Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
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Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#2The wood pellets are interesting —- if we were growing forests at the same rate as we consume them via the pellets, would it be close enough to a closed loop system?
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#3> He says the plant now uses seven million tonnes of pellets sourced from commercial forests in the US a year and says Drax will phase out coal entirely by March next year.
Anyone know more about using ‘compressed wooden pellets sourced from the US’?
First time I’ve heard of an easy? transition option for existing coal power plants, achieved by changing the fuel burnt.
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#4The wood pellets are interesting —- if we were growing forests at the same rate as we consume them via the pellets, would it be close enough to a closed loop system?
This is unfortunately not the case. Lots of wood is imported from the third world, potentially the Amazon.
Even if it was grown in the country it is consumed in, it would eventually suffer the same issues that industrial farming does. The soil becomes depleted and requires fossil-fuel based fertilizer.
Burning the Amazon is now progress, apparently.
Something like fusion, or cleaner nuclear, is our only hope.
I worry about us.
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#5Hummm, not sure wood pellets are carbon neutral. I think the UK has just offshored its CO2 emissions to the US. Great video below explaining in more detail.
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#6The wood pellets are interesting —- if we were growing forests at the same rate as we consume them via the pellets, would it be close enough to a closed loop system?
This is unfortunately not the case. Lots of wood is imported from the third world, potentially the Amazon. Even if it was grown in the country it is consumed in, it would eventually suffer the same issues that industrial farming does. The soil becomes depleted and requires fossil-fuel based fertilizer. Burning the Amazon is now progress, apparently. Something like fusion, or cleaner nuclear, is our only hope. I worry…
Do you have any source for that? I find shipping wood half way around the world for power troubling but I've never heard anyone claim that the wood is not sourced from sustainable forestry.
For the most part the Amazon is being burned to provide farm and grazing land.
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#7> He says the plant now uses seven million tonnes of pellets sourced from commercial forests in the US a year and says Drax will phase out coal entirely by March next year. Anyone know more about using ‘compressed wooden pellets sourced from the US’? First time I’ve heard of an easy? transition option for existing coal power plants, achieved by changing the fuel burnt.
It's called "biomass" and it's a massive scam that harms the environment. Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs released a recent documentary on it [0] that was censored by the "green" industry. As you watch the documentary, do some fact checking on your own [1].
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#8And nuclear. Because Brits know that you can't rely 100% on renewables (30% is about the maximum for most countries; "wood pellet" isn't actually renewable, it's forest mining).
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#9And nuclear . Because Brits know that you can't rely 100% on renewables (30% is about the maximum for most countries; "wood pellet" isn't actually renewable, it's forest mining).
The UK's combined wind (23GW) and solar (13GW) generation capacity is at least 3x that of nuclear (9.3GW). Capacity factor aside, nuclear is not a necessary component of a future UK grid (with the caveat that it can import nuclear generated power from France over a 2GW interconnector). [1]
There are ~269 renewables projects, roughly 40GW, in the planning stages that will add to that existing renewables capacity. [2] Hydro imports from Scandinavia over an underwater HVDC transmission cable would also be a possibility.
[1] https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/GB?wind=false&solar=fals...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/16/planning-ap...
Note: Edits were made to this comment to the multiplier and the total nuclear generator capacity based on blibble's comment below.
Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power
#10And nuclear . Because Brits know that you can't rely 100% on renewables (30% is about the maximum for most countries; "wood pellet" isn't actually renewable, it's forest mining).
Do you have a source for that 30%? I've seen that number becoming higher and higher as we get more real data.