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This is a link post Bond villain's power station more polluting than expected

(I helped save b3ta! garold you're on mute I SAID YOU'RE ON MUTE, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 9:24, , Reply)
This is a normal post Isn't that a little bit misleading? Ratcliffe isn't being used as much these days and is supposedly on the cusp of being shutdown.
historic co2 emissions
Ratcliffe
Drax

Anyone unaware of that could be misled which from Ember's intent (stop burning stuff) isn't exactly helpful.
 (Mehitabel_Itrang, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 10:15, , Reply)
This is a normal post Not sure what your links are supposed to illustrate.
co2 emissions:

2005
Ratcliffe: 8,638,887.00
Drax: 20,771,624.00

2010
Ratfuck: 8,363,125.00
Drekk: 22,392,487.00

2015
Batshit: 4,774,148.00
Druqs: 13,173,987.00

2020
Brexit: 439,721.00
Frogs: 1,527,003.00

All that biomass/biofuel has going for it is the renewability in comparison to fossil fuels.

It has always been known to be a disaster for the environment.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 15:52, , Reply)
This is a normal post
Isn't the origin of the CO2 kind of important? I mean we can get all worked up about how much is being blown up the chimney, but the source has to be taken into account.

I could be completely wrong here, but surely pulling coal out of the ground and burning it is essentially adding new CO2 into the atmosphere. Growing plant matter and burning that is only releasing the CO2 that was pulled from the atmosphere to grow it in the first place.
 (I helped save b3ta! evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 16:15, , Reply)
This is a normal post Ehhh you're not completely wrong.
But still very wrong, imhho...

Over geological time your statement about plant matter holds true for fossil fuels. They're only releasing the carbon that was pulled from the atmosphere in the first place, and over geological time, they too are 'carbon neutral'.

But the world ecosystem has evolved to depend on the climate that existed post-fuel fossilisation and pre-1800s. Adding greenhouse gases to that mix is suicide, we have already done irreversible damage to the planet, so now anything that does not remove greenhouse gas simply adds to our problems.

The source of the biomass for Drax is North America. This is insane and only adds to the environmental catastrophe. Drax's claims that they're going to be carbon-negative by 2030 reads to me like cynical corporate lies, but I hope I'm wrong about that.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:09, , Reply)
This is a normal post
I'm not talking about geological time though. I'm talking about over the lifetime of the power plant - which is the only timescale that's relevant to this.

The transport of the fuel is important, but if there's a way of offsetting that (and the plant operators seem to think they can) then I see no reason why it can't be carbon neutral.

Of course we all know the best option for low-carbon power generation would be nuclear, but we can't have that can we?
 (I helped save b3ta! evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:22, , Reply)
This is a normal post
I expect that the only way they can make this business model 'carbon neutral' by 2030 is to buy carbon credits from Elon Musk, or use some other creative accountancy trick.

Otherwise, as far as I can tell, they need, within 5.5 years, to create a sustainable fleet of carbon neutral vehicles (and associated carbon neutral supply chains, which nobody has yet managed to do) to transport millions of tonnes of carbon neutrally produced North American woodchips (ditto), to be burned at their plant in Yorkshire where they will have designed and built, carbon neutrally (ditto), a fully closed-cycle, carbon-sequestering, carbon-negative furnace (ditto).

I really hope they can, but realistically this is an environmental disaster hiding behind corporate greenwashing PR bullshit. Go nuclear now!
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 19:32, , Reply)
This is a normal post fossil fuels will never form again
So there is no cyclic method for them to sequester co2. Unlike plants.

This is the point
 (I helped save b3ta! simbosan liked your link on, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 18:06, , Reply)
This is a normal post They could
if we burn all the fossil fuels. Oxygen-producing life will eventually evolve again and the cycle will repeat. I guess the expansion of the sun puts a hard time limit on this kind of thing, but we could probably get 4-8 cycles in, I reckon.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 18:21, , Reply)
This is a normal post no it won't
The global conditions will never occur again
 (I helped save b3ta! simbosan liked your link on, Sat 10 Aug 2024, 7:02, , Reply)
This is a normal post Why not?

