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
RE: Bruce Cobb says:
September 25, 2010 at 4:37 am
I have no problem with using wood to generate electricity, and also using the resultant steam as a byproduct-heating-source, providing it makes economic sense. However the problem with the PSNH power plant in New Hampshire is that it depends on REC’s (Renewable Energy Certificates) to make economic sense.
Also it depends on grinding up trees in the most “economical” manner, with the word “economical” defined in a short-sighted manner. This involves grinding up the trunks of large oaks, rather than using the “slash,” which is the crooked branches left over after the trunks are used. I have a good friend who delivers truckloads of chips to the Portsmouth power plant, and he states he is appalled at the amount of good wood that is ground up.
It should be noted that there is a very good market for oak in Japan, where oak is regarded as highly as mahogany. Tree trunks from New Hampshire often go straight to Japan. To put such trunks through a chipper seems less than wise, even in cases where the tree needs to grow ten more years before becoming lumber-sized.
Lastly, one reason I am suspicious of economies-of-scale is that Big Business all too often has political clout which the Little Guy lacks, and all too often seeks to squeeze the Little Guy out of markets by inventing stupid laws. I do not see it as entirely impossible that Big Business might seek to make it illegal for the Little Guy to burn wood, one way or another, (perhaps claiming wood smoke is pollution, or perhaps even charging a tax or fee for cutting down a tree one has grown on ones own property, over the past forty years.)
Around 1988 a local boom called “The Massachusetts Miracle,” (which got Dukakis nominated as the Democrat running against the first Bush,) went bust. It was called an “economic downturn” nationally, however it hit very hard in southern New Hampshire, and the population of my little town actually decreased until around 1995, as many construction workers left looking for work in other states. During that time many local folk had to fall back on burning wood, as they simply couldn’t afford their heating bills.
Actually few living trees were cut down by the poor. There was plenty of dead wood by the roads. Roadsides, and roadside woods, became far more tidy than they now are. Some gathered wood after first asking permission from landowners, while others were “deadwood poachers,” however few complained if their woods were cleaned up.
Seeking “heating assistance” was a waste of time for all but the elderly and frail, for the waiting-in-line for an interview tended to add up to hours, and the paperwork was exasperating: You were suppose to bring in a paystub, but many rough characters were more or less self-employed, and they were asked to bring in a signed paper from every one of their customers (in order to prove their income was what they stated.) By the time you had crossed all the T’s and dotted all the I’s, you had spent a couple of days running around wasting gas. It was cheaper and easier to spend the time gathering wood.
I know about this for I was one of the rough characters, back in those days. It was a tough time to get through, especially if you were raising five children. One thing I swiftly learned was that Dukakis Democrats, moving up from Massachusetts, didn’t like unsightly woods, so I would charge them to clean their woods. Then I’d take all the dead wood home and heat my home for free. (In one case I even charged to remove an unsightly woodpile of dried-and-split oak and maple, which a lady found distasteful in her backyard, as it wasn’t stacked neatly.)
Now twenty years have passed, and I wonder if the new generation of poor people are capable of displaying the same self-reliance. The woods are messy again, and the modern wood stoves burn wood with far less smoke. However the new poor seem far less likely to go outside, and far more likely to seek answers on computer screens.
Self-reliance gives a real power to the individual. The old family farm enabled voters to wield an independence which people dependant on food-stamps now lack. In the same way, burning wood in an economy-of-scale may rob the Little Guy of a freedom he possessesd, when he just gathered sticks to keep his home fires burning.
The range of simple, practical options is really quite varied.
Need to clear a puzzle, I have noted any reference to growing bigger, faster, better, higher yield or quality, invokes the response “Genetic Engineering “. Why is that, its certainly not true.
Compare the yield of say Palm oil, with corn ethanol per acre, no comparison. Those yields can easily be doubled. Imagine that. Seed, bulb/tuber/cutting/clone or mature tree makes no difference to our process.
Hemp is a wonderful plant, we can grow 2 crops per year plus a new potato crop( ideal as Hemp kills potato bugs) plus we dont use fertiliser, biocides or herbicides. Basic production is 24 tonnes per acre per year (hemp). This can be used as fibre, plastics, paper feedstock, linen you name it. The first crop includes seed and the second crop is primarily for biomass. Whats holding us back, red tape. The process is sadly organic.
We are also designing the hemp plant so it can be used as a sewage leakage absorber as one of our clients has a problem with septic tanks polluting his swamp. We are also working on grass to manufacture top soil. At the moment we estimate we can manufacture between six and 12 inches per year. We may end up exporting top soil!
