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Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

bbc.com

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Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#31

Post by eloff »

jonnypotty wrote: post #25

Burning wood pellets puts out co2. claiming zero carbon output for this means people could literally burn forests and claim they're being carbon neutral. It's scandalous. The only option would be forests that are managed and burnt for fuel. I'd be interested to know what area of forest you'd need to bring under this sort of management in order to produce say, enough power for a medium sized city. But ultimately this…

The CO2 in wood comes from the atmosphere recently, while the CO2 in coal came from the prehistoric atmosphere. That's an improvement. That's also how biofuels work. Wood is a renewable resource when managed sustainably, and carbon neutral.

How practical it is, is another matter entirely.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#32

Post by zebrafish »

jonnypotty wrote: post #25

Burning wood pellets puts out co2. claiming zero carbon output for this means people could literally burn forests and claim they're being carbon neutral. It's scandalous. The only option would be forests that are managed and burnt for fuel. I'd be interested to know what area of forest you'd need to bring under this sort of management in order to produce say, enough power for a medium sized city. But ultimately this…

The pellets come from managed forests. Typically around 7 trees are planted for each harvested. The carbon emitted from the burning of the pellets is absorbed by the tree while it matures. These trees generally have ~10 year lifespans. If there were no productive use for the trees, the land would be taxed by the government anyways, the trees cut down permanently and the land would be used for ranching or farming.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#34

Post by regularfry »

bengale wrote: post #24
FreeBricklayer wrote: post #20

Britain achieves 21% of their power from Nuclear energy. Where is the rest of the power coming from? Hydro and wind? In the meantime, Germany is phasing nuclear energy out of its grid and is facing incredible challenges in attempting to use renewables.

We've got huge nuclear issues in the pipeline though. The latest reactor is going to cost us a fortune and almost all of our existing infrastructure is at the end of its life.

Well past the original design life, in some cases. Last I heard (and this was a few years ago, so I'm well out of the loop) we were going to commission a bunch of gas plants around the M25 to plug the gap.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#35

Post by renegading »

leonardaustin wrote: post #5

Hummm, 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. https://youtu.be/6RP-jYDgiMg?t=100

The carbon is captured when the tree grows and then released when the wood is burned. This is different from fossil fuels where it is underground.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#36

Post by tomatocracy »

hebrox wrote: post #10
wazoox wrote: post #8

And 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.

It's not the same reason (the 30% point is usually about how much demand-shedding is possible if you get a period of high demand and low production from renewables) but due to the current period of exceptionally low demand and the high share of renewables, the UK has had to start taking some emergency measures already:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-07/u-k-grid-...

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#37

Post by azinman2 »

renegading wrote: post #35
leonardaustin wrote: post #5

Hummm, 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. https://youtu.be/6RP-jYDgiMg?t=100

The carbon is captured when the tree grows and then released when the wood is burned. This is different from fossil fuels where it is underground.

And how does it get from the forest into compressed form, and then to the UK?

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#38

Post by rowanG077 »

renegading wrote: post #35
leonardaustin wrote: post #5

Hummm, 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. https://youtu.be/6RP-jYDgiMg?t=100

The carbon is captured when the tree grows and then released when the wood is burned. This is different from fossil fuels where it is underground.

How is that different? Fossil fuels were also captured many years ago. The only difference is the number of years.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#39

Post by chrisseaton »

rowanG077 wrote: post #38
renegading wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The carbon is captured when the tree grows and then released when the wood is burned. This is different from fossil fuels where it is underground.

How is that different? Fossil fuels were also captured many years ago. The only difference is the number of years.

The time it takes to renew.

Re: Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power

#40

Post by hn23 »

renegading wrote: post #35
leonardaustin wrote: post #5

Hummm, 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. https://youtu.be/6RP-jYDgiMg?t=100

The carbon is captured when the tree grows and then released when the wood is burned. This is different from fossil fuels where it is underground.

The reason wood is considered neutral is, that most of the wood is used for construction and other stuff. If you burn it and happen to burn fossil fuel as well, nothing is neutral.
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