Category: wood burning

Ontario Converts 4,000MW of Coal Power Plant to 44MW of solar

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Ontario Canada is converting a 4,000MW coal power plant to a 44MMW solar farm.

“Through the IESO’s new Large Renewable Procurement program, solar providers will receive an average of 15.67 cents/kWh for their clean energy.”

“The province’s pivot toward renewables has not come without significant economic ramifications, however. On-peak power cost consumers 17.5 cents/kWh in Nov. of 2015, compared to just 9.7 cents/kWh in the same month of 2006, according to the Ontario Energy Board—an 80 per cent hike. For off-peak power, Ontarians paid 8.3 cents/kWh in 2015, relative to 3.4 cent/kWh in 2006—or 144 per cent more.”

There was no mention in the story how 44MW of intermittent power can replace 4,000MW of dispatchable power.

There was no mention in the story of how many jobs will be transferred to China or India.

 

 

 

 

DRAX Wood Burning Scam Unravelling

Published on by sunshinehours16 Comments

 

I’ve written about DRAX before. Because of loopholes in UK and EU “climate” laws the largest coal power plant is switching from coal to wood pellets sources from the USA.

DRAX has made the news again.

The report says it has found ‘misleading statements by Enviva about its emissions and environmental impacts’ in its prospectus when it was floated on the New York stock exchange last April.

The report says Enviva has claimed that ‘burning wood in power plants reduces carbon emissions compared to coal’. But the study says Drax’s own data shows that while burning coal leads to emissions of 1,901lb of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour (Mwh), the figure for wood is significantly higher – 2,128lb per Mwh.

Enviva’s claim is only possible because of a UK and EU ‘policy loophole’ – which does not apply in America – classing biomass fuel such as wood pellets as ‘zero carbon’.

According to the study, Enviva has not made this clear. Its claim to the SEC that using its pellets ‘reduces’ emissions only applies to making and shipping the pellets, not burning them.

The complaint calls on the SEC to launch an investigation to ‘establish and enforce clear guidelines applicable to companies that may be claiming climate benefits’.

Drax produces eight per cent of the UK’s electricity – enough to power six million homes. Half of its six 650 megawatt (MW) generators have been converted from coal to burn wood pellets from America. Drax spokesman Andrew Brown yesterday confirmed the firm wants to adapt its remaining three furnaces.

http://www.thegwpf.com/biofuel-emits-more-co2-than-coal-u-s-watchdog-to-probe-draxs-green-supplier/

Another UK Coal Power Plant Converted To Burn US Wood

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This is just insane.

Burning wood pellets releases as much or even more carbon dioxide per unit of energy as burning coal.

 

“One of Britain’s dozen remaining coal-fired power plants is to be converted to burn wood pellets shipped in from North America, after the European Commission approved a £1bn subsidy contract for the project.

RWE’s Lynemouth power station in Northumberland is due to close by the end of this year under environmental rules, but will now be resurrected as a biomass plant following EU state aid approval for the consumer-funded subsidies.

The 420 megawatt plant, which produces enough electricity to power 450,000 homes, could be up and running again within 18 months, subject to a final investment decision early next year, RWE said.

The decision also boosted Drax, the Yorkshire coal plant that is awaiting state aid approval of a similar subsidy contract for the conversion of one of its units to burn biomass.”

http://www.thegwpf.com/green-madness-coal-plant-gets-green-light-to-burn-american-wood-pelets

 

DRAX – Grotesque Environmental Charade

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The Big Crazy Forest killing DRAX is still destroying the environment.

Drax’s conversion to run half of its output on biomass means it will have to rely on wood from trees cut down in forests in America. The Sixties power station’s giant furnaces are being loaded with wood pellets carried 3,800 miles across the Atlantic in diesel-guzzling ships.

This grotesque environmental charade is being funded by government subsidies for the conversion of its coal-burning furnaces to biomass ones, which will put an estimated £23 on every family’s annual household energy bills for the next 13 years.

The vast generators of Drax are now living, humming, forest-destroying symbols of the shameful absurdity of European energy policies, and an extraordinary rebuke to this Coalition government, which claims, ever more ludicrously, to be saving the planet.

