A retro idea in the UK is already in the US, I’d say it is a better method than some traditional power plant operations, but only works if you have an unlimited supply of trees nearby.
From the University of Manchester: How heating our homes could help reduce climate change
A radical new heating system where homes would be heated by district centres rather than in individual households could dramatically cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In a series of reports to be presented at a major conference this week, scientists at The University of Manchester claim using sustainable wood and other biofuels could hold the key to lowering harmful greenhouse gases.
Building district heating schemes which would provide heat and hot water for a neighbourhood or community would not only drastically reduce greenhouse gases but would also be highly cost effective, the authors claim.
Focus groups to test the UK public’s eagerness for such schemes have already been held and have resulted in the majority of people being in favour of the localised centres.
The plans would only provide cost savings if the heat demand is very steady. Otherwise large scale dedicated electricity plants become the most cost effective way to save greenhouse gases with biomass, with costs per unit of carbon saved around half that of a smaller facility.
The reports state that using wood in UK power stations gave greenhouse gas reductions of over 84% and even higher savings of 94% were possible for heating schemes.
Prepared by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to highlight the effectiveness of using sustainable fuels rather than rely on fossil fuels, the series of reports will be presented this week at the UK’s first bio conference – BioTen – which begins in Birmingham today (Tuesday 21st).
Author Dr Patricia Thornley suggests using a number of supply chains, including imported forest residues and local grown energy crops, would reduce emissions and save on fossil fuels.
The key is that biomass must be grown sustainably, taking into account potential for damage to the environment or undesirable socio-economic impacts.
Previous work by University of Manchester researchers took this into account in concluding that sustainable biomass could supply at least 4.9% of the UK’s total energy demand.
Realising that potential could result in savings of 18 Mt of carbon dioxide every year, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions associated with around 2.7 million households.
Dr Patricia Thornley, from the School of Mechanical Aerospace and Civil Engineering at The University of Manchester, said: “Bioenergy could play a very important part in helping the UK meet greenhouse gas reduction targets that will help to reduce the impact of climate change.
“Heating homes with wood reduces greenhouse gas emissions because plants and trees absorb carbon dioxide when they are growing and then re-release it when they are burnt for heating – so the only increase in greenhouse gas emissions are those involved in things like harvesting and processing the fuel.
“This work has taken a detailed look at all those emissions and established that even when we take them into account, there are still huge greenhouse gas savings to be made.
“If we can combine the low-carbon wood with really efficient heating systems, that offers an efficient and cost-effective route to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions.
“The challenge for the industry now is to concentrate on developing new efficient and cost-effective technologies for biofuel production and to concentrate on getting the heating technologies deployed in the right environment.”
Notes for editors
Dr Thornley is available for interview on request.
The papers, Assessing the sustainability of bioelectricity supply chains and Cost-effective carbon reductions in the Bioenegy sector are available from the Press Office.
The Tyndall Centre, created in 2000, is a distributed national centre for research into climate change mitigation and adaptation, with Manchester leading on decarbonisation of energy systems and long-term coastal processes.
For media enquiries contact
Daniel Cochlin
Media Relations
The University of Manchester
Tel: 0161 275 8387
email: daniel.cochlin@manchester.ac.uk
Atomic Hairdryer,
Thanks for the comment. I agree with you 100% and in a back handed way you make the same point. In the name of being progressive. These green advocates have a disdain for our industrial past and what was discovered during that time period, because; to them Capitalism and Free Enterprise created all of those horrible factories with those evil smoke stacks so anything associated with that has to be discredited and thrown out for this green Utopian vision that to them is, “progressive.” Then all they do is turn around and try to do over in this instance what was already well understood and done before and say it is something that is now new and desirable, with the caveat of course that is up to the Central Planners to reinvent a new wheel that is far less efficient than the old wheel in their New Totalitarian World Order scenario. Somehow, I find that darkly humorous and ironic.
Here in Germany, we have a lot of municipal cogeneration plants where the steam is used for community heating. You have to live in a street that is connected to the system if you want to use that; not every street is connected. Makes sense for high density urban housing; with a coal- or gas-fired plant.
Wood is predominantly used by rural and suburban dwellers who have easy local access to it.
The economics of wood as a heating fuel of course get improved when you slap on fines on the use of other energy sources, like it is done in Germany.
Books are also not a terrific fuel but when they’re cheap enough…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/05/shades-of-fahrenheit-451-british-retirees-burning-books-to-stay-warm/
Mancunians chopped all their forest down some thousands of years ago. Where is all the wood going to come from?
They do this is Russia.
