Why are plans for a hydrogen plant in Speyside so controversial?
Campaigners are gearing up for a public hearing on controversial plans to build a hydrogen plant in Speyside, which have prompted hundreds of objections.
Moray Council planners have recommended that councillors approve the proposed facility near Marypark, at Wednesday’s meeting of the Planning and Regulatory Services Committee.
A site visit was scheduled for Thursday, October 2, ahead of the hearing.
The proposed facility would operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week, drawing up to 500,000 litres of water from boreholes per day and producing up to 35 lorry-loads of hydrogen.
In total, Moray Council received 381 objections to the project, and only eight comments in support.
Among the issues raised by campaigners were concerns about potential impacts on the flow of the River Spey, harm to the natural environment and doubts over the current demand for hydrogen.
At the public meeting on Wednesday, applicant Storegga will speak for a maximum of 15 minutes to lay out the project and tackle the listed objections.
Then, members of the committee will put questions to the applicant, before a number of interested parties will state their objections.
Finally, both sides of the debate will spend up to five minutes summing up, before a final statement by a planning official.
At that point, the committee will agree or vote on a final verdict.
We have read through meeting and planning reports, and spoke to campaigners, to sum up both sides of the debate ahead of the public hearing.
‘Negligible difference in water levels’
The meeting report suggested that the Marypark plan would have very little impact on the flow of the River Spey.
Planners suggested that the measure would only reduce the flow by the “negligible amount” of, at most, 0.04 per cent.
SEPA had not objected to the application, officials added, with the agency concluding that “the proposal is unlikely to represent a breach of environmental standards”.
“The negligible difference in water levels is not considered to result in adverse impacts on public and private water supplies, ecology, fisheries and recreational uses in the River Spey,” the report added.
“It is noted NatureScot and Scottish Water have raised no objections to this application either.”
However Jim Mackie, from Garmouth, argued that the hydrogen plant could significantly reduce the water levels and have a knock-on effect on the entire Spey.
Mr Mackie is the author of a petition seeking a moratorium on freshwater hydrogen production from the Scottish Government.
He believes that any hydrogen production should instead use seawater.
The campaigner claimed that between 20,000 and 50,000 tonnes of stones, sand and gravel are washed down the Spey each year but low water flow prevents this from being washed out to sea.
As a result, the material becomes stuck at sections of the river like Garmouth and Spey Bay, increasing the height of the river floor and making flooding far worse.
If this problem worsens, he argued, it would also affect salmon and trout and their food sources, potentially jeopardising Moray’s angling tourism.
He also argued that borehole abstraction depletes reserves of groundwater, normally replenished by rainwater, for miles around.
Due to climate change and a drop in total rainfall, he argued, further abstraction in the area is unsustainable.
Claims of 40 days without abstraction
In the meeting report, planners also claimed that the impact of low flow would be mitigated by the plant’s ability to store a significant cache of water.
While the plant may abstract up to 500,000 litres of water per day, the report said, it could only use 370,000 litres of water in hydrogen production.
All excess would be stored in reserve for periods of low river flow, it added.
In total, the documents said, the facility would be able to store 1.5 million litres of water and produce hydrogen for around 40 days without drawing water from boreholes.
Mr Mackie denied the claim that the hydrogen plant could operate for around 40 days with no abstraction, arguing that this relied on “every bit” of rain falling on the four hectare site being collected.
He argued that the facility would need around ten times the amount of storage to meet the 40-day claim.
“But, at the end of the day, it still doesn't matter what water level the river's at because any abstraction is going to decrease the volume of water in the river,” he added.
“Whether they take 10,000 litres today or 500 litres tomorrow, over a whole year it's still going to have a major impact on the groundwater levels in the whole of the Spey Valley.”
“The last six or seven months, the river has been so low that there's never been a period when they're going to be able to abstract water to fill up any storage facilities they've got.”
‘Will not have any significant impacts on the environment’
The planned hydrogen plant sits within a Special Landscape Area, the River Spey Special Area of Conservation and beside a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
In the meeting report, Moray Council planners argued that the development "will not have any significant impacts on the environment”, though the plans would still have to pass a specific habitat survey before construction could begin.
However, one anonymous campaigner said he believed the project could damage wildlife, including species like otter, Atlantic salmon, freshwater pearl mussels and sea lamprey.
“The applicant acknowledges the development is likely to adversely affect these sensitive and important habitats and wildlife species but believes they can mitigate the harms,” he added.
“Mitigation does not guarantee that these species will not be harmed.”
The Spey Fisheries Board was also among the objectors to the hydrogen plant plan, arguing that the river was already “heavily abstracted” with low flows and rising temperatures negatively affecting salmon and trout.
‘No evidence of demand’
The documents also confirm that the site had been selected due to its close proximity to a wide range of distilleries, who may use the hydrogen, and a suitable substation at Glenfarclas.
In the meeting report, potential future links to the whisky industry are listed as one of the biggest reasons for locating the hydrogen plant in Marypark.
Planners said the project would serve as a way for distillers to reduce their carbon emissions, with “17 bodies, covering 40 entities and distilleries” having signed a Memorandum of Understanding about using hydrogen from the facility.
However, among the objectors to the project was Callum Fraser, distillery manager for the Glenfarclas, who previously told The Northern Scot he believed the planned plant was “absolutely crazy”.
And one campaigner argued that the community has seen “no evidence of demand”, describing the Memorandum document as “almost meaningless, as there's no contract involved”.
He added that the lack of clear support “questions the viability and necessity of the proposed hydrogen plant”.
Mr Mackie also argued that claims made about the future hydrogen industry were “pie in the sky”, given the current lack of an effective distribution system.