The Alternative Green Energy Thread

JKenH

Qyburn said:

EricMears said:

Original question was "Does anyone really class wood as a fossil fuel?". 

The context was a poster wondering whether removing two wood burning stoves counted as removing fossil fueled heating, which would help him qualify for a grant.

So shiploads of wood chip or pellets aren't relevant. Unless the argument is that because it's possible to conceive of a wood fuelled process that's as carbon intensive as coal or oil, it follows that all wood fuel should be treated that way.

I’ve always assumed burning wood was as bad as burning coal from a CO2 emissions point of view although I never looked into the figures. We burn wood on an open fire which is extremely inefficient but for us is more economical than installing a wood burner at a cost if £3000+ in addition to the disruption of an installation. I don’t feel guilty about it though as all the wood we burn is from trees I planted 35 years ago on our own land and is harvested as thinnings or removal of trees that are reaching the end of their days. I am just in the process of refilling our woodsheds with wood from trees felled over the last five years for final drying off over the summer. We don’t just burn logs but branches down to about 15mm diameter. Our woodland naturally rejuvenates so it is a gradual process where what is burnt is replaced maintaining a balance. As we grow a lot of birch and hazel it naturally regrows rapidly from stools (effectively coppicing). There has been no manufacturing cost of a wood burner or cementitious building materials needed in our case, just a transition from burning coal to wood. We also use the wood ash as fertiliser. The brash from our felling is piled up and allowed to rot down - most of it aerobically, with insects eating the wood and birds and animals that prey on them absorbing the carbon into their tissues.
I will admit I do use a petrol powered chain saw (probably 5 litres of fuel a year.)

What I take issue with is the concept of clear felling virgin woodland and planting back seedlings that will not grow to replace the felled trees for another 30 years then calling this renewable fuel. As Eric has pointed out this is then shipped across the Atlantic and transported from the docks to Drax in diesel powered trains so there will be a significant carbon footprint.

What I fear, personally, is that, in the not too distant future, some government will tell me I can’t burn my own wood as it releases CO2 or PM2.5.

EricMears

Qyburn said:

EricMears said:

Original question was "Does anyone really class wood as a fossil fuel?".      Maybe not,  but it's just as bad !

Do you have figures to justify that? For example comparing the carbon impact of burning coal shipped in from the US or Australia, compared to burning locally sourced firewood, which you state  is "just as bad".

I did NOT say " burning locally sourced firewood  burning locally sourced firewood is just as bad" !   Indeed,  if you actually read what I wrote you'd see my reference to "burning your own waste wood might be considered in a better light".

JKenH

Don’t give up on oil, Norway warns Britain

Net zero will leave UK dependent on imports for decades, says Oslo’s energy minister

Terje Aasland told The Telegraph that Norway had “a totally different view” to the UK on the oil and gas industry which he said creates jobs and wealth.

Mr Aasland said: “We want to develop [the North Sea] for the long-term, because the oil and gas industry and the service industry is really important. It saves jobs and creates a lot of value for Norwegian society.

“I think in the UK, the oil and gas industry has contributed in just the same way – until now.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/30/dont-give-up-on-oil-norway-warns-britain/

Norway is continually praised for its support of EVs yet does this on the back of oil and gas production. Just like China is praised for its EVs manufactured in a principally coal burning economy. Both Norway and China adopt pragmatic energy policies is in the best interests of their citizens. The UK’s self flagellating virtue signalling energy policy (of both recent governments), meanwhile, leaves us with some of the most expensive electricity in the world crippling its industries and making life uncomfortable for its citizens. The £22bn in subsidies given to support biogas biomass is the most recent example. This is not free money; it has to come from taxation, i.e. the taxpayer, you and me. £300 for every person in the country or £700 per taxpayer. This is why the winter fuel allowance for pensioners has been scrapped and tax thresholds frozen - to fill that “£22bn black hole”.

Edit: typo 

QrizB

The Telegraph seems to have overlooked that the UK is already dependent on energy imports. We've been a net importer since 2004.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04046/

Per that same HoC report, "Only Norway, Canada and Australia of the OECD states are net exporters of energy". It's almost as though the government of Norway has an agenda (to go with its fossil fuel fuelled sovereign wealth fund).

Edit to add: here's the chart from DUKES:

JKenH

An article from the Telegraph on the grid collapse in the Iberian peninsula. I have used one of my limited opportunities to “gift this article” so hopefully all can access it via the link. If you can’t, please DM me.

