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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

#121

Post by belorn »

chrisco255 wrote: post #115
belorn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the point where someone bring up photos from almost 100 years ago and make comparison photo of today and notice the obvious: there is a lot more trees in the old photos.

Not 100 years ago, maybe in urban areas that got converted to buildings, but overall, forest acreage in the U.S. has been flat for the past 100 years. If you go back to early 1800s, that would have been a time when acreage was about 25% higher: https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/library/brochures/docs/2012/Forest...

Talking globally, deforestation results in a net decrease in forest biomass and been like that for a very long time.

Talking US specific, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_St... gives peaks and valleys depending on which time frame but a distinct decrease each year since 1963 with exception during the year of 1997. It is not flat.

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

#122

Post by heipei »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

I don't know how any German in their right mind can continue supporting coal (especially lignite) even if you were to ignore all the fancy carbon emission calculations. Lignite is won using strip-mining here, and by here I mean in the most populous state of Germany between the major Ruhr area and Düsseldorf/Cologne, all major population centers. From where I live, I have to drive straight through these mines whenever I want to go to either city, and the experience is surreal. There's a brand new three-lane highway and then open pits, hundreds of meters deep, for miles and miles in either direction, nothing else. It defies the imagination: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinisches_Braunkohlerevier#/...

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

#123

Post by iguy »

ben_w wrote: post #105
neilwilson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need the land for people not trees. The UK has a food deficit. Nut trees would be better than pine. Offshore wind and storage is the way forward. We need to press on with getting that sorted and save the land for other uses.

The Netherlands, with roughly double the population density of the UK, became a net exporter of food fairly recently. I think they did this by adding a lot of greenhouses. I think the UK probably can’t add so many greenhouses because, in my opinion, local politics means “pretty” is valued more than “functional”. This is also why on-shore wind isn’t already everywhere in the UK even though wind farms don’t prevent agr…

Aside, but do you know if that means net exporter in value or also in calories? I had the impression all those greenhouses were great at making relatively expensive things like fresh salad, which you can then trade for cheap Canadian wheat etc, but I could be wrong.

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

#124

Post by chrisco255 »

belorn wrote: post #121
chrisco255 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not 100 years ago, maybe in urban areas that got converted to buildings, but overall, forest acreage in the U.S. has been flat for the past 100 years. If you go back to early 1800s, that would have been a time when acreage was about 25% higher: https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/library/brochures/docs/2012/Forest...

Talking globally, deforestation results in a net decrease in forest biomass and been like that for a very long time. Talking US specific, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_St... gives peaks and valleys depending on which time frame but a distinct decrease each year since 1963 with exception during the year of 1997. It is not flat.

Obviously I don't mean perfectly flat, when we're talking an organic, dynamic system. The trend is flat. See page 7 of the document I linked from the USDA. Even the page you link shows: 766,000,000 acres (3,100,000 km2) in 2012 and 721,000,000 acres (2,920,000 km2) around 1920. Note: "The majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910"

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

#125

Post by Retric »

renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

France imports and exports a lot of electricity, so the used electricity is far less clean than that suggests. Similarly, countries that import from France are cleaner than that suggests.

This is an important consideration when looking at the cost of scaling nuclear power as it gets far more expensive the lower the utilization. You can get to around 40% across an electric grid such as Europe or an island, but scaling past that needs truly massive subsidies.

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

#126

Post by [deleted] »

jasoncartwright wrote: post #111
renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

>As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. Yeah, that's true, but you've taken a reading there at the worst time of day whilst it's not windy here. The other week we achieved the second lowest carbon intensity daily average ever (the lowest was in the summer last year). Here's what the UK carbon intensity of electricity looks over a larger time scale (8yrs) https://e…

[deleted]

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

#127

Post by Scoundreller »

heipei wrote: post #122
renaudg wrote: post #106

Every time there's a thread on the topic, I like to share this fantastic realtime map of the carbon intensity of electricity production in various countries : https://www.electricitymap.org/map As I write this, the UK's intensity is 326 gCO₂eq/kWh, which is nothing to write home about. This is better than the worst European offender (coal-loving Poland : 652g) as well as Baltic countries, the Netherlands and Germany…

I don't know how any German in their right mind can continue supporting coal (especially lignite) even if you were to ignore all the fancy carbon emission calculations. Lignite is won using strip-mining here, and by here I mean in the most populous state of Germany between the major Ruhr area and Düsseldorf/Cologne, all major population centers. From where I live, I have to drive straight through these mines whenever…

Quickest and most straightforward would be to convert those coal plants to natural gas.

But that gas has to come from somewhere, and I don’t think they like knowing that “somewhere” is Russia.

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

#128

Post by Litost »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #108
neilwilson wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need the land for people not trees. The UK has a food deficit. Nut trees would be better than pine. Offshore wind and storage is the way forward. We need to press on with getting that sorted and save the land for other uses.

To be fair much of Scotland used to be covered in forestry and has been denuded. There are some interesting projects showing what happens if the land is simply protected from over grazing (particularly by deer). As for grid scale storage, the Tesla battery in Australia is 185Mwh, or roughly a 10th of the amount of power the UK receives from France in an hour as a result of their overproduction of nuclear power. It's…

"To be fair much of Scotland used to be covered in forestry and has been denuded. There are some interesting projects showing what happens if the land is simply protected from over grazing (particularly by deer)."

Interesting this popped up, as I'm studying an Ecosystem Restoration Design Course and the first week was studying exactly this, related Ted Talk here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAGHUkby2Is

But yes, overgrazing is the main culprit there (and also in a lot of other places that have suffered ecosystem collapse).

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

#129

Post by [deleted] »

Scoundreller wrote: post #127
heipei wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how any German in their right mind can continue supporting coal (especially lignite) even if you were to ignore all the fancy carbon emission calculations. Lignite is won using strip-mining here, and by here I mean in the most populous state of Germany between the major Ruhr area and Düsseldorf/Cologne, all major population centers. From where I live, I have to drive straight through these mines whenever…

Quickest and most straightforward would be to convert those coal plants to natural gas. But that gas has to come from somewhere, and I don’t think they like knowing that “somewhere” is Russia.

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by Scoundreller »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #54
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

Some back of the envelope maths, he said it takes an area 18 miles by 18 miles every year to produce 7% of the UKs electricity demand. Pine trees are harvested around 30 years old (ignoring thinnings deliberately here). So to set up a 30 year rotation of 300 square miles you are looking at an area roughly the size of Wales. That seems pretty unsustainable from a UK point of view but obviously there are less densely p…

Canada has plenty of land that’s uninhabited, unsuitable for farming/grazing, but usable for forestry.

Wood has about the heat output as lignite per kg, and half that of anthracite.

Should still be amenable to shipping.

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