RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted June 9, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 9, 2015 I'm not sure how cutting forests in the Southern USA, pelletising the timber then shipping across the Atlantic to burn in Drax power station is green? As I understand it wood has only half the calorific value of coal so you need twice as much for the same energy output so the only way it seems to stack up financially is by subsidy. Meanwhile Drax consumes the forests of the US and we in GB sit on an island of coal. How does the strategy work? But coal doesn't naturally regenerate itself nor absorb CO2, thus wood burning is better in principle if CO2 reduction is the goal. While yes, there is obviously an issue in respects of the amount of timber you need to burn, and the cost / CO2 produced by transporting it, in theory at least some of that gets reabsorbed by the replacement trees being planted in place of the harvested ones. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted June 9, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 9, 2015 The heating industry has been gearing up for some time for expected legislation limiting peak electrical consumption in new build domestic houses to 1 kW hr. So far successive governments have backed down on intended dates. Apparently 70% of the energy generated by big central power stations goes up in the air as heat. So the expected solution is to reduce the amount of electricity required - and then generate it locally - and yes some of it in the house itself. The wasted heat has a lot to do with Government policies that promote individual ownership ad the desire to privatise as much as possible than anything else. Housing heated by waste heat from industrial processes is very common in many counties across Europe and has a strong correlation with administrations where there is heavy state involvement with industrial companies or said companies are structured as cooperatives. In both cases the provision of housing can be included in the plants construction even though it is not the core activity of the business concerned and may in fact reduce the financial returns from any venture by imposing extra costs. Another factor is the preferance by many in the UK for houses rather than flats / apartments - which are a lot more efficient to heat (as a block) than lots of individual dwellings. You also need to factor in the British attitudes in respect of competition - for example a recent Which magazine article moaned that people living in a development which had a centralised heating scheme were being 'penalised' because they could not 'shop round for the best deal' and they wanted changes in this area. However it doesn't take a genius to realise that having lots of competition counts against long term schemes (which is what these district heating schemes represent) due to people deciding to arbiterally abandon being part of the scheme because alternatives are a bit cheaper, plus that being the most efficient at something actually involves removing duplication with a heavy emphasis on focusing all the attention in one area. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Saunders Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 But coal doesn't naturally regenerate itself nor absorb CO2, thus wood burning is better in principle if CO2 reduction is the goal. While yes, there is obviously an issue in respects of the amount of timber you need to burn, and the cost / CO2 produced by transporting it, in theory at least some of that gets reabsorbed by the replacement trees being planted in place of the harvested ones. If the Americans really wanted to cut down their CO2 emissions they would be burning the stuff themselves rather than selling it to the UK Generators, what happens when this supply is cut off to the UK and is their a replacement? Mark Saunders Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike Posted June 9, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 9, 2015 The wasted heat has a lot to do with Government policies that promote individual ownership ad the desire to privatise as much as possible than anything else. Housing heated by waste heat from industrial processes is very common in many counties across Europe and has a strong correlation with administrations where there is heavy state involvement with industrial companies or said companies are structured as cooperatives. In both cases the provision of housing can be included in the plants construction even though it is not the core activity of the business concerned and may in fact reduce the financial returns from any venture by imposing extra costs. Another factor is the preferance by many in the UK for houses rather than flats / apartments - which are a lot more efficient to heat (as a block) than lots of individual dwellings. You also need to factor in the British attitudes in respect of competition - for example a recent Which magazine article moaned that people living in a development which had a centralised heating scheme were being 'penalised' because they could not 'shop round for the best deal' and they wanted changes in this area. However it doesn't take a genius to realise that having lots of competition counts against long term schemes (which is what these district heating schemes represent) due to people deciding to arbiterally abandon being part of the scheme because alternatives are a bit cheaper, plus that being the most efficient at something actually involves removing duplication with a heavy emphasis on focusing all the