Tag: power

February 27th – A lot of the history of Brownhills, Walsall Wood and Aldridge is about what lies beneath. Coal, clay, industrial effluent and landfill have shaped particularly the borderlands between Walsall Wood and Aldridge. Where brick marls were abundant, soon voids in the ground where they had been extracted were too. Into these holes, we tipped refuse in huge quantities, as the remaining clay made a good seal against the contaminant waste.

In the early days, the landfill and waste disposal industry was unregulated, haphazard, and somewhat akin to the Wild West. Waste was put anywhere, and unmonitored. These days, it’s a tightly monitored industry that has to look after its dirty secrets. 

At the Vigo Utopia landfill site just off Coppice Lane, gas turbine engines run 24 hours a day, driving electricity generators from the gasses harvested from the decomposing rubbish. This produces significant amounts of power from 2 generator sets in converted shipping containers, employing gas that would once have been merely vented to the atmosphere. 

Nearby, a series of bunds and pools lined with thick rubber gather water and liquid pumped from deep within the mound. This poisonous soup is called ‘leechate’, and is allowed to settle out before being disposed of as hazardous effluent. Again, years ago, such concerns were not addressed and sites were allowed to pollute groundwater uncontrolled.

This is ugly, scarred landscape; but we are looking after it much better than we used to.

January 5th – In the New Year Quiz on my main blog this year, I asked about the bulkhead pipes visible sticking from the mounds of a couple of local landfill sites; the answer was that they were gas collection points, to feed a gas turbine that generated electricity from the otherwise wasted methane evolved when the buried refuse decomposes.

This plant – humming away continuously in the way only a gas turbine can – is just off Brickyard road in Aldridge and has been running for at least 3 years fuelled by as from the Vigo Utopia landfill, generating electricity which is fed back into the national grid.

Refuse operators will paint this as ‘green energy’ – it’s no such thing; it’s not renewable, is finite and is no cleaner than any other methane power plant. It is, however, making use of gas that formerly would have been wasted, so it’s a good thing.

There is a similar setup at Highfields South, not more than a mile away.

October 22nd – In the offices of Smarm, Smarm, Bignob and Braces, advertising agency for SSE Power:

‘Nigel, it’s a great advert for energy. But it’s lacking a certain gravitas. What it needs is a completely irrelevant, wistful, ennui-laden orang-utan, gazing meaningfully into the distance.’

‘I’ll get right onto it, Gideon’

As is the photoshopped buildings and van weren’t shitty enough. What would the librarian of the Unseen University make of it all?

‘Ook!’ probably.

Both spotted in Darlaston.

December 30th – I’d been going stir crazy, and the weather was more or less OK when I set out. I went round Chasewater, then up through Hednesford and up onto the Chase. Birches Valley was packed with people, dogs and bikers, despite the drizzle and wind, and so I doubled back up Penkridge Bank to Rifle Range Corner and on to Abrahams Valley for peace, quiet and a chance to do some badger watching in the dusk. Heading back on the A51, I surveyed the floodplains of the Trent. The wind blew me to Rugeley, and over to Breretonhill; but fought me all the way home to Brownhills. A great ride, but the weather was hell.

Hopefully, conditions will steadily improve now.

November 11th – Returning via a rather dark and cold Rugeley bypass, at least I had the wind behind me. I stopped at the Bridge in Rugeley and checked out the view before me. I love Rugeley Power Station by night. This is one of the most advanced coal burning generation facilities in Europe, and the fume scrubbing plant, covered in lights, is futuristic and fascinating at night. Built as one of the postwar River Trent behemoths, most of it’s companion facilities have long since gone, like Drakelow and Willington. A stunning, and dare I say it, beautiful thing.