Already, the power station imports more than one million metric tons of wood pellets from the U.S. Much of this is derived from ancient deciduous trees in North Carolina.

Three months ago, 60 eminent American scientists wrote to Ed Davey pleading with him to stop ignoring the basic science and pressing on with a policy that was denuding their glorious forests.

They wrote: ‘Recent advances in science and accounting for pollution from different types of woody biomass have clarified that burning trees to produce electricity actually increases carbon emissions compared with fossil fuels for many decades and contributes to other air pollution problems.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2783061/LUNACY-The-Lib-Dem-energy-minister-switched-biggest-power-station-coal-wood-brought-diesel-guzzling-ships-U-S-The-result-It-costs-fortune-emits-pollution.html

 

US Scientists Beg UK To Stop Killing Trees For High CO2 Power Plants

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What an insane world we live in. Did you know that burning wood pellets in power plant produces twice as much CO2 (or more) per unit of electricity as burning natural gas does?

“Some of the most distinguished scientists in the US have written to UK energy secretary Ed Davey, urging him to abandon the government’s “misguided” subsidies for companies burning wood pellets to generate electricity, such as the Drax plant in Yorkshire”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6f242a06-d388-11e3-b0be-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3142c1bWV

The letter is here:

“Mounting demand for wood pellets in the UK and Europe has led to an explosive growth in facilities
across the Southern US that are manufacturing wood pellets for export to supply the European
electricity market. In 2012, the Southeastern US emerged as the world’s largest exporter of wood pellets
for biomass electricity generation. With continued investments throughout the southern US, export
volumes reached an estimated 1.75 million tons in 2012 and are expected to jump to 5.7 million tons in
2015, according to the North American Wood Fiber Review.
.

Demand for wood pellets in the UK and Europe is fueled by misguided energy policies, which
incorrectly assume that burning wood will lower carbon emissions and help address climate change.
These policies appear to subscribe to the wood pellet and power industry claim that burning wood is a
carbon neutral process because new trees will eventually absorb and store the carbon that was released
when wood is burned. In addition, industry claims of sustainability are often based on citing positive
growth to harvest rates in the South. We dispute these claims for the following reasons:

First, a growing body of evidence suggests that trees rather than wood waste are the primary source of
the wood pellets exported to the UK from the Southern US. Recent advances in science and accounting
for pollution from different types of woody biomass have clarified that burning trees to produce
electricity actually increases carbon emissions compared with fossil fuels for many decades and
contributes to other air pollution problems.”

etc etc

DRAX is spending  £700 million to kill trees and produce more CO2 all because of EU directives claiming wood is “carbon neutral” and therefore eligible for green subsidies.

What an insane world.

 

Coal Vengeance on Drax

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Hurrah!

“Britain’s biggest power station is suing the Government for losing a lucrative contract after a Mail on Sunday investigation revealed that it burns wood from precious US forests as a ‘green’ alternative to coal.

Drax is committed to switching from coal to ‘biomass’, or wood pellets.

In December, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey promised the North Yorkshire plant two lucrative ‘contracts for difference’ – which would see it earn £105 for every megawatt hour it generates, rather than the normal price of £50.

“But this paper revealed that much of its biomass is shipped in from historic wetland hardwood forests – 3,000 miles away in North Carolina.

“Environmentalists” say this is destroying endangered species’ habitats, and increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614104/Power-station-sues-government-axeing-contract-MoS-exposed-switch-coal-wood-precious-U-S-forests.html

 

However, keep in mind it was “Environmentalists” who have worked hard to stop fracking. Natural gas has half the CO2 per mega-joule of energy compared to coal. And it is much, much cleaner than coal or wood.

 

Embed from Getty Images

Wood-burning power plants emit more pollution per megawatt than coal plants

Published on by sunshinehours15 Comments

This is a total tragedy caused by environmentalists who are dangerously stupid.

“Power plants that burn wood to produce electricity emit comparatively more pollution than modern coal-fired power plants, according to a group that advocates tougher rules on the growing biomass-power industry.

The issue is relevant in Kentucky because of a proposed wood-burning power plant near Hazard, called ecoPower Generation, the state’s first.

