Permission granted for Syntech Biofuel’s £50 million plant in Hoo

Finn Macdiarmid reports.

Transcript

00:00When you're trying to make a sustainable alternative fuel to diesel, there's plenty of steps – filtering,

00:05washing, drying – and to help with the process, Medway Council have given the go-ahead for

00:09a new £50 million expansion of a biofuel plant in the Hoo Peninsula.

00:14It will add to the existing sites that turn waste cooking oil into a lower carbon alternative

00:18to diesel.

00:20The expansion also aims to help build the Lower Thames Crossing, with the biofuel being

00:24used for construction vehicles on the site.

00:27Our evolution has evolved as the Lower Thames Crossing has received its permissions, as

00:34the Government has moved forward with infrastructure projects to help promote growth, and there's

00:40no better example of a local project to us, stimulating that need and growth to a local

00:47area.

00:48The LTC Lower Thames Crossing will be the greenest road ever built, and we like to sit as part

00:57of the transition fuels and the matrix of fossil-free fuels that they'll use on that site over

01:03the coming nine years.

01:04Now, here at the site, they create a truly ridiculous amount of biofuel, and in fact, this tanker

01:10behind me contains a million litres of the substance.

01:13But many of you out there might be wondering, what is biofuel, where does it go, and how is

01:17it made?

01:18So liquid gold is our biofuel, our Syntec ASB.

01:22It is made from used cooking oil that we react with a catalyst to form our biofuel and our

01:28byproduct that is glycerol.

01:29Per legislations, similar to EN 590 diesel, it has to meet a British standard.

01:37We have the same here, which is the BS of EN 14214 standard.

01:41Yeah, so we do a range of quality control testing on both our feedstock and our biofuel that

01:46include lab tests against the BS EN 14214 standard and operational monitoring for the operatives

01:52outside.

01:53Syntec produces the most biofuel in the UK for the transport and logistics sectors, and the

01:58expansion, which was secured by Nexus Planning, is also said to create 200 jobs.

02:03The planning company added they worked closely with Syntec Biofuel, Medway Council and the

02:07wider technical team to ensure the scheme delivers environmental, economic and operational benefits

02:13in line with local policy and the national planning policy framework.

02:17The plant produces around a million litres of biofuel every month, but because of the

02:21new facility, this is predicted to double by next year, coinciding with when the Lower

02:25Thames Crossing is set to start construction.

02:28Finn McDermid for KMTV, in Who.