They Keep Throwing Your Money on the Fire.

I guess the thing to remember about subsidies is that they're intended to be just a (relatively) short term inducement to accelerate the development of a technology, rather than a permanent 'solution' of themselves. A bit like spending huge amounts on educating children when then won't start contributing financially to society for a decade or more.

Drax for example seems to be on target for £50/MWh (https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-drax-biomass-costs-idUKKBN1HR1IG ) - which just at the moment looks pretty good compared with gas generation at the moment (even compared with pre-Ukrane prices) or nuclear (around £90/MWh for the new plants).

If we cut down and burn trees it produces CO2 now. If we plant trees to capture the CO2 produced it will be another 20-40 years before that carbon is finally captured agin, in the meantime the tree we cut down and burnt is no longer capturing carbon. Can someone explain to a simple soul like me why this is better than burning coal when we are told it is the CO2 we produce today that is the problem.

Or to turn it around, by burning a tree now, we're just releasing the CO2 that it absorbed in the previous however many years while the tree was growing. If we left the tree to die naturally it would decay (or be consumed by forest fire) and release most of the carbon eventually anyway.

Perhaps a useful analogy is putting a fountain in a pond - there are two options - the easy one is connect it to a hosepipe fed from the outside tap, the second to install a pump that draws water from the pond itself. The first option will pretty obviously flood the pond given enough time, while the second option might still cause some changes in water level as the pump starts and stops, especially if for some technical reason we had to prime the pump system with tap water, but it should be pretty safe from overtopping in general.

None of the options are ideal - renewable sources (wind, solar etc) need an investment of energy (and likely CO2 emissions) to manufacture the things in the first place, and then only gradually do they repay that investment. Likewise with most kinds of common thermal insulation. Usually there's a trade-off between immediate and medium term results.

   - Andy.

I guess the thing to remember about subsidies is that they're intended to be just a (relatively) short term inducement to accelerate the development of a technology, rather than a permanent 'solution' of themselves. A bit like spending huge amounts on educating children when then won't start contributing financially to society for a decade or more.

Drax for example seems to be on target for £50/MWh (https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-drax-biomass-costs-idUKKBN1HR1IG ) - which just at the moment looks pretty good compared with gas generation at the moment (even compared with pre-Ukrane prices) or nuclear (around £90/MWh for the new plants).

If we cut down and burn trees it produces CO2 now. If we plant trees to capture the CO2 produced it will be another 20-40 years before that carbon is finally captured agin, in the meantime the tree we cut down and burnt is no longer capturing carbon. Can someone explain to a simple soul like me why this is better than burning coal when we are told it is the CO2 we produce today that is the problem.

Or to turn it around, by burning a tree now, we're just releasing the CO2 that it absorbed in the previous however many years while the tree was growing. If we left the tree to die naturally it would decay (or be consumed by forest fire) and release most of the carbon eventually anyway.

Perhaps a useful analogy is putting a fountain in a pond - there are two options - the easy one is connect it to a hosepipe fed from the outside tap, the second to install a pump that draws water from the pond itself. The first option will pretty obviously flood the pond given enough time, while the second option might still cause some changes in water level as the pump starts and stops, especially if for some technical reason we had to prime the pump system with tap water, but it should be pretty safe from overtopping in general.

None of the options are ideal - renewable sources (wind, solar etc) need an investment of energy (and likely CO2 emissions) to manufacture the things in the first place, and then only gradually do they repay that investment. Likewise with most kinds of common thermal insulation. Usually there's a trade-off between immediate and medium term results.

   - Andy.