To some extent, the Sargas comedy is on the national political agenda, because now that Anglu Farrugia let the cat out of the bag, Labour wants its idea that it can reduce electricity tariffs to remain afloat at all costs.

So they will lure the public with the Sargas bait. I still can’t believe Labour can be serious about its support for a Sargas plant. To me this is a big soap bubble, and I think the soap connection is appropriate.

@Leonard
Unfortunately, the computation of payback cannot be done that way.

You have to deduct the costs of operations and carbon dioxide disposal from the revenues. They represent further “investment” that will need to be made during the years. Besides, you did not compute the payback of the new Delimara, which has a different operating cost structure.

In any case, it is not clear what conclusion you have reached. You can only reach a conclusion when you can compare the two plants.

Ding dong.

How can the opposition think it can force-feed us its ideas?

“Qeghdin taraw kemm jiena importanti. Naghjattlu b’ismu lil Henrick. Rajtu kemm sirna ta’ gewwa.

You’re right up to a point, Sargas consider Carbon as a sellable commodity.

They want to adopt the system used in the States, where CO2 is traded for a neat profit.

One minor problem, The US did not ratify Kyoto, whereas the EU is the most aggressive promoter of its principles. What Sargas don’t admit is that pollution and unsustainable depletion of natural resources is a global, not national problem, and no amount of territorial trading is going to exempt them from the EU’s remit.

If we take up this proposal, our public interest will be subjected to a corporation’s private interest. Personally, that is where I draw the line, hopefully Labour will see some sense and do the same.

They now want us to forget the hassle and waste of parliamentary and Audit General time they are causing with their insinuations of corruption and criticism of what they are calling a wrong prototype plant chosen by goverment.They even went to the extent of inciting the labour councils in the area to cause as much problems as possible, and even going to court with a redress.

What we need to know now how the PL plan to go about the purchas of this plant, either through a direct order for this power power plant or will tailor make a bid package tender to suit only Sargas. Also we want to know if all this will comply with EU tender regulations.

Finally I would like to note the shameful presence of Mr. Mugliette at the canvassing meeting organised this week by Sargas.

With all due respect to Ms Dalli and all the ‘journalists’ who are promoting this unneeded and unplanned plant, she’s not qualified to make technical questions.

Maybe she can ask a written technical question but when a doubtful technical detail is included in the answer, she won’t be able to question that detail.

On the contrary it would be taken as fact both by the interviewer and by the TV audience.

Leonard Ellul Bonici, you said you wonder why there is a deafening silence from the government’s side regarding Sargas system.

I think that for the same reason given above, EneMalta experts can’t give a studied answer for this Sargas plant the way figures and concepts are being bandied about leaves everyone breathless.
I’ll give you two examples .

The first one is the price. How much will this Sargas Plant cost – €1000,000,000 like Heinrik Fleischer said in Saviour’s interview , €800,000,000 or €900,000,000 like they said in the press conference at The Westin?

Would we get another discount if they make a Sargas mass meeting on the granaries of Floriana?

I’m writing the many zeros because there are people who think that a billion is one hundred million.

Secondly: what is the cost of getting rid of the captured gases and the two shipments per week of fly ash as now the viewing public is being informed.

As far as I know the plant’s size has been tripled. It’s not 100Mw but some 320Mw. It should have been floating out at sea in 2007, but they brought in the monstrous white elephant floating near the Delimara power station and now it has been dry-docked at Delimara, in no time we will have it installed underground at the Has-Saptan fuel installation!
Technical people won’t join the fray because there could be consequences if they shoot down the Sargas project.
I’m more than sure that if for example Mr Spiteri Gingell enters the Sargas polemic he will be demonised and discredited on the Labour media and MT.

Delimara power station extension will cost 200 million Euros, one fourth of Sargas, its capacity is 144mw and this extention will improve Delimara Power station’s efficiency thus reducing consumption. On the other hand Sargas power station cost 900 million Euros with a capacity of only 100mw. The difference between the two is that Sargas can capture CO2 and therefore one can burn anything.

Let’s do some math.

Eur 900,000,000.00 (Power station cost) divided by 7cents (unit selling price as promised by Sargas) will give us the amount of units Sargas need to produce to break even. (Not including financing company’s capital investments ROCE and buying olives). The amount Sargas need to sell to break even is 12,857,000,000 units.

At full capacity Sargas 100mw power station translate to 2,400,000units daily = 854,400,000 units yearly

Therefore the amount of Eur 900 million worth of units divided by the yearly production. 12,857,000,000units divided by 854,400,000 is 15 years

I don’t want to bore on with numbers however if my calculations are right, it will take 15 years at full capacity for Sargas to break even, and this does not include any expenses including financing capital , buying Biomass and exporting Carbon.