Drax is carbon neutral

[Bahnhof Strasse]

~10% of U.K. power comes from there and it is carbon neutral according to HMG and the EU.

It burns wood chips. Burning wood chips releases CO2.

The reasoning is that they plant a tree for every one burned.

Plant a fucking tree for every tree’s worth of coal burned, doesn’t make you carbon fucking neutral.

Another utter pisstake.

 

[StoneRoad]

However, back when it was coal-fired, Drax was retro-fitted with a system* that "scrubs" the CO2 out of the flue gases.
They use it to make gypsum board [aka "plasterboard"]. [*which was omitted from the original build scheme to save £££]

I would prefer it IF Drax's production of CO2 is be outweighed by the amount of CO2 absorbed by all those trees they've planted.

 

[A380]

The case for the Drax conversation was to burn pellets made from scrap wood from the North American construction industry- which is much more timber based than ours. Trouble is it’s worth people’s while to cut down trees to make entirely into fuel pellets and ship them across the Atlantic. Which is pretty suspect, if not plain nonsense.

A friend of mine was the fire commander when one of the fuel ships caught fire. The captain was supposed to stay at sea and fight the fire in the holds with sea water but decided instead to bring the ship into the Port of Liverpool where they had to fight the fire on the dockside. It was sporting apparently.

They do do public tours of Drax, or did pre Covid. It’s well worth seeing.

 

[Sweet FA]

 

[lazythursday]

Drax would sort of make sense if we weren't as far down the road towards climate disaster. Burning wood from a sustainable, eg constantly replanted, source, can genuinely be carbon neutral - but only over quite a long time period. I can see how the Drax conversion to wood pellets appeared to be rational when it was first planned, but it really isn't any more. Marginally better than coal though.

However, back when it was coal-fired, Drax was retro-fitted with a system* that "scrubs" the CO2 out of the flue gases.
They use it to make gypsum board [aka "plasterboard"]. [*which was omitted from the original build scheme to save £££]

Are you sure about this? Because barely anywhere has managed to do carbon capture and storage at scale so I find it hard to believe Drax was managing it pre-wood pellet. Are you sure it wasn't some other pollutant? Drax is currently doing CCS, on a very very small experimental scale.

 

[weltweit]

Where are these massive new forests?

 

[A380]

Where are these massive new forests?

Canada.

 

[A380]

Drax would sort of make sense if we weren't as far down the road towards climate disaster. Burning wood from a sustainable, eg constantly replanted, source, can genuinely be carbon neutral - but only over quite a long time period. I can see how the Drax conversion to wood pellets appeared to be rational when it was first planned, but it really isn't any more. Marginally better than coal though.


Are you sure about this? Because barely anywhere has managed to do carbon capture and storage at scale so I find it hard to believe Drax was managing it pre-wood pellet. Are you sure it wasn't some other pollutant? Drax is currently doing CCS, on a very very small experimental scale.

I think two things are being conflated. Drax is going to trial CCS at a large scale for the first time. I hope it works but I am worried it won’t…

They also trialed de-sulphurisation technology in the stacks. This is very different to CO2 mitigation but is/was another damaging issue for coal plants.

 

[weltweit]

Canada.

Bet they are counted twice

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Where are these massive new forests?

Plenty of new land in northern Canada and Russia for planting forests now the permafrost is melting.

 

[lazythursday]

Not trying to defend Drax but it has never claimed to be planting vast new forests or to be offsetting the CO2 it burns in some way. It claims to burn wood pellets that are sourced from sustainably managed forests - forests that are continually replenished through replanting. Some groups have claimed that plenty of wood pellets from non sustainably managed clearcut has ended up in the supply.

 

[lazythursday]

I think two things are being conflated. Drax is going to trial CCS at a large scale for the first time. I hope it works but I am worried it won’t…

They also trialed de-sulphurisation technology in the stacks. This is very difficult to CO2 mitigation but is/was another damaging issue for coal plants.

I saw Drax's CCS experiment a couple of years ago. It was at the time a small pipe coming off the main 'exhaust' (not sure of technical term!) - processing a teeny tiny amount of what is emitted, and don't think it was managing 100% of that either at the time. Hopefully it has improved since then.

