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Why Is The Drax Power Station Counted As A Renewable Source Of Energy?
29 Answers
It uses diesel ships to transport vandalised forests to burn, Jesus on a bicycle.
It's clearly anything but carbon neutral and to be counted as such is a travesty. Can anyone shed any light on this?
It's clearly anything but carbon neutral and to be counted as such is a travesty. Can anyone shed any light on this?
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bednobs: "according to your link uk law allows them to claim biomass as neutral. However, they dont just use biomass, and therefore dont claim to be carbon neutral" - they're you go again, we are talking about the biomass section of Drax are we not. They claim that the biomass section alone is carbon neutral not the whole thing.
//However, they dont just use biomass, and therefore dont claim to be carbon neutral//
They claim that their biomass operations are carbon neutral and they aim to convert the rest of the plant in Yorkshire to burn biomass in the near future. They are actually aiming for better than that - they aim to be “carbon negative”:
“Being carbon negative means removing more carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere than produced in our operations,…”
It’s blindingly obvious to anybody that burning wood produces carbon emissions. It’s also blindingly obvious that the trees that are allegedly planted to replace those felled will not provide sufficient replacements. Much of the gumpf on the Drax website is garbled nonsense. Their charts and calculations are designed to explain very little and they certainly don’t demonstrate that trees will be felled at a greater rate than replacements will mature.
This paper provides a somewhat different slant on the issue:
https:/
In particular:
“Drax says the only carbon footprint from burning those pellets is from the harvesting, processing, and transporting of the wood. It reckons that, overall, converting its power plant from coal to wood saves 12 million tons of CO2 emissions a year, making Drax “the largest carbon-saving project in Europe,” according to its CEO Andy Koss.”
“But critics say there are a series of problems with the claim. The first is nobody can be certain the new trees necessary to absorb power-station emissions will ever be planted, especially since Drax does not own the forests harvested for its timber. A British government study in 2014 concluded that a worst-case scenario, in which the logged forest land is turned over to agriculture, could result in total CO2 emissions twice as great as from burning coal.”
“A second concern is the time lag. Even if new trees are planted promptly to replace old ones, they will take between 20 and 100 years to grow sufficiently to take up all the CO2 emitted by burning the old trees. Throughout that time, there will be more CO2 in the air. This is a clear threat to the world keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next few decades, argued Duncan Brack, of the London-based think tank Chatham House, in a report earlier this year.”
//When restrictions are lifted, why don't you go there?//
Visiting will not demonstrate the false arguments being put forward by Drax. Claiming that burning wood is a renewable source of energy is simply disingenuous. It’s no more renewable than burning gas or coal – it simply involves a quicker replacement of fuel, but nowhere near quick enough to be termed “renewable”.
This is yet another episode of taking the public for idiots. Burning mature trees is a double whammy as far as carbon emissions go: they take CO2 when they are alive so that capacity is lost; they emit it when they are burned. Energy users pay through the nose for Drax to convert its plant to burn wood. This enables them to continue production when they should be closed down if the emissions target means anything at all. I’m not particularly fussed because I don’t believe that any of the measures being taken will have the slightest influence on the climate. But I don’t like being taken for an idiot.
They claim that their biomass operations are carbon neutral and they aim to convert the rest of the plant in Yorkshire to burn biomass in the near future. They are actually aiming for better than that - they aim to be “carbon negative”:
“Being carbon negative means removing more carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere than produced in our operations,…”
It’s blindingly obvious to anybody that burning wood produces carbon emissions. It’s also blindingly obvious that the trees that are allegedly planted to replace those felled will not provide sufficient replacements. Much of the gumpf on the Drax website is garbled nonsense. Their charts and calculations are designed to explain very little and they certainly don’t demonstrate that trees will be felled at a greater rate than replacements will mature.
