Reposted from NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
OCTOBER 8, 2021
By Paul Homewood
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h/t Robin Guenier
A government-subsidised renewable energy plant run by Drax is the biggest single source of carbon dioxide in the UK, according to new analysis shared exclusively with Sky News.
Drax’s Yorkshire power plant receives multimillion pound subsidies for burning woody biomass pellets to generate renewable electricity.
New research by climate think tank Ember said the plant is among the biggest sources of carbon dioxide and PM10 (particulate matter of 10 micrometres and smaller) air pollution of all EU power stations – when biomass emissions are included – more even than some of Europe’s dirtiest coal plants.
Yet the emissions are not counted towards the UK’s total.
The UK excludes these biomass emissions from its total count, because – like the EU – it treats bioenergy as immediately carbon neutral on the assumption that forest regrowth soaks up the carbon again. Advertisement
But recent science disputes this carbon neutrality, said Ember’s chief operating officer Phil MacDonald. In fact there is a “real risk” that biomass is responsible for “significant emissions” he said.
Duncan Brack, a policy analyst who has authored a report questioning biomass policy, said electricity bill-payers were “in effect paying to increase carbon emissions to the atmosphere”.
Drax claims to have reduced its emissions by 90% since replacing coal with sustainable biomass. A spokesperson called Ember’s interpretation of the figures “completely at odds with what the world’s leading climate scientists at the UN IPCC say about sustainable biomass being crucial to delivering global climate targets”.
The amount of pollution from burning wood for power is not disputed by bioenergy companies, but this analysis may fan the flames of the debate about bioenergy’s renewable status.
Critics point out that forests take decades to regrow and recapture all the carbon again, allowing warming emissions to accumulate in the atmosphere just when the world seeks to slash emissions by 2050.
In January the European Academies Sciences Advisory Council (EASAC) claimed that biomass technology is “not effective in mitigating climate change” and in February more than 500 scientists asked the EU to revoke biomass’s “carbon neutral” status.
“Regrowth takes time the world does not have to solve climate change,” the scientists wrote.
A 2018 study estimated it would take 40 to 100 years or more for forests to recapture the carbon emissions from burning the wood pellets, if ever, because forests are subject to hazards like disease and fires.
The paper’s lead author John Sterman, professor of management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, warned that assuming biofuels were carbon neutral could actually “worsen irreversible impacts of climate change before benefits accrue.”
His paper concluded that wood emits more CO2 per unit of electricity generated than coal because it is less efficient.
An energy department (Beis) spokesperson said it “did not recognise” Ember’s figures. They said biomass was key to government plans to slash emissions by 2050, and that the UK follows relevant guidance from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Drax continues to burn a small amount of coal. In 2020 its emissions from coal were 1.5 million tonnes (Mt) and from biomass – which Drax calls ‘biologically sequestered carbon’ were 13.3 Mt. But even without the coal emissions, its Selby plant would remain the largest single point source of CO2 in the UK and the fourth highest in the EU.
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Some of us have been arguing this point for years!
Note how both Drax and the BEIS are simply sticking their fingers in their ears! “We don’t recognise these figures!!”
Not surprising really. Drax would be bankrupt without their renewable subsidies, which would presumably disappear if their “low carbon” designation was withdrawn. And the government’s decarbonisation strategy would be thrown off course, as Drax would then add an extra 3% to UK emissions.
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As a consulting forester in my own business helping private landowners manage their forest land, I’m a big supporter of increasing markets for forest biomass so we can practice great silviculture although I think the UK would be better off burning coal or natural gas.
In MA, 60-70% of the timber is low grade junk. Everybody wants the nice timber but we need to reduce the amount of junk timber otherwise our forests will continue to be degraded by destructive highgrade logging (taking the best and leaving the rest). Thanks to biomass markets, I’ve been able to improve the health and productivity of over 10,000 acres. Support a new Forestry Deal for MA Landowners – https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=MikeLeonardConsultingForester&set=a.4179928622087279
Yes, but Drax emits good CO2, because it’s from renewables. 😉
The US ought to count the wood pellets it’s producing as negative CO2 (it is after all removing CO2 from the air and capturing them in wood which they then ship to the UK). With a stroke of an accountants pen Biden could ‘reduce’ the CO2 output of the US.
Then we’d have the funny situation of the UK counting its burning of the wood as havibg zero impact on CO2. With a few more international shipments of wood pellets we could get to bet zero really easily!
Of course, Greta might be able to work out something is amiss and shame Boris about his CO2 accounting, but the quicker the population realises the whole thing is a farce the better.
To me the irony is particulate pollution is within the definition of what the US EPA was created to address, and it took legal activists to distort the concept of “pollution” to include CO2 using debatable reasoning.
Now they feel they can ignore the pollution that has real health impacts TODAY!
Here in South Africa we are happy if we have power. Never mind that it comes from burning coal.
Yet, the uneducated want to replace this energy with green energy.
I am trying to set them straight,
The Green Illusion | Bread on the water
I have 100 trees on my property. Every year I cut down the two oldest trees for firewood for the next winter and plant two seedlings. Over the next year the 100 trees grow and easily replace the mass of the two trees I burned. In 5, 10, 50 or 100 years, this process would add no net CO2. It is sustainable. Now if someone cuts down 50 of these trees this year, chips them up and burns them in a power plant and does the same next year, that is not sustainable. You could scale up what I do I suppose, but you’d have to control and manage a pretty large forest to operate a gigawatt scale power plant sustainably.
You drew an artificial bounary around 100 trees. If there were 50 similar groups of 100 trees, you could cut all of one group down each year. The planet has about three trillion trees.
Don’t worry. Once you pay a carbon tax you’ll gladly stay home, sit in the dark and freeze. Then Drax won’t be needed. It’s all part of UN globalist government policy.
Ember is wrong. It takes too long is a weak argument. Trees are growing like crazy all over the world. There is net tree gain. Wood is simply a less dense form of coal. There’s nothing wrong with burning it for electricity. Drax works. It’s reliable. It will be full on this Winter. Be thankful for it. Ally with Drax, not the Greens. Drax is burning stuff. Burning stuff is fine. Of course the subsidy is wrong. All the subsidies should be ended. Not just Drax’s.
Of course there is a net greening and mass increase in trees globally. They LOVE LOVE LOVE the CO2 that we’re producing.
CO2 fertilization is a proven fact and most plant life grows better at 450 – 700 ppm with some doing even better at 1200 ppm.
Drax wouldn’t be profitable without the subsidy of £800m plus a year. It’s around £2.2 million a day!
No subsidy = no power. Crazy isn’t it?
First they came for the woodburners, and I said nothing. You all know the saying. Why should anyone be able to burn wood to heat their home? Argue against that not some target the Greens are attacking. Jesus.
“completely at odds with what the world’s leading climate scientists at the UN IPCC”
Uttering this phrase is by itself enough to prove the power plant is based on a scam.
Looks like they assume long growth hardwoods instead of the rapid growth softwoods that are sent to Drax.
“if ever, because forests are subject to hazards like disease and fires.“, again assumptions instead of performing observations at the forests used for Drax fuel. Assumptions that allow these alleged researchers to negatively game the results.
More urban couch potato confirmation bias.
We already knew that burning wood mass needs more of that mass per kilowatt of energy generated and produces more CO2 emissions. It is well known physics. Add to that the energy use and emissions produced to get that wood mass to DRAX from the US. It is madness.
CO2 from approved sources is carbon-neutral, gotcha.