But just don’t do it the Russian way. There was no way of reducing the hot water input into my Russian flat, so the only way to regulate the temperature was by opening the window. Minus 27 outside, and every flat in our district had a window open.
This is not a way to reduce energy consumption.
Oh, and tap hot water was equally free. So the usual method of washing up involved keeping the hot tap running for 2 or three hours (no washing-up liquid available, so hot running water sufficed).
This is not a way to reduce energy consumption.
Wonderful. Where are they going to get all the wood necessary to warm the homes of more than sixty million people? Since the UK purse contains nothing but dead moths and expenses grubbing politicians, where is the money going to come from to build these stations? Oh wait…
I have a wood burning stove because, like DirkH has already noted, I am a rural dweller who has easy access to fuel. Heating my home this way is hundreds of pounds cheaper than paying gas bills. What’s the betting my bills will sky rocket if the government takes that choice out of my hands.
>>>Let me get this straight…. we burn wood, one of the best and
>>>cheapest ways to sequester carbon on the planet,
Growing trees to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide is a nonsense. What do we do with the wood, once the tree is fully grown?
a. Burn it – CO2 back in the atmosphere
b. Use it for building. Building is replaced after 100 years, wood burned, CO2 back in the atmosphere.
c. Bury the wood. Fungi attack it, and CO2 back in the atmosphere.
Growing trees does not reduce atmospheric CO2 in the long-term.
Lowell its the C02 thing that keeps getting people here riled up here, not so so much the burning of biomass. Hey don’t we need C02 to grow the biomass.
Oh, and one little fly in the ointment of the Manchester University pipe-dream. Britain does not have any trees to cut down.
At present, we are trying to create forests, because they have all been destroyed. But these are leisure forests, not for commercial logging. If a chain-saw touched one these trees, there would be an international protest, and questions asked at the U.N..
http://www.nationalforest.org/forest/
This is a statue of the average Greeny – wanting things both ways.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Janus-Vatican.JPG
Sounds good, BUT, what about heat loss between generator and domestic property? This has to be something as there is no such thing as the perfect insulator. Also I thought we had centralized energy generation- coal fired and natural gas power stations.
But if they didn’t cut down the trees they would remain as CO2 sinks, increasing their take of CO2 as they continue to grow. The logical answer is to harvest them only when they die of old age, when their moisture content would also be lower than when alive – that is, if you believe in the deadly potential of CO2.
Centralised systems can NEVER be as efficient as individual systems because the latter have no transmission losses (to their own premises); and, a central system has to be time/temperature controlled for the ‘worst case’ – i.e every offtake needing heat.
Twenty years ago I lved in a block of 12 town houses that had one boiler, that served all twelve houses. The cost was divided twelve ways. I noted that my neighbours left the heating on “max” and opened the windows when their homes got too warm.
I campaigned to leave the “Combine” and fitted my own boiler; our heating costs HALVED!
With district heating is there an easy way to measure the heat used by each property?
I don’t see any numbers in this PR release. Cost to build and operate the heating plant and acres of trees needed per unit of output are two important ones.
An announcement that fails to make supporting documents and information available on-line is worthless. Media that simply parrot the “news” have equal value.
Here is the promotional press release, when Public Service of New Hampshire switched a unit from coal to wood nack in 2005 or so.
http://www.psnh.com/Energy/ENERGYPROJECT/NWPP/print-faqs.html
As I recall, something similar was done on Easter Island. Didn’t work out too well.
Wait ’til the wood rationing starts.
[Best Oliver Twist voice] “Please, sir. May I have another twig for the fire?”
This is not a plan by any reasonable definition of the word, but a fantasy. A while ago, there was talk of replacing the electric meters in every home in the UK with smart meters, which, unsurprisingly, lead to arguments about cost. If it’s going to cost so much to refit electric meters, how the heck do they figure it’s ok to somehow, connect the UK’s 30 million homes to some, as yet unspecified network of pipes conveying all that energy from community heating stations which haven’t even been built? How many millions of tons of steel pipe will be consumed in the process? And the only rationale for doing this is supposedly to save CO2 emissions. And I am forced to wonder if the actual savings will turn out to be as elusive as the savings from windfarms and biofuels?
The definition of madness is to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over.
@ur momisugly feet2thefire says:
September 24, 2010 at 10:49 pm
You make a good point about hardwoods. The other thing to consider is the price of hardwood. Even common rough sawn red oak costs ~ $3 and up per board foot. Other hardwoods are much higher. Walnut goes for $6/bf and up. I don’t know any sane person who would sell it for firewood by the ton, when it’s far more valuable as lumber for furniture, etc.
