Power station used 2 million tonnes of coal to fuel its burners last year

A POWER station in Co Clare last year used approximately two million tonnes of coal to power its coal burners last year.

The annual environmental report drawn up by operator ESB, and submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), confirms Moneypoint station emitted over 3.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2010.

This was, however, lower than the permitted 3.7m tonnes permitted under the EU emissions trading scheme, which is a cap and trade scheme, where participating facilities are given a fixed allocation each year.

The report shows that the station emitted 6,583 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 4,375 tonnes of nitrogen oxide in 2010.

Moneypoint is the country’s largest power generating station, producing 915MW of energy.

The ESB has completed a €368 million retrofit project aimed at lowering emissions from the plant.

The report discloses the station had three EPA audits in 2010 and three non-compliances resulted from these with a further non-conformance resulting due to emissions exceedances to water.

The three non-compliances includes a failure to control dust emissions within the site boundary; excessive black smoke emissions during start-ups and exceedance to water.

The report states, however, there were no incidents of significant environmental impact on site in 2010.

However, the report discloses there were 15 complaints relating to dust emissions last year.

The station’s location, on the Shannon estuary, encompasses areas of significant environmental importance. With environmental monitoring stations laced at external locations, the report notes: “These demonstrate that the operation of Moneypoint does not have a significant impact on the environment.”

ESB Moneypoint produced 199,380 tonnes of waste in 2010 of which 82 tonnes were classified as hazardous.

The report states that outside of the bulk solids generated through combustion and emissions abatement, the station achieved a 90% recycling rate on the non-hazardous waste generated for 2010.

The report states: “This was a major achievement and represented a significant improvement on previous years.”