In a study released early Wednesday, the Massachusetts-based Partnership for Policy Integrity said wood-fired plants are not as clean as advocates claim, putting more carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere than coal or natural-gas plants when judged on the ratio of pollution to energy produced.

For example, biomass plants emit nearly 50 percent more carbon dioxide — which traps heat in the atmosphere — per megawatt hour of electricity produced than coal plants, the study concluded. “

“”What emerges from our analysis is a picture of an industry that despite loudly and continually proclaiming itself clean and green, is in many respects still one of the dirtiest corners of the energy industry, an industry where avoidance of pollution restrictions is tolerated, and even encouraged, by state and federal regulators,” the report said.”

Despite industry “standards” that “underestimates hydrochloric acid emissions” the company went ahead and made up their own.

” ecoPower went a step further — that it “invented” its own standards to estimate total emissions of hazardous pollutants. Its level of emissions would have been higher even using the suspect industry standards, the report said”

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/04/02/3174184/report-wood-burning-power-plants.html   (h/t Marc Morano)

The Incredibly Stupid Journey – Wood to DRAX

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The Incredibly Stupid Journey graphic from the Daily Mail article on the trees journey from the USA to the DRAX wood burning power plant in the U.K.

MoS2 Template Master

Isn’t this insane?

“The UK is committed by law to a radical shift to renewable energy. By 2020, the proportion of Britain’s electricity generated from ‘renewable’ sources is supposed to almost triple to 30 per cent, with more than a third of that from what is called ‘biomass’.”

“The only large-scale way to do this is by burning wood”

So the UK is switching from burning high-CO2 coal to even higher-CO2 wood imported from the USA.

“In the longer term, the Government has decreed that customers will pay £105 per MW/hr for Drax’s biomass electricity” … instead of the going rate of  £50 per MW/hr.

This quote is hilarious and sad. “‘We’re a power company. We’ve been told to take coal out of the equation. What would you have us do – build a dirty great windfarm?’”

This is really, really sad. They lied and said they didn’t use whole trees, but they do. And then they said they grew back quickly. But they don’t.

“Clear-cut wetlands cannot be replanted” and it could take 100 years to regrow.

Read it all and weep over what the insane AGW Cult has brought about.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581887/The-bonfire-insanity-Woodland-shipped-3-800-miles-burned-Drax-power-station-It-belches-CO2-coal-huge-cost-YOU-pay-cleaner-greener-Britain.html

 

The Big Green Insane Con – Half Of European “Renewables” is filthy, smoky, high CO2 Wood!

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The big green con continues in Europe. While the USA is burning more and more clean natural gas, Europe is burning more wood!

“Which source of renewable energy is most important to the European Union?
Solar power, perhaps? (Europe has three-quarters of the world’s total installed capacity of solar photovoltaic energy.)
Or wind? (Germany trebled its wind-power capacity in the past decade.) The answer is neither.

By far the largest so-called renewable fuel used in Europe is wood.

In its various forms, from sticks to pellets to sawdust, wood (or to use its fashionable name, biomass)
accounts for about half of Europe’s renewable-energy consumption.

In some countries, such as Poland and Finland, wood meets more than 80% of renewable-energy demand.

Even in Germany, home of the Energiewende (energy transformation) which has poured huge subsidies
into wind and solar power, 38% of non-fossil fuel consumption comes from the stuff.”

http://www.thegwpf.org/environmental-lunacy-europe-wood-craze/

Germans and Greeks Stealing Trees To Keep Warm

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Germany:

“With energy costs escalating, more Germans are turning to wood burning stoves for heat. That, though, has also led to a rise in tree theft in the country’s forests. Woodsmen have become more watchful.”

Greece:

“Greeks, desperate to find fuel to stay warm because they can’t afford heating oil that has been hit with big tax increases, have been taking to the woods and even city parks to cut down trees and now authorities said someone has felled the olive tree under which Plato sat in ancient times.”

(h/t Ice Age Now)

 

This is your future. Huddled around wood stoves to keep warm  because electricity is too expensive because of subsidies paid to rich people who own wind farms and solar panels.