attention in one area. Particularly in colder climates there are lots of district heating schemes. I'm not so sure that it is either practical (for some of the reasons you mentioned) or necessary in the UK. A far greater impact would be to try and have more joined up thinking in waste and energy policies particularly wrt industrial planning - using heat in industrial processes is more useful/efficient than district heating. For example the CHP plant being built by Inneos in Runcorn will burn fuel from Manchester's waste and supply steam/heat to Inneos's chemical plant. If the Americans really wanted to cut down their CO2 emissions they would be burning the stuff themselves rather than selling it to the UK Generators, what happens when this supply is cut off to the UK and is their a replacement? The USA has already reduced emissions considerably by switching to gas from fracking. While it would make much more sense to switch to biomass sources closer to home, it isn't as if there is a shortage of biomass sources if the USA supply was cut off.... Cheers, Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Saunders Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 Particularly in colder climates there are lots of district heating schemes. I'm not so sure that it is either practical (for some of the reasons you mentioned) or necessary in the UK. A far greater impact would be to try and have more joined up thinking in waste and energy policies particularly wrt industrial planning - using heat in industrial processes is more useful/efficient than district heating. For example the CHP plant being built by Inneos in Runcorn will burn fuel from Manchester's waste and supply steam/heat to Inneos's chemical plant. The USA has already reduced emissions considerably by switching to gas from fracking. While it would make much more sense to switch to biomass sources closer to home, it isn't as if there is a shortage of biomass sources if the USA supply was cut off.... Cheers, Mike The burning of Biomass close to source is the ideal but should be used as a preference in the country of source rather than exported! The use of Fracking to get Gas only reduces emissions so the next time the US decides to reduce CO2 emissions it may dictate the burning of Biomass rather than Gas! The GMC waste plant at Widnes is a good example of waste to power, but the economics of the market/mad house have a new plant being built at the Semcorp site at Wilton site on Teesside that will be fuelled by Liverpool's waste! And to think that Widnes is only the other side of the river! Have you noticed that at one time the Nations Balance of Payments was a Political issue but is barely mentioned today, how much money is being drained away by imports of fuel of all kinds! Was it not better to have coal dug out of the ground in this country and the money staying in this country! Mark Saunders Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PinzaC55 Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 But coal doesn't naturally regenerate itself nor absorb CO2, thus wood burning is better in principle if CO2 reduction is the goal. While yes, there is obviously an issue in respects of the amount of timber you need to burn, and the cost / CO2 produced by transporting it, in theory at least some of that gets reabsorbed by the replacement trees being planted in place of the harvested ones. Why can't the trees be grown here then ? And instead of calling it by the silly name "Biomass" , which sounds like some kind of lethal industrial waste, why don't they call them "Tree Burning Power Stations" ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 While passing Ferrybridge from the North, it was clear that there are huge heaps of coal still on site. Presumably to be moved elsewhere for power generation? The wasted heat has a lot to do with Government policies... Never forget that. Post WWII UK construction direction for housing was 'no worries, energy will be too cheap to meter'. Seriously, that was the brilliant plan, build cheaply with poor insulation all around, and just pour in the heat when it is chilly out. This is the trouble with all Government direction: wonderful when the data is correct and the analysis is sound, disastrous when in error. (Energy supply was going to be nuclear in the near future and thermonuclear not long after. Also, the climate scientists of the day were predictiing imminent doom due to a return of the ice age, so you should take any sweeping statements now emitting from that source with a large pinch of salt too. Nobody knows anything.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 Why can't the trees be grown here then ? And instead of calling it by the silly name "Biomass" , which sounds like some kind of lethal industrial waste, why don't they call them "Tree Burning Power Stations" ? They could grow the trees here; at least some of the trees for the one at Margam are local. As for calling them 'TBPS', Biomass refers to other sorts of product as well; straw at sites in East Anglia, dried sewerage elsewhere. Some sites in the States use waste corn cobs from canning/ corn-oil plants, elsewhere, olive stones and 'cake' are used. There are also sites that burn waste timber from the construction industry. Though all of these produce CO2 when burnt, burning, rather than burying, means that methane,( which has a far greater effect than CO2 on the atmosphere) is not produced by their decay. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Wintle Posted June 9, 2015 Share Posted June 9, 2015 Oh you ain't seen nothing yet !!!!! Wait till we all have "smart" meters, We have smart meters over here, but they are used to provide the consumption tracking which allows time-of-use billing. Basically, the electricity is priced significantly higher at peak times, all to get us to get up in the middle of the night to do our laundry and cook our meals when the electricity is cheap. Then they added a taxpayer funded across-the-board rebate on electricity, so it isn't clear what sort of behaviours they are really tring to encourage... Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jjb1970 Posted June 9, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 9, 2015 There are actually quite a lot of district energy schemes in the UK, in cities where the main clients are commercial buildings the real value is in chilled water for air conditioning. Many commercial buildings now become self heating quite quickly in the day and the problem is cooling them down, a district cooling system removes the whole headache of how to manage the heat rejection of air conditioning plant if installed in the building and the risks associated with evaporative cooling towers. There are tri-gen systems, the energy centre for the City of London district energy scheme supplying hot and chilled water to the City is immediately adjacent to Farringdon station. There are also a lot of industrial CHP plants around the UK although many were built in the 1990's when there were good incentives and the financial case for them is a lot less attractive now. CHP illustrate the perils of subsidy mechanisms, industrial CHP pretty much went from hero to zero because of a change in incentive mechanisms. Something to consider about renewable energy in the UK is that it should not be viewed as a means of generating electricity but rather a means for generating subsidies. At one point the Scottish government were attractive interest in offshore wave scheme by offering 6 ROCs (renewable obligation certificates) per MW for such schemes and there were people hailing this as proof of the financial viability of such schemes. The real killer for large district energy schemes in this country is the infrastructure cost. Laying the pipes is horrendously expensive given the returns on offer, it varies across the country and individual locations obviously but in Central London I never saw anything for less than £2500/metre plus the costs of the actual heating or cooling plant rooms, modifying buildings etc and then obviously the cost of generating the power and heat. Whilst the idea is excellent and it is very energy efficient it is not cheap. The running costs are good but you either pay a lot up front or you pay higher costs through life to pay for the costs of installation. On biomass, I was involved with the construction of what was at the time the UK's largest biomass project, despite offering long term incentives to farmers to grow fast rotation coppice most of the wood was from logging. Something to keep in mind with biomass is the number of transport movements needed to supply the wood (you're looking at massive quantities) then depending on the boiler design supplies of sand, lime, active carbon and chemicals with fly ash and bottom ash going off site as special waste, the number of road movements can be huge, day in, day out. Biomass may be less damaging than burning coal but I really do not see how it is promoted as being environmentally friendly, it is still emitting other atmospheric pollutants such as NOx. In terms of thermal efficiency few biomass plants are impressive either. The ones I saw were typically about 35% efficient so for every three trees you burn two of them are just thrown away in energy terms. The parasitic loads of such plants also tend to be very high relative to the power output, often 15%. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike 84C Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Over here in Lincolnshire the straw burning plant at Sleaford is now on line and the number of lorry movements carrying large bales has soared. Littering the county and villages with straw and chaff. But plans are afoot to build more straw consuming plants; there will not be enough straw in Lincolnshire! how soon till we see straw bale imports? And the biggest land owner in the county seems to grow more energy crops than food. And hundreds of acres of solar panels! What price Camerons food security. Soap box put away . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Richard E Posted June 11, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 11, 2015 Apologies for going further off topic but even alongside the ECML it is possible to see fields moving from arable output to energy output. With the lower energy efficiency of biomass surely the savings over coal are not as great as some might like us to believe? Wave and tide surely have a part to play but don't we need to bite the bullet on nuclear and push ahead on that front. And all of this will impact on rail traffic. I've already seen an apparent fall in coal traffic but offset slightly by a rise in biomass traffic to Drax. Presumably coal for Ferrybridge would have negotiated York at some point on its travels from the ports. I suspect the changes I've noticed are more down to the change in fuel mix at Drax though. I've also noticed that Cottam seems to be idle at the moment, EDF website says it is off line for a refit with Burton joining it in the next fortnight or so. I guess that run down to the shut down period would also see a reduction in coal traffic for the plant stockpiles. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike Posted June 11, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 11, 2015 With the lower energy efficiency of biomass surely the savings over coal are not as great as some might like us to believe? Wave and tide surely have a part to play but don't we need to bite the bullet on nuclear and push ahead on that front. This seems to be a bit of a common strawman argument - no one claims that biomass = coal, but the CO2 savings are very real (even if you include lower energy and transport costs). Having said which you are right that biomass (and renewables) are only part of the solution. Nuclear comes with its own set of problems, not least financing, construction, a lack of UK expertise in building new plants (how quickly we squandered our excellence there...) and the still to be solved issue of long term waste storage. Cheers, Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Richard E Posted June 11, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 11, 2015 I didn't say there were no savings as I accept there are some but I merely suggested they are not as great as some folk might think. There is also an argument by some (I don't lean either way) that climate change cycles are natural. We do need to look at our energy use and resources as they are finite - at least for now, and be far more efficient and consider all impacts. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike Posted June 11, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 11, 2015 I didn't say there were no savings as I accept there are some but I merely suggested they are not as great as some folk might think. There is also an argument by some (I don't lean either way) that climate change cycles are natural. We do need to look at our energy use and resources as they are finite - at least for now, and be far more efficient and consider all impacts. Hang on a minute - "not as great as some folk might think" - what does that actually mean? There is no argument that climate changes through cycles see Milankovitch cycles and other oscillations etc - the argument is whether additional man-made emissions (a very small fraction of the total emissions) are enough to upset natural equilibriums and cause more climate change (scientists overwhelmingly agree that the man made emissions are sufficient). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Richard E Posted June 12, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 12, 2015 OK, I'll bite. Some people say there are no savings because of all the emissions through moving the stuff half way round the world whilst others say it is the best thing since sliced bread. I am trying to suggest the truth lies in between but I'm not certain exactly where Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cunningduck Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 OK, I'll bite. Some people say there are no savings because of all the emissions through moving the stuff half way round the world whilst others say it is the best thing since sliced bread. I am trying to suggest the truth lies in between but I'm not certain exactly where Ah, now to ascertain that you'd have to find, then read all of, a neutral (ha!) and accurate (haha!) report into overall carbon emissions of various types of electrical generation. Good luck. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike 84C Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 And to produce all the new infrastructure to deal with the biomass? Last time I was in Immingham docks new silos with 125,000tonne capacity were just being finished and the British Ports guys said another batch of silos of a similar capacity were going to be started. I have not been to Immingham for three months or more so cannot comment on the situation now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Revolution Mike Posted June 12, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 12, 2015 OK, I'll bite. Some people say there are no savings because of all the emissions through moving the stuff half way round the world whilst others say it is the best thing since sliced bread. I am trying to suggest the truth lies in between but I'm not certain exactly where Easy to find out - look for life cycle asessments of biomass firing. The things to look out for are the boundaries to the LCA ie are the assessments fair and realistic for the fuel. Most LCAs are by definition limited in their scope, but they do give useful pointers. The JRC/IFEU presentation that comes up first or second on Google when I searched for "biomass lca" is a reasonable summary. To put things very crudely - moving biomass is akin to moving coal. Obviously it will depend on where you get things from and the energy density of each (don't forget we import a lot of our coal and coal varies in energy value greatly). The energy density of biomass is obviously lower so to generate the same amount of power you need more, but you can work out the tipping point of where increased transport costs outweigh GHG emissions from the firing (it will differ in almost every situation depending on the fuel comparisons and the plant type). There's nothing wrong with questioning perceived wisdoms, but at the same time either you have to accept other people's judgements or do some research yourself. Apologies for picking up on your points Richard, but it is quite depressing to see the way that the media and public introduce elements of doubt to things like biomass firing. Is it perfect - absolutely not; is