This paper provides a somewhat different slant on the issue:
https:/
In particular:
“Drax says the only carbon footprint from burning those pellets is from the harvesting, processing, and transporting of the wood. It reckons that, overall, converting its power plant from coal to wood saves 12 million tons of CO2 emissions a year, making Drax “the largest carbon-saving project in Europe,” according to its CEO Andy Koss.”
“But critics say there are a series of problems with the claim. The first is nobody can be certain the new trees necessary to absorb power-station emissions will ever be planted, especially since Drax does not own the forests harvested for its timber. A British government study in 2014 concluded that a worst-case scenario, in which the logged forest land is turned over to agriculture, could result in total CO2 emissions twice as great as from burning coal.”
“A second concern is the time lag. Even if new trees are planted promptly to replace old ones, they will take between 20 and 100 years to grow sufficiently to take up all the CO2 emitted by burning the old trees. Throughout that time, there will be more CO2 in the air. This is a clear threat to the world keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next few decades, argued Duncan Brack, of the London-based think tank Chatham House, in a report earlier this year.”
//When restrictions are lifted, why don't you go there?//
Visiting will not demonstrate the false arguments being put forward by Drax. Claiming that burning wood is a renewable source of energy is simply disingenuous. It’s no more renewable than burning gas or coal – it simply involves a quicker replacement of fuel, but nowhere near quick enough to be termed “renewable”.
This is yet another episode of taking the public for idiots. Burning mature trees is a double whammy as far as carbon emissions go: they take CO2 when they are alive so that capacity is lost; they emit it when they are burned. Energy users pay through the nose for Drax to convert its plant to burn wood. This enables them to continue production when they should be closed down if the emissions target means anything at all. I’m not particularly fussed because I don’t believe that any of the measures being taken will have the slightest influence on the climate. But I don’t like being taken for an idiot.
It really comes down to definitions - particularly if the CO2 is a short term 'rent' from the environment and not long term release (like coal or oil). There's considerable debate over this that then extends into all aspects or renewables - for example, all those solar panels or wind towers, what about the CO2 and the rest released in making them and, ultimately, destroying them at the end of their life cycle. In short there are a lot of false economics being bandied around - and then one should throw in energy efficiency.
I am very anti electricity at the moment, esp. for vehicles - why (not the costs or charging points and all the rest, not even the total life-cycle CO2 costs), but simply at the moment 65% of tricity is generated from oil and gas! This is inefficient and then one has the transmission line losses (not inconsiderable) to take into account viz the numbers.....
Two things to change the sailing tack, one the demise of our peat bogs as these are genuine sinks - the ironical thing being Sizewell C being built on some of the UK's best peat bogs on the East Coast.....and secondly, being more positively, I am very pro recent developments in syn-hydrocarbons where CO2 is captured from the atmosphere in huge quantities, concentrated and reacted with H2 to generate the building hydrocarbon blocks for syn-mogas, kerosine and diesels....and without the Nitrous or Sulphur elements that pop out of the ground (now largely controlled - but still). This would be much closer to a genuine CO2 neutral scenario - but by no means perfect.
I am very anti electricity at the moment, esp. for vehicles - why (not the costs or charging points and all the rest, not even the total life-cycle CO2 costs), but simply at the moment 65% of tricity is generated from oil and gas! This is inefficient and then one has the transmission line losses (not inconsiderable) to take into account viz the numbers.....
Two things to change the sailing tack, one the demise of our peat bogs as these are genuine sinks - the ironical thing being Sizewell C being built on some of the UK's best peat bogs on the East Coast.....and secondly, being more positively, I am very pro recent developments in syn-hydrocarbons where CO2 is captured from the atmosphere in huge quantities, concentrated and reacted with H2 to generate the building hydrocarbon blocks for syn-mogas, kerosine and diesels....and without the Nitrous or Sulphur elements that pop out of the ground (now largely controlled - but still). This would be much closer to a genuine CO2 neutral scenario - but by no means perfect.
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