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That depends on what gets taken forward. Several feedstocks are associated with biorefining. Biofuel does not just involve timber; it could be any kind of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids.

We need to talk about what we use our land for. We do not want to displace the growing of food unnecessarily. There is a dichotomy: if we displace fruit crops for food, then we will have to import more food, and there is a carbon footprint associated with that. There is a careful balance to strike between what we use land for and the competing demands on our land. There is also quite a lot of degraded peatland that we want to re-wet in order to sequester carbon. That is an additional demand that we are putting on Scotland’s land and there is the spatial squeeze that could be associated with that.

We have these discussions on what land is used for with our rural economy colleagues. We have also recently had advice from the Climate Change Committee on what it sees Scotland’s land being used for. There are competing—actually, “competing” is the wrong word. We do not want to displace high-quality food production, as that would mean that we would have to import more of our food, which would have an associated carbon footprint, and might come from parts of the world that may not, for example, have such high animal welfare standards.

A very careful judgment has to be made. We could use feedstocks for biofuels, but we could effectively be offshoring emissions as a result. Your point is well made and this is a live conversation that we are having across all four nations and also in the Government.

That is certainly not my recollection of the situation. That £80 million was always on the table. It comes back to my first point about those discussions with the Scottish cluster about when it would need the funding.

We have been calling for the new UK Government to step up and give the funding associated with track status to the Acorn project. We are all politicians here—we wanted to prompt that funding as much as possible. There was no point in the £80 million sitting there and never being used because the rest of the funding to get the project off the ground was not forthcoming.

As I said originally, the Scottish cluster told me that it would need the funds at the point at which it knew that the project would be going ahead. I hope that, by this time tomorrow, we will have a clearer indication of what the funding for that will look like and that, at long last, the Scottish cluster and the Acorn project can get going, because we do need them.

That is quite interesting. Jan Robertson might be able to give more detail about the near-term projects that have come forward. There is a near-term opportunity from acetone, butanol and ethanol refining—that involves the fermentation of biowaste into chemicals—and the sifting process has bottomed out a number of opportunities in that area. Another near-term opportunity involves the recycling of plastics into hydrolysed oil.

Project willow identified nine key development opportunities—that is the shop window. The Grangemouth site is a great offer, because it is strategically placed when it comes to geography and infrastructure and it is part of an industrial cluster. If it becomes more of a chemical cluster, that is great news, because that will mean high-value jobs. One huge disappointment about the ceasing of the refinery is about jobs, because the jobs that were associated with the refinery were high value. We do not want to lack high-value job opportunities. Sustainable aviation fuel provides an opportunity on the site in the medium term, and potentially in the longer term, that would bring high-value jobs.

In the medium term, we are focused on getting some projects off the ground—specialist work has been done to put teams in place for them—but we are also looking for high-value, sustainable, low-carbon opportunities in the longer term. A few things have to happen in the regulation space—I will come on to that—and in the aviation sector to prompt the demand for SAF. Things have to happen in relation to the regulation of hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids, which is the feedstock that is associated with biorefining. The Scottish Government has given the James Hutton Institute money to do a pilot study on the cover crops that would be required, and we are hoping to do more work to ascertain how we could play our part in that. Quite a lot of things have to happen at the regulation level but, to address your wider point, attracting high-value industries is absolutely at the core of what we are doing.

I will not say that you are missing something, now that I have got to the nub of your question. It is not as if in Scotland we use different plastics from those that are used in the rest of the UK. Standard plastics are used throughout the UK and Europe. We know what they are and whether each one of them is viable as feedstock for the types of operation that are coming through and that Jan Robertson is considering with her team.

SEPA and Zero Waste Scotland are analysing where those different plastic streams go for recycling and where there are gaps—for example, if processing is not happening in Scotland or the wider UK, which might mean that there is an opportunity to do it. They are also assessing the volume. That is important for the business case. The question is where the volume of the feedstock needed to turn plastics into the chemicals that I outlined will come from.

That is critical work that not only has to happen in Scotland but must be done with our UK Government partners. If any streams of plastic waste are being taken elsewhere in Europe or further afield, it is in the interests of both Governments from a carbon footprint point of view and a business development point of view to minimise that as much as possible. That work is happening and is being done by the task force.

Anything that is required in relation to regulation is being fed back to both Governments. I would expect the UK Government to take forward any regulatory changes to enable projects to progress, and the Scottish Government would do the same, should anything land on our desk.

No.

