Roger B said:

Are people slowly starting to realise the many fallacies about ‘renewable energy’?

Many fallacies?  I think Drax is one exceptional case.

Simon:

Which is worse a controlled burn of logged wood producing electrical energy or a wild uncontrolled forest fire?

It is a practice in some parts of the of the US to thin out the forests (log trees) then have controlled burns to prevent natural fires being started by lightening.

 I live next to a wildlife area, which is a habitat for the endangered scrub jay (bird) which can not exist surrounded by tall trees. Every few years selected trees are cut down and fire prevention lanes. are created by the county.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay 

The trouble with Drax is its size.  It was the biggest coal-fired power station in the UK, and has now been converted to burn vast quantities of wood instead.

Originally, there was talk of sources such as short rotation coppice.  Some famers even planted up fields of willow trees.  But it turns out to be more effective to burn whole trees than big piles of willow twigs.  So forests in America are being chopped down and stuck on boats to England, just to burn them for electricity.

It's safe to assume it's all low-grade wood that timber mills don't want.  But it's not clear how much of it would have been cut down anyway.

"Drax power plant ‘the largest single source of carbon emissions in the UK’, report finds"

To take that point, out of context, is rather to miss the point of burning biofuels vs fossil fuels. Biofuels, in principle, are part of a cycle where nature carbon-captures the same carbon that burning emits and in a (relatively) short timescale. It's rather like implying a pond-pump which circulates water back to the same pond it draw the water from adds just as much water as a hose pipe fed from the mains .. although only the latter will produce a nett increase in pond water level.

That's not to say that Drax is a shinning example of how to do things properly - as even there's a lot of detail to get right and perhaps not all of it has been in that case.

    - Andy.

The next obvious fallacy is that renewable energy is cheap, as was demonstrated by the UK governments last capacity auction were no bids were received at £44 per MWh. This is quoted at 2012 prices, equivalent to around  £60 per MWh at 2023 prices.

The number quoted in the media was always £44 per MWh.

The Administrative Strike Prices in force for this year’s CfD auction are at 2023 prices

Offshore Wind: £100.66 per MWh

Onshore Wind: £88.26 per MWh

Solar Power: £84.12 per MWh

These costs are all for intermittent, unplannable electricity. No one talks about the costs incurred by storage or back up systems.

Nuclear generation, which is consistent and controllable is quoted between £100 - £120 per MWh. Quite a bargain.

Drax burning wood from anywhere means transporting it by lorry, ship, train, environmentally unfriendly and costing around 25% more than local wood.  But the amount of CO2 gas produced is the same as if they were burning oil or gas or coal!!! at Drax.

So if we can source wood locally to reduce transport costs why not burn local coal like China and India do which it is economically available and helps reduce their need for oil/gas alternatives which are necessary to run their transport.

Small scale wood chip burning using local waste wood is a reasonable option. The heating of our apartment comes from such a source and there are plenty of local forests and a local timber industry.

Cutting down whole trees to chip and then transporting them halfway round the world using fossil fuelled trucks and ships is not sensible. How short is the’ relatively’ short timescale from clear cut to full regrowth?  If the forest is burnt in year one the full amount of CO2 is emitted. Over the next (optimistic probably more like 100) 50 years the CO2 is slowly reabsorbed. In year two the next forest is burnt again emitting the full amount of CO2……

Done right, firewood is carbon neutral.  You chop down a load of trees and burn them, releasing CO2.  Then you replant new trees, or allow natural regeneration, and that absorbs all the CO2 again as the trees grow.

But it's too easy to greenwash.  Chop down a load of trees. Sell them as "sustainable" firewood.  Turn the area into a new housing estate.

Hello Simon:

Just for a frame of reference- here in the Southern US they grow Southern Pine- it grows about 2 feet a year and it reaches  50+ feet high after about 20 years.

They used to use these trees to manufacture paper.

So are paper sacks/bags actually carbon free?

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay  

I do not mind what you burn as long as it is not gas or oil which I need for my car.

The CO2 is good for growing vegetables as well as trees.