Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves visited the ABSL biomass fuel plant in South Marston, reported the Swindon Advertiser. In doing so, she said she wanted a Labour government to support such businesses in scaling up, to help make Britain "a green energy superpower".
Leader of the Labour group of borough councillors Jim Robbins accompanied Reeves around the biomass plant, with the pair being shown around by the company's chief executive Andy Cornell.
He told the politicians how the plant can take any form of non-recyclable waste and heat it in a specialist furnace to produce a mixture of hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Corporate development director Oliver Chesser said: "It produces very little residue, and no gas escapes – there are no emissions.”
Most of the hydrogen and carbon dioxide is combined to produce bio-methane, which is transferred into the national grid, and used in a wide range of ways.
After her tour, Ms Reeves told the Local Democracy Reporter: “The work that’s happening here is the innovation we need to see in all parts of the country.
“This could help us get to our net zero ambitions faster.
“There is a global race to be a green energy superpower, for those jobs and industries. Some country will be the global leader in that, why not Britain?
“We’ve seen here today, we have the skills and innovation and entrepreneurialism – what we need is a government which gets behind these sorts of companies and helps them doing it at scale.”
To support that, Reeves said Labour will set up GB Energy, a national green energy company and also a national wealth fund.
She said: “We should have set up a national wealth fund when we discovered North Sea oil to get a return for taxpayers. It will work alongside business, in this new industrial revolution, to invest in the sort of innovation I’ve seen here in Swindon.”
UK Shadow Chancellor visits Swindon biomass plant