I am glad that you asked me that, because a narrative has been put out there that we are reacting to the decision that the shareholders of Petroineos made last year, when, in fact, work has been on-going for quite a long time. The Scottish Government has been working with Petroineos in particular to prepare for a just transition, or a transition in the type of work that it would do, and I have a list here of the projects that we have worked on.

In 2021, the Scottish Government provided financial support to project GRACE, which investigated a range of potential decarbonisation interventions across Grangemouth. In 2022, the business provided 50 per cent of the funding for a biorefinery pre-appraisal study for biofuels, and the Scottish Government matched the funding. Appraisal studies on fuel switching, net zero and blue hydrogen projects were funded by a 50:50 split between Ineos and the Scottish Government. There was a further study on the biorefinery in 2023, and project willow was completed last year.

It is unfortunate that the shareholders did not want to progress any of those projects. That is a real shame, because I think that there was appetite from the workers and the management of the refinery to progress those opportunities. When I first came into post as Minister for Energy, I visited the refinery to discuss some of the outcomes of the biorefinery appraisal study, and the excitement was palpable. However, the shareholders and owners did not want to take it forward. It is not true to say that project willow was done in an emergency situation—the Government, working with Ineos, has been building the case for the refinery to change what it produced for quite some time. When it comes down to it, the company made a decision not to go forward with any of those projects, based on the views of the shareholders and the board.

The fact is that that work remains: it has been done and it fed into project willow. The study was funded by both Governments, and Petroineos led the work. Up to the point that the study was published, the work was done by EY, and it is now being taken forward by Scottish Enterprise and the task force. A great deal of work has been done in preparation for what we knew could happen.

As you have brought the matter up, convener, I have to say that the previous UK Government did not show an interest in putting money into any of those interventions. I have outlined what the Scottish Government did, including providing 50:50 match funding with Ineos to do a lot of those studies. The previous UK Government was not interested in removing the HEFA cap and, although a member of the Grangemouth future industry board, it stayed largely silent and was not interested in doing anything to save the refinery or doing anything like project willow.

We had already started to progress and flesh out project willow with Petroineos before the change in the UK Government. When that change happened, we were delighted that the new UK Government wanted to part-fund the project. Before that point, it had looked as though the Scottish Government and Petroineos would have to fund it, because the previous UK Government was not interested. With the change in Government, though, there was a different mindset, and each of the two Governments took a 50:50 share of the costs associated with project willow.

Personally, I think it is important that we look forward. Project willow has happened, and it has been very well received. Wherever we go, I and my UK Government counterparts have been speaking to investors about it; it is known about in Europe by the likes of RWE in Germany and all the big investors.

As Jan Robertson has outlined, there are 84 proposals coming forward—and that is just to date. The door is not closed on any of them, and I say to anyone who is watching this committee and has projects that they want to bring to us that they should absolutely do so. Of course, there are the approaches that are being made to Petroineos, too.

We could look back five years and start pointing fingers. However, the most important thing is that in the past year—and particularly in the past six months—project willow and the task force have moved things along in a swift, agile and focused way. I am feeling so much more confident than I did this time last year about the prospects for that site.

I will bring in Chris Bryceland to explain the technical aspects and what has already been done at UK level.

You are making a point—I absolutely hear it—about what we have to do across all four nations of the UK to accelerate the recycling of plastic. We have our landfill ban, which is associated with that, and we are moving forward with the deposit return scheme as well. We also have the producer liability duties coming into play. Some of the projects that we are looking at—I guess that we should call those the willow projects—are about making chemicals from plastic. There is a market for that. I will bring in Chris Bryceland on the detail of that.

As part of the industry task force, as we bottom out some of the more viable projects and as the projects go forward, we will assess the regulation that will be required. As Lorna Slater will know all too well, I am also involved in inter-ministerial conversations among the four nations on everything to do with the circular economy—in fact, I think that I am due to have one next week. We are having conversations not just with the UK Government but with the Governments of Wales and Northern Ireland. In particular, the recycling rates in Wales are very good—I think that they are among the best in Europe—and it wants to go further and to be able to recycle more.

Where regulatory change would be required to enable the feasibility and viability of the projects that we see, we must be agile in looking at the regulation that is associated with any of them. Ms Slater makes a very good point that there is an issue with the investability of recycling plastics, in that the business case for that is perhaps not strong enough to attract investment. However, interestingly, the recycling projects that are coming forward are the ones that are looking the most viable at the moment.

I will bring in Jan Robertson to give a wee bit more detail.

You are going to have to explain that to me—I have not seen that.