(I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Sat 10 Aug 2024, 15:51, , Reply)
This is a normal post Mr Mould gotcha
But TLDR; we now have bacteria/fungi that can break down lignin, but those bugs didn't exist when woody plants first appeared, so the wood wasn't broken down and it fossilised.

Bugs will eat the lignin now, so no more coal ever again.
 (I helped save b3ta! simbosan liked your link on, Sun 11 Aug 2024, 9:32, , Reply)
This is a normal post And these lignin-eaters are all high temperature extremophiles?
They'd all survive the Venusification of the Earth?
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Sun 11 Aug 2024, 15:00, , Reply)
This is a normal post
It’s only atmospheric carbon neutral when the mature trees that have been slashed and burned have been fully replaced. A process that could take decades.
 (I helped save b3ta! wheresthefish Partly filled with wrong, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:38, , Reply)
This is a normal post My point was that without understanding of why Rats was so low you could be misled into thinking that Drax was the worse option.
Looking back at the data I should probably have pointed in the direction of carbon intensity (CO2 generated per kwh).
 (Mehitabel_Itrang, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 16:32, , Reply)
This is a normal post It is literally the country's worst emitter of co2.
It has emitted more co2 than Port Talbot steelworks and Pembroke gas plant combined. Those being the 2nd and 3rd placed worst emitters.

Biomass power production is a dangerously stupid idea.

We should be building dozens of fission reactors (and converting some already radioactive coal mine to be a nuclear waste powered geothermal generator) until clean nuclear fusion is a thing.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:15, , Reply)
This is a normal post Better than coal though which is where the comparison was being made

(Mehitabel_Itrang, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:20, , Reply)
This is a normal post Part of the reason why it actually emits so much more co2 than coal (and gas) plants
is that it is a less energy dense fuel that needs to be transported at great environmental cost from half the world away....

Remember it is the UK's number 1 single emitter of co2.
The next worst single emitting power plant is Pembroke (gas), which produced only 1/3 of Drax's number.
Ratcliff (coal) is the next power plant on the list, which produced only about 2/3 of the quantity Pembroke did.
Next is Staythorpe (gas), which produced 9/10ths of what Ratcliff did. And so on and so on down the list. You need to add several fossil fuel power stations together to equal the co2 output of this one 'green' nightmare, and even more if you exclude the gas fuelled ones.
 (I helped save b3ta! brb Learn Ukrainian and prepare for a referendum, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 18:19, , Reply)
This is a normal post It's been in the back of Private Eye a lot
Drax claims to burn waste timber and biomass, which it can, but it isn't very efficient doing so. It is most efficient burning hardwoods from mature forests. As well as having to be shipped from North America, the trees themselves are a century or two old. So not exactly renewable in the short or medium term.
 (I helped save b3ta! Greenbat, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 21:37, , Reply)
This is a normal post regardless off the claims and counter claims in the article, for me the key point is the last paragraph
The FTSE 100 owner of the Drax power plant made profits of £500m over the first half of this year, helped by biomass subsidies of almost £400m over this period. It handed its shareholders a windfall of £300m for the first half of the year.
 (sticklebricks it's you daddy!, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 10:19, , Reply)
This is a normal post No Mr Bond, I expct you to subsiDIEse!

(I helped save b3ta! garold you're on mute I SAID YOU'RE ON MUTE, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 10:21, , Reply)
This is a normal post The £300m to shareholders only happens if they go ahead with a proposed share buyback program over the next two years.
They have paid out £54m in dividends in the first half of the year as well as £114m in the Electricity Generator Levy which I presume goes to HMRC.

source:
half year report presentation
 (Mehitabel_Itrang, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 16:20, , Reply)
This is a normal post but aren't the subsidies there to help the business be more green?
rather than let it increase profitability?
 (sticklebricks it's you daddy!, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 16:58, , Reply)
This is a normal post Possibly they are but don't rule out them also being provided just to keep things running.
Subsidies run ahead of any eventual profit or loss so profitability isn't guaranteed. Governments (and others) provide funds/credit on the basis that a return* will be made even in a bad** year but none of that is gauranteed. Along comes war, weather and other world events and the whole plan goes awry.

*return might be monetary or something like the provision of power/developments
**as bad as they modeled for not necessarily as bad as reality
 (Mehitabel_Itrang, Fri 9 Aug 2024, 17:19, , Reply)