A new trash-burning power plant is due to open this month on the Isle of Wight, a small island off England’s south coast.

The power plant will operate using ‘gasification’ technology, the first of its kind in the UK. As an alternative to mass incineration where the rubbish is simply burned, the household waste is heated through a two-stage thermal process. This turns any carbon-based trash, such as paper, plastics and food waste, into a synthetic gas. The syngas is then used to create steam, which in turn drives the power station turbines. The small plant will deliver 2.3MW of electricity, enough to provide power to 2000 homes.

It’s a technique that has been successfully trialled in Norway and Germany for almost ten years, but it has not been widely exported as yet. The Isle of Wight experiment will be a useful pilot for potential scaling up around the UK. The plant has been built, at a cost of £8 million, on the site of an existing power station at Forest Park, and it will be something of a showcase. As part of the government’s New Technology Demonstrator Programme (pdf), the power station will include a visitor centre, as visitors from borough councils all over the country are expected to be paying close attention. Gasification is not renewable energy - 60,000 tonnes of waste will be fed into the station each year, half of which can be turned into fuel. However, this will significantly lower the island’s dependency on landfill, and as a replacement to coal-burning power stations, generating electricity from household waste is a big step forward. Gasification also has several advantages over more common power generating through incineration. Emissions are lower and cleaner than incineration, as particulates and hydrocarbons can be ‘scrubbed’ from the gas. As the plants are smaller and modular, they can be installed locally and be scaled up or down to meet the needs of a community, unlike industrial scale incinerators. Keeping them local means that trash travels less far and is dealt with quickly, and on the other side, there is less wastage in delivering the power over shorter distances. It’s not all good. It only runs on carbon-based trash, much of which could be composted or recycled, so some environmental campaigners see gasification as a distraction from recycling programmes. For more on this, see the Friends of the Earth’s briefing (pdf). Nevertheless, in an age where the temptation to turn back to coal is very strong, and where nuclear lobbies are winning out in the face of higher oil prices, gasification may well have its place in the arsenal. We will watch this space. Incidentally, because of its size, the Isle of Wight has proved to be an interesting testing site for sustainable solutions, offering a kind of microcosm of English life. Through initiatives such as the Forest Hill plant, the Isle of Wight has one of the lowest carbon footprints of any area in Britain, and it aims to become a centre of excellence for renewable energy. For more on the Island’s ambitious plans, see their Eco Island community plan.