it better than burning coal - in the vast majority of cases it will be but as I said earlier it is only part of a solution. Cheers, Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brack Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 The benguela railway had it right. Big garratts and north British built 482s (effectively SAR 19D copies) fired by eucalyptus grown alongside the track in it's own plantations. I shan't be too disappointed if that's what replaces our diesels On a more serious note we urgently need a more flexible grid with more interconnections with the continent, more pumped storage to deal with renewable output fluctuations, and significant investment in nuclear baseline capacity (whether thorium or uranium based). Motor transport could then shift to hydrogen fuel cells (much better for the environment impact/range/capacity than our current battery technologies). Petrol stations could easily install hydrogen production and storage plant. But for now, everyone's milking the easy money from oil based stuff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium newbryford Posted June 12, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 12, 2015 and the still to be solved issue of long term waste storage. Surely that's what Cumbria is for.....? Cheers, Mick Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jjb1970 Posted June 12, 2015 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 12, 2015 I think that this whole argument tends to get fixated on the energy supply issue and loses sight of the efficiency side of things. The cleanest power station of all is the one you don't build because it isn't needed. There is no such thing as zero impact energy production (OK, to be correct, energy conversion) and whatever we do will impact the environment. And there is no escaping from the fact that cost is important, whatever we do has to satisfy three requirements: Be low environmental impact Be secure Be affordable Each of things in isolation is relatively easy to achieve (ie. you can have very cheap energy if you don't worry about how dirty it is, you can have super clean energy if you aren't interested in cost etc) but to get all three means compromise and aiming for an optimum compromise. A lot of the green lobby ignore the economics of energy in a purist quest for low carbon energy whilst some ignore environmental impact on the basis that cheapest is bestest, neither view is sensible. There is a certain smugness in the West towards countries like China and finger pointing whilst ignoring the fact that one reason for the relative environmental performance is that as well as outsourcing our jobs and industry we also outsourced our pollution. With all that, we need to look more at reducing demand, almost everybody I know could reduce their energy demand relatively easily with limited to no sacrifices in terms of lifestyle. Most of it isn't even rocket science. I either laugh or cry at the fact that invariably the people I know who whinge loudest about energy prices are the ones who like to lounge around the house in a t-shirt and shorts in mid winter being kept warm and toasty by the central heating. We live in a Northern European country, if you don't want to wear a jersey in winter fair enough but don't whinge about heating bills. Or campaigns demanding the right to buy energy inefficient light bulbs etc, I'm not a fan of government bureaucracy but moves to remove energy intensive products from the market where there are much more efficient practical alternative products strikes me as sensible if we are serious about the environment and energy. Unfortunately one problem here is that many use "high efficiency" and "low cost" interchangeably, high efficiency is not the same as low cost (and vice versa)/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 There is no free lunch in the energy business., as I was told as a Gas Engineering apprentice back in the early 70's. Back then energy was cheap and dirty (coal). North Sea gas was the (and my) future. Well it's mostly gone (past peak), and I've retired. So, the world will be "de-carbonised" this century. I think not. Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher125 Posted June 18, 2015 Share Posted June 18, 2015 (Energy supply was going to be nuclear in the near future and thermonuclear not long after. Also, the climate scientists of the day were predictiing imminent doom due to a return of the ice age, so you should take any sweeping statements now emitting from that source with a large pinch of salt too. Nobody knows anything.) So if the scientific community isn't correct about everything from day one we should all just assume that they will never know anything? As more science is undertaken by more people over a longer period with increasing amounts of data and improved modelling so our understanding will improve. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 4630 Posted September 2, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 2, 2015 The BBC article refers to Eggborough Power Station, which is now consulting about closure effective from March 2016. Not a complete surprise, but I guess it won't be long now until the only cooling towers in the area will be for Drax. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-34127897 http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update/2015-09-02/eggborough-power-station-to-close-up-to-240-jobs-to-go/ Edited to add second link. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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