The Coalition government's draft action plan for anaerobic digestion, which aims to address the barriers preventing the technology from being utilised, is set to be published next week.
The plan has been developed by Defra and the Department for Energy and Climate Change, in association with industry, trade associations, and other government delivery bodies.
Last week (November 18), in response to a parliamentary written question, energy minister Charles Hendry said the plan would be published "shortly" and would set out steps to help increase deployment of the technology in England. He said it would act as the "starting point for close collaboration between Government, industry and other interested parties."
And, speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday (November 23), a Defra spokesman said the plan would be published next week.
The department explained: "The plan will set out actions to address the key barriers identified by stakeholders at the AD Round Table. The key barriers include things like access to finance, planning obstacles, security of feedstock supplies, skills for construction and maintenance of AD plants."
The government first suggested in October that addressing the financial barriers to developing anaerobic digestion in the UK would be the key aim of any new AD action plan.
And, Roundtable AD meetings, attended by waste and recycling minister, Lord Henley, were held in July to discuss increasing the amount on energy produced from waste via anaerobic digestion.
Defra and DECC are aiming to publish the finalised AD plan in April 2011.
AD has been high on the waste agenda for a number of years and the previous Labour government was committed to getting the technology off the ground. It developed a number of AD support plans whilst it was in power.
In the coalition agreement the government pledged to foster a "huge uptake" of the technology in the UK. However, subsequently, Lord Henley has commented that he does not support AD over other organic treatment techniques.
Article care of Lets Recycle.com