Is the Government being honest about the cost of energy?

jamesingram

EricMears wrote: »

although I have doubts that carting in shiploads of American wood chips is really the most economical process they could find.

I'm struggling to find any logic in importing biomass from the states also , I can only sumise it purely a box ticking exercise ie. we now have X % biomass (regardless of the environmental degredation it might cause )

Martyn1981

jamesingram wrote: »

I'm struggling to find any logic in importing biomass from the states also , I can only sumise it purely a box ticking exercise ie. we now have X % biomass (regardless of the environmental degredation it might cause )

James, isn't there some sort of carbon tax about to descend (April ish?), that might be why Drax is acting to reduce coal consumption and switch half its boilers over to biomass - if it can. Hope I'm not making this up?

Mart.

grahamc2003

EricMears wrote: »

Seems like only yesterday they were building the 'new' Drax station alongside the 'new' Selby coalfield But seriously, it's not particularly 'ancient' and no doubt the turbines, alternators & transformers will have been kept reasonably up to date.

Slotting in just a new boiler is therefore moderately sensible - although I have doubts that carting in shiploads of American wood chips is really the most economical process they could find.

They've just completed a £100m spend upgrading the turbines, to keep Drax the largest and most efficient coal burner in the Uk, if nor Eurpoe and the world. It already burns coal at as close as you can get to 100% efficiency - i.e. complete and stoichiometric combustion leaving virtually no smoke or pollution, except for those who classify co2 as pollutiuon, which is unavoidable when you burn anything. Of course, it won't stop many looking at the water coming out of their cooling towers and thinking it's all some sort of pollution.

It's a pity really to shift to pellets. Drax is optimised as highly as possible for burning coal and, for those interested in facts instead of rhetoric, burning wood pellets will lead to inefficiences, partly due to the much lower energy density and partly due to the water content of pellets. So Drax's contribution to the Uk's electricity will drop when pellet powered.

For those interested, energy density of pellets, even after quite a bit of processing and compression, have about 1/3rd of the energy density of anthracite (and waste woodchips have aboput 1/3rd the energy density of pellets) So 3 ship loads of wood pellets for each ship load of coal for the same energy.

Short of converting all of England north of Watford to biofuel crops, Drax willl have to import most of it's raw material. A few farmers' fields close to Drax supplying biofuel material is a gesture, but nothing more.

grahamc2003

EricMears wrote: »

Seems like only yesterday they were building the 'new' Drax station alongside the 'new' Selby coalfield But seriously, it's not particularly 'ancient' and no doubt the turbines, alternators & transformers will have been kept reasonably up to date.

Slotting in just a new boiler is therefore moderately sensible - although I have doubts that carting in shiploads of American wood chips is really the most economical process they could find.

They've just completed a £100m spend upgrading the turbines, to keep Drax the largest and most efficient coal burner in the Uk, if nor Europe and the world. It already burns coal at as close as you can get to 100% efficiency - i.e. complete and stoichiometric combustion leaving virtually no smoke or pollution, except for those who classify co2 as pollution, which is unavoidable when you burn anything. Of course, it won't stop many looking at the water coming out of their cooling towers and thinking it's all some sort of pollution.

It's a pity really to shift to pellets. Drax is optimised as highly as possible for burning coal and, for those interested in facts instead of rhetoric, burning wood pellets will lead to inefficiences, partly due to the much lower energy density and partly due to the water content of pellets. So Drax's contribution to the Uk's electricity supply will drop when pellet powered.

For those interested, the energy density of pellets, even after quite a bit of processing and compression, is about 1/3rd of the energy density of anthracite. So 3 ship loads for each ship load of coal for the same energy.

Short of converting all of England north of Watford to biofuel crops, Drax willl have to import most of it's raw material. A few farmer's fields close to Drax supplying biofuel material is a gesture, but nothing more.

spgsc531

grahamc2003 wrote: »

It already burns coal at as close as you can get to 100% efficiency - i.e. complete and stoichiometric combustion leaving virtually no smoke or pollution, except for those who classify co2 as pollution, which is unavoidable when you burn anything. Of course, it won't stop many looking at the water coming out of their cooling towers and thinking it's all some sort of pollution.

for those interested in facts instead of rhetoric:

Drax produces over 250,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year. It has a FGD plant that removes at least 90% of that from the gases, this requires 10,000 tonnes of limestone a week. This appears to leave over 25,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide emitted a year. Sulphur dioxide is classed as a major air pollutant.