Where there is a will, there is a way.
I can see how this can be so environmentally sound and work well for humanity. Say for instance people are used to heating for or think they need 100 days of heating… Cut the first 10 and last ten. Because the people are just wasting the heat anyway we all know it will warm up during the day, Right. You save 20% with this simple prudent step. How wonderful. You could also schedule 1 day a week “Idling” for “maintenance” saving an additional 20%. So you’ve succeed in cutting emissions 40% or so. With the only cost of a few sweaters for the whiny blokes.
This kind of ‘fuel’ is totally unsustainable.
In the UK the biggest coal-fired Powerstation, DRAX, is now being converted to burn wood chips and willow wands (I can’t believe I’m having to write this!). Just to fire two of its 11 boilers will require 70,000 tons of the stuff EVERY MONTH!!!! That’s nearly 1 million tons a year. In a few years there won’t be a tree left in England.
In the period 1500-1750 Britain was nearly deforested through the need to manufacture charcoal for iron smelting (and ship building), saved, only just, by importing huge amounts of timber from Canada and North America – and the discovery of how to turn coal into coke.
As far as the outdoor wood boilers now cropping up in peoples’ back yards , sorry; not a fan. We do not have AC, and use ventilation, cooling the house naturally at night during Summer, and in the Fall having the windows open. Very often, there is the acrid stench of wood (and I use the term loosely) smoke, from a neighbor’s OWB. We probably live about 250 feet away, but there are other homes much closer, and as close as about 50 feet or so. The smokestack stands probably about 6 feet high.
There are relatively new regulations in this state, phased in from Aug. ’08 to Jan. 1 ’09 governing the installation and use of these things, and I highly doubt that it meets these regulations. So far, though, we have not pursued this. People don’t like to “make trouble”, especially with regard to ones’ neighbors, so it’s a bit of a sticky wicket.
RE: Bruce Cobb says:
September 26, 2010 at 7:29 am
I agree about the OWB. However they are making them better, simply because some areas are putting in zoning laws against excessive wood smoke.
I was looking into buying one, (they are very expensive,) and the salesman was stressing his model had an afterburner which basically removed the problem of smoke from the chimney.
The older models belch smoke at such a low altitude, (six to eight feet,) that it gets caught under a typical inversion created by cold weather’s “radiational cooling,” and you wind up with these odd shelves of smoke undulating slowly about the neighborhood, especially on a winter morning that is very calm, and especially when fresh wood has just been added to the stove.
The great thing is the reduction in fire insurance, when your heating is seperate from the house.
One of the primary concerns about solar energy has always been how to store it for use when it’s needed. Well, folks, wood represents stored solar energy!
Wood will always provide PART of our energy needs, and it has proven to be a very sustainable form of energy for hundreds of years. A whole lot more sustainable than wind generators, IMHO.
Plants are the most efficient users and converters of sun energy. Thats exactly why we use plants as factories. Rocket science again.
This would actually keep the temperature down, but not for the reasons given. It would dramatically increase aerosols in the atmosphere around population centers. Remember the famous London Fog of the Victorian era, which we now know was precipitated by the predominance of using coal for heat? Imagine the same phenomenon on a much larger scale around New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Tokyo, Moscow and Beijing, etc. It’ll cool things off alright. Maybe even bring on another mini ice age.
Many larger towns and cities in the UK had coal powered versions of this years ago (Battersea for one) they were all closed when the clean air act came in. Growing trees instead of food seems a bit wasteful of land area when we don’t have lots now although the EU has some of that out of use as to keep the prices up for European farmers. This would work better with nuclear but I don’t see many wanting to live near one and the greenies would spent years trying to stop them being built. As it is the lights will start going off fairly soon anyway as the big coal stations are shut to meet green rules.
Never mind they have just opened a new wind farm off the Kent coast so everything will be OK, HA HA.
Hmmm. Waste incineration for electrical generation. If that’s so new, why was it an option in Sim City 3000 back in 99?
That, and I’m amused by the fact that they put “bag house” in quotations like bag filters are some sort of new thing. Besides, there’s no way this would be allowed for power generation without at least a wet scrubber. Also, they obviously don’t have clue about the scales they are talking about. Ancient Romans deforested Italy so much that the erosion moved Ostia, a port city, miles inland. The power demands of modern civilization make Rome’s look like peanuts.