A power engineer on the Iberian grid collapse: It makes me very afraid for Britain

Lack of inertia was almost certainly the primary cause of the Iberian blackout, as Matt Oliver has opined in these pages. A grid with more inertia would not have collapsed as quickly, and its operators would have had time to keep it up and running.

Iberia is part of the Continental Europe Synchronous Area which stretches to 32 countries. It is interconnected as a phase-locked, 50 Hz grid with a generation capacity of 700 GW. To improve the stability of this grid, the EU aim is that all partners will extract 10 per cent of their power consumption from synchronous interconnectors – ones which transmit grid inertia – helping to make the whole system more resilient. France is at 10 per cent, but peninsula grids and those at the geographical fringe are the least interconnected. Spain has just 2 per cent from synchronous interconnectors. 

But there are places where things are worse. The UK and Ireland are island grids. They do have undersea power interconnectors to Europe but these are non-synchronous DC links and transmit no grid inertia. There’s little prospect that this will change. 

In 2012 the National Grid produced a solar briefing note for the government which is still available online. In that note they imagine a system that has 22 GW of solar power attached to the grid. They demonstrate their concerns based on a sunny summer day when demand is low. The sun rises at 5 o’clock when little or no synchronous plant other than nuclear generation will be on line and at midday, solar is 60 per cent of all generation. The Grid’s engineers then considered that situation “difficult to manage” and concluded that wind+solar power must never exceed 60 per cent of generation. 

We now have 17.7 GW of grid-connected solar farms to which we must add all rooftop solar installations. At midday on Tuesday according to Gridwatch the UK’s asynchronous, no-inertia generation was at 66 per cent of total generation.  

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/a449eb32a58a79af

Edit: link to the Solar Briefing Note prepared by National Grid. I wonder if policymakers take this into account when approving new solar farms or indeed in legislating for all new homes to have solar panels. If I have understood the briefing note correctly, adding more domestic solar, kW per kW, is more risky than adding new solar farms.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a79a2a5ed915d0422069eb7/7335-national-grid-solar-pv-briefing-note-for-decc.pdf

Magnitio

JKenH said:

A power engineer on the Iberian grid collapse: It makes me very afraid for Britain

As posted earlier, the Network Energy System Operator is accutely aware of this and is putting in place the necessary solutions.

QrizB

Magnitio said:

JKenH said:

A power engineer on the Iberian grid collapse: It makes me very afraid for Britain

As posted earlier, the Network Energy System Operator is accutely aware of this and is putting in place the necessary solutions.

Indeed. And it's been ongoing for a while. I shared a story over on the Energy forum 18 months ago about a decommissioned thermal power station that had been converted to provide grid stability services.

Post:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80475116/#Comment_80475116

Story:

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/first-phase-stability-pathfinders-delivered

Edit to add: thank you for the gift link to the article, it worked for me.

JKenH

QrizB said:

Magnitio said:

JKenH said:

A power engineer on the Iberian grid collapse: It makes me very afraid for Britain

As posted earlier, the Network Energy System Operator is accutely aware of this and is putting in place the necessary solutions.

Indeed. And it's been ongoing for a while. I shared a story over on the Energy forum 18 months ago about a decommissioned thermal power station that had been converted to provide grid stability services.

Post:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80475116/#Comment_80475116

Story:

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/news/first-phase-stability-pathfinders-delivered

Edit to add: thank you for the gift link to the article, it worked for me.

Thanks for those links. I hadn’t been aware of that thread. Most informative as always. Every day’s a learning day.

Qyburn

JKenH said:

I’ve always assumed burning wood was as bad as burning coal from a CO2 emissions point of view although I never looked into the figures. 

The difference is in how long ago the carbon had been removed from the atmosphere, how long before it gets replaced and the balance between them.

Fossil fuels release carbon that's been buried for millions of years, and release it many many times faster than the fossil fuels get replenished.

Firewood releases carbon that was captured from the atmosphere within the last few decades, and which is being replenished faster than it's being used (based on the fact that the area of woodland in Britain has been increasing since the middle of the last century).

QrizB

Qyburn said:

Firewood releases carbon that was captured from the atmosphere within the last few decades, and which is being replenished faster than it's being used (based on the fact that the area of woodland in Britain has been increasing since the middle of the last century).

... assuming, of course, that the firewood comes from those ever-growing British woodlands and isn't being imported from Canada along with Drax's wood pellets.

Anecdote: my parents live in a rural area and for almost 50 years pretty much all their firewood has come from within 400 metres of their home.

(The "pretty much" is because they, my sister and my cousin do occasionally share firewood amongst themselves, if one has a glut.)