 

[danny la rouge]

Got to hand it to Greta, she knows her stuff. She’s not taken in:

 

[Artaxerxes]

Canada.

in the tar sands

 

[Artaxerxes]

However, back when it was coal-fired, Drax was retro-fitted with a system* that "scrubs" the CO2 out of the flue gases.
They use it to make gypsum board [aka "plasterboard"]. [*which was omitted from the original build scheme to save £££]

I would prefer it IF Drax's production of CO2 is be outweighed by the amount of CO2 absorbed by all those trees they've planted.

Scrubs some but it also releases other greenhouse gases

 

[WouldBe]

However, back when it was coal-fired, Drax was retro-fitted with a system* that "scrubs" the CO2 out of the flue gases.
They use it to make gypsum board [aka "plasterboard"]. [*which was omitted from the original build scheme to save £££]

I would prefer it IF Drax's production of CO2 is be outweighed by the amount of CO2 absorbed by all those trees they've planted.

The scrubbers captured sulphur dioxide to prevent acid rain. Plaster is calcium sulphate.

 

[cupid_stunt]

The Daily Climate Show featured Drax the other day, the fucking plant receives £800m in subsidies.

Interesting report, about 4 minutes long, from the start here:

 

[A380]

The really scary thing is that when it was designed and built Drax’s 6x660MW design was supposed to be the first of a fleet of similar coal fired power stations. If we had have built them we’d be even further from our targets now.

 

[StoneRoad]

The scrubbers captured sulphur dioxide to prevent acid rain. Plaster is calcium sulphate.

My bad, that'll teach me to rely on memory from 30 or more years ago without checking !
Maybe I was thinking of a dual stage scrubber design ... I don't think one ever got installed.
Thinking about it a bit more, those SO2 scrubbers were aimed at reducing acid rain, any CO2 capture was "incidental"

 

[A380]

The Daily Climate Show featured Drax the other day, the fucking plant receives £800m in subsidies.

Interesting report, about 4 minutes long, from the start here:

Not sure there are any generators in the UK that don’t receive subsidy ( or other payments) . From memory I think Drax gets both Contracts for Difference money (CFD) for the bio mass conversion and Capacity Market (CM) for the new gas and battery units? These are all ‘bill payer’ money not ‘tax payer’ funding; si HMG says not subsidy- not that you have any choice of course…

 

[DaveCinzano]

Sounds like ECS is being mixed up with CCS

 

[WouldBe]

Thinking about it a bit more, those SO2 scrubbers were aimed at reducing acid rain, any CO2 capture was "incidental"

Can't remember how they work but if they use lime or limestone to absorb the SO2 then they will give off CO2 in the process.

 

[StoneRoad]

Can't remember how they work but if they use lime or limestone to absorb the SO2 then they will give off CO2 in the process.

I was under the impression that something was sprayed and lime (CaO) might have been involved, but I really can't remember exactly.
I'll have to go on an investigative trip later.

 

[equationgirl]

A380 Part of the whole centralised power strategy. We're now reverting back to a decentralised one, with power plants all over the place and in all sizes.

 

[equationgirl]

Coal isn't pure hydrocarbo, there's also the various contaminants such as heavy metals, uranium, even gold and silver in miniscule quantities.

Iirc scrubbers can be described as CO2 scrubbers, and there may be more than one set per flue stack, but I would need to read up on how they work.

 

[equationgirl]

Lynemouth in Northumberland also runs off biomass. Ironbridge and Tilbury also used to, at least in part, but are now demolished.

 

[A380]

Lynemouth in Northumberland also runs off biomass. Ironbridge and Tilbury also used to, at least in part, but are now demolished.

There are loads of micro generation/ peaking plants that use either bio mass or bio furl. There is nothing on the scale of the Drax conversion though Lynmouth would be in the same ball park.

 

[equationgirl]

There are loads of micro generation/ peaking plants that use either bio mass or bio furl. There is nothing on the scale of the Drax conversion though Lynmouth would be in the same ball park.

Lynemouth is 420 MW nameplate capacity.