Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The British Drax biomass plan has received a substantial setback. The Drax project is a plan to “save” the environment by chopping down vast tracts of forest in the USA and Canada, shipping the wood to Britain, and burning it in a modified coal plant. But the government subsidies Drax negotiated to make this scheme profitable, have attracted negative attention from European regulators.
According to The Telegraph;
Blow to Drax biomass plan as EC launches state aid investigation
European Commission raises concerns that proposed subsidies for biomass conversion may be too generous.
Drax’s hopes of securing lucrative subsidies for its biomass conservion have suffered a setback after the European Commission launched a full state aid investigation over concerns the payments may be too generous.
The Yorkshire-based power plant is in the process of switching from burning coal to biomass, and was awarded a £1.7bn Government subsidy contract in April 2014 for the third of its six units – subject to state aid approval.
The contract would see Drax paid a fixed price of £105 for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of biomass-fired power the unit generated until 2027 – well over double the current market price.
Drax shares fell 5pc on Tuesday after the European Commission said it was concerned that the rate of return from the subsidies “could be higher than the parties estimate and could lead to overcompensation”.
Even green news outlets like The Ecologist have condemned the Drax scheme as being damaging to the environment. I suspect this attack by the über green European Commission, against the increasingly unpopular Drax project, might end up being the final blow to this bizarre plan to “save” nature by chopping down the trees.
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In the 19th century the development of coal technology saved the forests of Europe from being cut down to keep buildings warm for a burgeoning human population. Now, the same forests are threatened by human stupidity (or greed) of the highest order. When a hundred year old tree is cut and burned the CO2 is released immediately. The tree that replaces it will take a hundred years to suck the equivalent CO2 out of the atmosphere. If the tree in question had remained there it would have continued removing CO2 during the whole time the replacement tree was much smaller. This is not carbon neutral over the short term or the long term and does nothing to mitigate what we’re being told is a climate emergency. For this travesty to be subsidized by governments at any level is a disgraceful waste of money.
Let’s not forget that after the trees are chopped down the wood is processed into pellets and then soaked with water so they don’t spontaneously combust on the way over to the UK.
Then they are dried out again before being burned. All this produces vast amounts of CO2, as well as killing off a natural carbon sink.
After all that, the extortionate cost of the electricity pushes households into fuel poverty so that thousands of our elderly and infirm fellow citizens suffer a premature death during winter.
What a wonderful idea! Not.
This is a link to an interesting video that appeared on, of all places, PBS. It seems to be a pretty neutral take on Green Energy. The presenter’s view on ethanol from corn, and the mistakes made by Germany (I am beginning to doubt the intelligence of the German people) are especially interesting.
http://powertothepeoplefilm.com/