I see that the 50MW PSNH wood plant in Portsmouth NH cost $70m, uses 400k tons (most sourced locally, they say) per year, and most importantly, is worth 300k RECs (renewable energy certificates) per year. These RECs get sold to other power generators, state and local governments and organizations wishing to “green up”. So, as a paying PSNH customer, I wish to thank the many others helping to pay for this plant (though I have no doubt our own state is doing so as well). It just does a heart good to have everyone pitch in this way.
Green is like a giant Ponzi scheme. Without those RECs the plant never would have been built.
I don’t really have a problem with the broader concept here, but I would think this better for high density population centres only.
Plus, in addition to central heat and water, community kitchens could reduce food wastage. Also, neighborhood “bathing” facilities could further increase efficiency by reducing water consumption. 100 to 125 persons can be encouraged to bathe together. All will file into shower room, then close doors and turn on the
gaswater.BodiesPeople then exit shower and areprocesseddried by huge rotatingknivesblow driers.ProteinResidents are thenpackageddressed in recycled papercontainersclothes to further reduce waste.Remember, eat local!
We are about to send millions of dollars worth of new stoves to places that burn wood and dung for cooking, to replace those inefficient dirty wood and dung stoves with something else–bottled gas maybe? Is there a disconnect here?
@CuriousGeorge While the hardwood is not a good source, the byproducts are not bad but are certainly limited. I heat in winter partially through the use of a pellet stove that is fired by hardwood sawdust pellets. The sawdust and wood chips created in manufacturing hardwood products is collected and “rabbit food” pellets can be created from it. Not very competitive against gas at $4 but a lot cheaper than gas at $16. My stove is a fireplace insert, so it has the added benefit of a fire in the fireplace without the attended heat loss.
In the early 1990s, Central Maine Power was forced to buy “cogen” from the various pulp and paper plants in Maine at a price higher than they were allowed to sell it. Needless to say, this eventually drove them to file a bankruptcy.
Wood fired heating and generation are ok under some circumstances. It depends on the infrastructure and the availability of waste wood that would otherwise go into a landfill. A pleasant niche solution under some but not all circumstances.
Ralph says:
September 25, 2010 at 12:55 am
>>>Let me get this straight…. we burn wood, one of the best and
>>>cheapest ways to sequester carbon on the planet,
Growing trees to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide is a nonsense. What do we do with the wood, once the tree is fully grown?
a. Burn it – CO2 back in the atmosphere
b. Use it for building. Building is replaced after 100 years, wood burned, CO2 back in the atmosphere.
c. Bury the wood. Fungi attack it, and CO2 back in the atmosphere.
Growing trees does not reduce atmospheric CO2 in the long-term.
—————–
30 years, Ralph, 30 years.
If you can hold your breath for 30 years, we’ll have a bona fide climate trend that you can take to the bank.
In Germany, Ausrtria and Switzerland automated wood pallet burners have become the latest “Green” fashion.
Despite compression of the pallets the volume needed compared to a comparable calorific volume of coal is a factor two.
You simply need a lot of wood that has to be grown, harvested, processed and distributed.
The wood pallet industry started as a recycling initiative of waste wood from saw mills. Today the pallet wood has to be imported and nobody can tell if that wood is from “sustainable resources” or delivered by the Russian Mafia.
Using big wood burners for regional heating projects, without any doubt cause a surge of heat losses via the pipelines.
I think this concept is not suitable for big scale application, simply because the numbers don’t add up.
The ideal fuel for heating and electricity generation is natural gas and we have so much of this stuff that we don’t even need to go nuclear.
Let’s go crazy on alternatives if we have real solutions.
When Philips II from Spain started the 80 year war and build his “Armada” no three was left standing.
I have no objections against any burning of wood but as a replacement for fossil fuels
the entire plan is madness.
@ur momisugly ShrNfr says:
September 25, 2010 at 6:51 am
I know many people, especially in the New England area, who use the pellet stove’s or woodburning inserts. Many are woodworkers who heat their shops this way with cutoffs from projects. Tops, branches, stumps, etc. are fine for this (although there is growing competition from the cellulosic ethanol industry for that feed stock ), and as you say it is a very limited supply, which requires the tree to be cut down in any event.
I have some acreage in wood, and from a wood producers perspective I look to get the best price for my product, be it pulp, lumber, etc. If I can profit from the trash that’s a bonus, however a significant issue with stumps, etc. is the cost of harvesting it which includes cleaning tons of dirt & rocks off ( don’t get paid for dirt ). Unless I can make a reasonable profit, I’ll just let it rot. 🙂