Hebrides  News                                                                                                                      info@hebrides.biz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Computers

 

Repairs  

Sales

 Service

 

Desktops & Laptops

Phones

Cameras

ipods

 

 

 

 

 

 

Consoles

& Games

 

01851

 

700178

 

17 Bayhead St

Stornoway, Lewis

 

 

Salmon power plans for energy plant                     23/12/09

 

 

Green energy could soon be produced from salmon in the Western Isles.  

 

Talks are taking place over manufacturing green energy from farmed fish on Lewis.

 

The unique opportunity to use the by-products of a new fish factory has arisen with Lighthouse Caledonia intending to build a £5 million plan at Arnish, south of Stornoway.

 

Scotland's largest independent salmon farming company plans to process 15,000 tonnes of fish annually at the state-of-the-art facility. Up to 100 jobs would be created when the the factory is fully operational.

 

Previously, raw waste products from the company’s now empty former processing factory was stored in a tank ship MV Hordafor II berthed in Stornoway harbour and shipped to Norway every few weeks for reprocessing into feed supplements for the Danish pig farmers.

 

Now Lighthouse bosses are in discussions on a proposal from Western Isles Council to divert offcuts left over from filleting and processing salmon to the local authority’s organic recycling pant at the nearby Creed Enterprise Park.

 

The base, some three miles to the south of Stornoway, is where the council has developed an innovative system to turn waste into bio-gas, electricity and hydrogen.

 

The organic salmon waste would be decomposed in a giant digester to produce methane.

 

In turn, this would help powers a gas engine to create electricity. Some of this electricity could be fed into the local grid or used on an eco-industrial park on-site. The rest of the energy would be used to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen.

 

The Hebrides have the edge on this technology particularly as fossil fuels are never used to make Hebridean hydrogen thus boosting its green credentials.

 

After the energy is extracted the dried salmon waste could be converted into fertiliser and compost for gardens and landscaping.  

 

OddGeir Oddsen, Managing Director of Lighthouse Caledonia, confirmed: "We have spoken to the council about its waste processing plant.

 

“If at some point in the future it can deal with industrial waste from our processing facility, we will happily discuss the possibility of directing waste there."

 

Angus Campbell, leader of Western Isles Council said: “This would benefit the company in terms of disposal costs.

 

“It would also help the (waste conversion) process offering a supply of natural input for the digester to make more it efficient and also provide a better dry product.”

 

He said the residue left after electricity and hydrogen was created would not be discarded but turned into industrial fertiliser and compost to be used across the Western Isles in coastal and landscaping schemes.