Drax power station also has the highest estimated emissions of nitrogen oxides(NOx) in the European Union.

grahamc2003 wrote: »

It's a pity really to shift to pellets.(!!) Drax is optimised as highly as possible for burning coal and, for those interested in facts instead of rhetoric, burning wood pellets will lead to inefficiences, partly due to the much lower energy density and partly due to the water content of pellets. So Drax's contribution to the Uk's electricity supply will drop when pellet powered.

Coal is considered to be "easily the most carbon-intensive and polluting form of energy generation available". In 2007 Drax produced 22,160,000 tonnes of CO2, making it the largest single source of CO2 in the UK. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

jamesingram

http://www.sandbag.org.uk/maps/emissionsmap/

for those interested in emission of various installations inte EU , Drax included (2011 CO2: 21,465,607 tonnes)

jamesingram

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/investing/company-comment/2012/02/21/powerful-profits-push-drax-closer-to-biomass.aspx
"Generating electricity by burning coal remains profitable. Drax's revenue rose from £1,648.4m to £1,835.9m in 2011, and operating profits rose by 31%, from £279.2m to £366.2m.
However, a combination of factors led to a reduction in underlying earnings per share from 64p in 2010 to 56p in 2011. In line with Drax's admirable policy of paying out 50% of earnings to shareholders as dividends, this also means the company's total dividend has fallen, from 32p to 27.8p, a yield of 5.3% at the time of writing.
In 2011, Drax produced 11.9m tonnes of CO2 emissions in excess of its 9.5m tonne allowance under the UK National Allocation Plan, part of the EU carbon emissions trading scheme.
This is more profitable for Drax than burning low-carbon fuels, despite the fact that credits for these extra emissions have to be purchased. The problem is that the current scheme ends this year, and burning coal is set to become more expensive.
In April 2013, the government's Electricity Market Reform package will be launched, which, according to Drax, will make "will result in coal generation becoming progressively and relatively less economic than other major forms of generation like gas, nuclear and renewables.
More subsidise please,
In 2011, Drax burned 1.3m tonnes of sustainable biomass fuels, alongside 9.1m tonnes of coal, generating 7% of the UK's renewable power. Drax is now confident that it could convert to become a biomass-fuelled power station and will invest £50m this year to increase its biomass capacity to 20%.
This is necessary to get some of the benefits offered in the Electricity Market Reform package -- but Drax is lobbying for more support before it commits to a wholesale switch to biomass.
On the brink?
The real question is whether Drax really will go under if sufficient subsidies are not available or whether this is a kind of brinkmanship designed to maximise shareholder returns from burning biomass."

Argh that old game

Martyn1981

jamesingram wrote: »

In April 2013, the government's Electricity Market Reform package will be launched, which, according to Drax, will make "will result in coal generation becoming progressively and relatively less economic than other major forms of generation like gas, nuclear and renewables.

So I'm not going mad then, phew!

Mart.

grahamc2003

jamesingram wrote: »

http://www.sandbag.org.uk/maps/emissionsmap/

for those interested in emission of various installations inte EU , Drax included (2011 CO2: 21,465,607 tonnes)

Yeah, the more powerful the fossil fueled powerstation, the more co2 will be produced. No one can escape that. Absolute numbers don't really mean much - they have to be normalised by the energy produced. So what may appear to be big numbers for things like co2 and other pollutants when divided by the extremely large number of the generation produced they tell a different story. So the co2 is normal, all other pollutants very low, and certainly much lower pro rata than for any other coal fired powerstation. I'm afraid China is building 2 or 3 coal fired powerstations per week, each far more polluting than drax, so whether any poster on here likes it or not, the atmosphere is going to get much more co2 and pollution from coal fired stations in the future, whetever happens to Drax, which is the cleanest of the lot.

For low co2 reliable generation in the area covered by our grid, the only choice is Nuclear, but the government at the moment is enabling small and expensive gas powered stations to replace the reliable generation lost as the aging Nuclear stations close. Windpower, of course, is unreliable, so of limited use on our grid where generation has to match demand every instant. Gas in the quantities required when our Nuclear stations close, will come from Russia under current plans, through many countries. So although talking about a 'low carbon' electricity supply and energy security, the actual steps the goverment is taking at the momnet is the very opposite.

John_Pierpoint

This is a bit off topic BUT I keep on getting cold called by boiler rooms, I must be on a "suckers list" somewhere.

The favourite at the moment is some sort of "carbon trading".
My transient understanding of carbon credits, is that at the start of the EU system, companies & countries just printed an over supply.
Thus making the grandfather rights of existing polluters worth very little.

Can anyone briefly explain what is happening to the old and the new system come April?