The Environmental Commission of the Balearic Islands (CMAIB) has approved the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project of the future hydrogen generation plant being built on the grounds of the Lloseta cement plant.
The advisory body of the Govern in environmental matters considers valid the preventive and corrective measures presented by the promoter, Enagas Renovables, but adds as conditions that it provides an outlet for the reuse of the resulting water and oxygen. Both uses were not foreseen in the Power to Green Hydrogen Mallorca project.
The Environmental Commission recognizes that the project has unresolved issues, such as wastewater management. And it authorizes that it be discharged into the Lloseta sewage system on a provisional basis, while the project promoters implement systems for its reuse in the same factory or for external uses. Recursos Hídrics prohibits its discharge into the torrent, while ABAQUA, the agency of the Conselleria de Medi Ambient that manages the water cycle, advises in its report not to discharge it indefinitely into the sewage system because, due to its purity, it could cause an overload in the hydraulic system.
The plant is expected to generate 10,288.5 m3 of wastewater per year, and will be able to discharge a maximum of 6.5 m3 per hour into the Lloseta sewage system. This point has generated criticism from the GOB. The spokeswoman for the environmental group, Margalida Ramis, points out that “it is absurd that an environmental body validates this environmental impact statement without having resolved the waste management, just so that this project can continue its processing, without environmental guarantees or that there is demand for hydrogen”.
The president of the CMAIB, Antoni Alorda, recognizes that “from the moment it is declared as a strategic project it has a priority value; to force it to have resolved the reuse of water from the beginning implies a delay of several months in the commissioning of the plant and now we are in the race for hydrogen, even endorsed by the European Commission; but in the integrated environmental assessment we will give it a period of months to resolve it”. As for water supply, the report predicts that the flow currently authorized to Cemex from the Els Mitjans well will be sufficient to supply both the hydrogen plant and the cement factory, which resumed production in April.
