By charles the moderator
We missed this story in May, but in order to replace the use of coal in the UK, power stations are being refitted to burn wood chips. But the UK doesn’t have enough forests to supply the wood chips, (biofuel) so…
Wait for it…
Wait…
Yup, power companies in the UK are planning on purchasing timber in the United States to be converted to wood chips to be shipped across the Atlantic to burn in the previously coal-fired power plants.
From the BBC
Swamp forests in the US are being felled to help keep the lights on in the UK. Is this really the best way to combat climate change?
Environmentalists are trying to block the expansion of a transatlantic trade bringing American wood to burn in European power stations.
The trade is driven by EU rules promoting renewable energy to combat climate change.
Many millions of tonnes of wood pellets will soon be shipped annually to help keep the lights on in the UK. Other EU nations may follow.
Critics say subsidising wood burning wastes money, does nothing to tackle climate change in the short term, and is wrecking some of the finest forests in the US.
The insanity of this is difficult for me to put in perspective, but it seems comparable to shining spotlights on solar collectors.
Read the full BBC story here.
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I have a log jam in my brain, I don’t know what to say this is so ridiculous.
Not news, just insane! A power station, Drax, in the UK on top of a coal field is going to be converted to burn woodchips, yes from the USA!
The UK is going to look like Haiti soon. Yea, that is progress.
It would make more sense to burn coal and offset the Co2 by planting trees. Only a moron would burn trees!
Stupid is as stupid does.
You can’t make this up.
Insanity is the name of the game when it comes to EU/UK energy policy.
“The German public does not like the nuclear power industry for some reason,” Putin said, adding that he would not comment on it. “But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating,” he said anyway.
“You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?” Putin asked, as reported by Itar-Tass. “Then you will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there,” he said, adding that Europeans “do not even have firewood.”
http://rt.com/politics/putin-nuclear-europe-siberia/
I can hear the circus music in my head just thinking about it…
Drax currently supplies 7% of Britain’s electrical power needs. I’ve spoken with one of the train drivers who shift the fuel into Drax. He is aware of some severe problems ahead. You can’t stockpile woodchip, it spontaneously ignites. It’s power density is 8 times less than coal. More trains, less downtime, no margin for f-ups.
But the UK isn’t interested in Climate Chamge or Energy Supply. Over here we just want to encourage green industry. Whether it works or not is irrelevant.
The money is in the subsidy
Try this one from the Telegraph last week:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10216239/Scottish-wind-farms-handed-1.3m-annual-discount-while-southern-power-plants-to-pay-more.html
Can anyone beat these for stupidity?
Why not burn cars? Seems to me that was working for a while in France…
It’s not just the UK…
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/8837/asian-markets-for-wood-pellets/
Well to me, that’s yet another massive own goal from the environmentalist ‘green’ zealots – as per fecking usual ?
Perhaps one day, some of them might even get to understand how to think a proposal through from start to finish……but I doubt it !
Suddenly I feel smart, which is not common for me.
I would say that they are as thick as two short planks of wood (English Saying) but no doubt they have been chipped too.
This is absolutely silly…
…why don’t they just burn food
Of course the bureaucrats don’t factor in the diesel used to grow, fell, manufacture the pellets and transport them. All they care about is that they are using a “renewable” resource.
Maybe someone should demand that the ships transporting them be driven by sail?
Why not burn fossilized wood pellets? They are mostly reduced to their base carbon, have six times the heating content of fresh wood pellets, and extraction of the fossilized plant matter leaves a nice big hole in the ground in which to return the residue not used for other purposes such as building materials for roads and commercial structures, additives for concrete, and fertilizer.
The economy of scale means extraction of fossil wood is much less expensive than getting the standing stuff anyway. The live standing cellulose has to be processed, kiln dried which is so dang energy intensive, transported greater distances, and then you can’t store it in great huge mountains like the fossilized material.
Humans are just so stupid sometimes.
Isn’t there a trash burner power plant that’s optimized for waste wood in the SeaTac, Washington region? I recall it coming on line in the early Ninties.
As the old saying goes: ‘Follow the money!’
Charcoal to Newcastle.
tallbloke says:
August 6, 2013 at 6:33 am
“You can’t stockpile woodchip, it spontaneously ignites.”
No problem. The wood chips can be kiln-dried and pelletized in the US at coal fired processing plants. The dried chips are then transported in vacuum-tight cargo containers by diesel-powered ships. Diesel-powered trains carry the containers to the power station. The empty cargo containers are then shipped back to the US for refilling.
The costs are not an issue, as the entire enterprise is subsidized.
Problem solved!!!!
🙂
Why does the Green energy agenda always entail taking something useful like wood or food and wasting energy to grow/transport it just to burn it to make some energy? The whole freaking universe runs on nuclear chemistry. Why do we think ultimately that we aren’t going to have to do the same?
Everybody knows that emissions in another country don’t count anyway. Those become their problem, and the rule of the day is NIMBY.
The irony of trying to reduce CO2 emissions by generating more CO2 emissions, AND getting rid of things that remove CO2, is nothing short of delicious. I love watching stupid people do stupid things, but from a distance… some of their antics can put out an eye if you get too close!