant environmental impacts should the hazardous waste materials be stockpiled".
The report says the operator has not yet entered into agreements over the export of the waste because the planning permits for the plant still have to be processed.
The amount of waste generated is directly linked to the technology used in the new plant.
The experts said running the plant on diesel would produce much less waste, putting less strain on the operator to ensure weekly exports of the hazardous material.
The chosen technology has the potential of being run on diesel, which, however, is costlier than fuel oil.
Natural gas would produce much less hazardous waste but the plant cannot operate on this fuel unless it is converted at an additional expense, quantified by the Infrastructure Ministry as being €27 million.