Britain cuts down forests to keep ‘green’ power stations burning
The Times Online
Whether you believe in Allah, the Great Spaghetti Monster, powdered rhino horn being an aphrodisiac, Anthropomorphic Global Warming and other such nonsense, this has to be the biggest dose of green irony I've ever seen - worse than the windmill debacle.
Let me point out a few obvious things:-
1. Cutting down, processing and transporting the wood from Canada and South America by ship is burning how much fossil fuel? Cutting requires fossil fuel and emits carbon dioxide. Processing the wood requires fossil fuel and emits carbon. Transporting requires fossil fuel and emits carbon.
2. Biomass fuelled power stations are typically less efficient than coal burning or fuel gas power stations. Often, like the "green" windmills, they work in conjunction with fossil fuel burning power stations, so you won't completely eliminate the fossil fuel burning side of it.
3. The wood often has to be processed before burning (drying or converting into biomass pellets), costing more energy.
4. The irony of cutting down the very thing that naturally can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.
5. This strikes me more of desperately addressing the imposed EU Landfill Directive by incinerating waste rather than dumping it in landfills.
6. What's wrong with coal? Plenty of it here.
7. The eco-nazis are wailing that it's a good thing because the trees will come from sustainable forests. Fast growing trees can grow between 6-10ft a year. Depending on demand, this could strip an enormous area very quickly while waiting for the trees to reach maturity. And the fertilizers required for fast growth? Replanting? Energy, energy, energy.
I get concerned that the arguments for AGW confused and blur the very distinct, cost effective and admirable pursuit of economies and conservation of fuel supplies. This is simply an ill-thought out, contradictory, knee jerk to "greenism" and as such it is a perfect example of yet another doomed Liebour Party supported policy.
Monday, 16 November 2009
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It certainly is. I believe the powers that be are fighting hard to not have to include transport in the estimate of our emissions. It is all about appearance.
ReplyDeleteGreen taxes that drive our manufacturing to less fuel efficient plants in China/India and add transport fuel usage on top makes no sense. Neither does delaying a coal fired station and risking more disruption due to energy shortages when China is opening one every week.
When I worked in research for a cement company we looked at replacing coal with refuse in the kilns. Useless, too wet and too low grade, even small amounts in the mix dropped the temperature too far. You need vast amounts of good quality fuel to do it.
Agree totally Xog - conditioning the material to burn costs additionally energy costs as well.
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