Drax - recycling the truth it seems. (1 Viewer)

[Andy Adcock]

Drax: UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in Canada

The owner of the UK's biggest power station, Drax, is cutting down key forests in Canada.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[rosbifs]

It’s sad, criminal, to see forest that can’t be replaced destroyed. Worse when it’s on the back of the f an environmental subsidy.

The oldest wood, near my Finnish families summer cottage, was chopped. The replant is never the same - doesn’t offer the diversity, the undergrowth, and the dead stuff or debris.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Not just Drax and not just Canadian forests, unfortunately.

I've been attemping to draw attention to the scandal of biomass destruction of natural forests for years, but nobody wants to listen. It could never have been 'green', or sustainable for the simple fact that it takes moments to burn a tree, but decades to grow one, so even if they plant a replacement for a tree felled to burn, they need to be burning further forests for another 30, 40 or 50 years until the 'replacement' tree is ready for harvest. Every time it is mentioned we get posts from people who should know better insisting on the lie that it's only offcuts from the timber industry and fallen logs that are burnt. They are destroying thousands of square miles of forest, not to 'save the planet', but for the huge amounts of 'green' subsidy they are given. In 2021 alone Drax was paid almost £1 billion in subsidy paid for by surcharge on our electricity bills so that we could all feel a warm green glow of comfort while they burnt native forests logged in SE USA, Canada, the Baltics and elsewhere.

7 million tonnes of chips and the entire UK timber industry produces much less than this weight in total timber output and none of Drax's wood is sourced in the UK. Also, you don't go into a wild forest with machinery only to drag out the odd 'fallen' log. Access alone makes that a nonsense.

Consider this. Drax alone admits to burning 7 million tonnes of pellets per year (dried weight). That equates to roughly 14 million tonnes of undried timber. A tree weighs roughly 4 tonnes, so simple arithmetic tells us that Drax alone is burning 3-4 million trees per year, every year. And there are other forest-burning stations all over Europe and it's been going on under the radar for years. google 'how Europe is destroying American forests' and you'll find amongst all the other results a link to this article published as long ago as December 2015. Things have got a LOT worse since then.

Europe's 'renewable' energy plan is actually destroying US forests

Wood is a "renewable energy" in Europe, but it's terrible for the environment.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[THE_FERN]

One of many problems with "bio" renewables is the accounting system. Undoubtedly, none of the fossil fuels used to transport the pellets from Canada would be included in the accounting. Only the emissions associated with burning the pellets themselves: and these are treated as zero as it's assumed the CO2 was absorbed from the atmosphere to begin with (i.e. the CO2 is not additional to atmospheric CO2—as it would be with fossil fuels).

Those due to the [land-based] harvesting and processing equipment would not count against the UK but against Canada. But obviously it's UK demand (here subsidised by UK tax dollars) which is to blame for that activity. Effectively a form of off-shoring.

 

[greer3]

To think we're paying green levies on our energy bills to support scams like this.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

To think we're paying green levies on our energy bills to support scams like this.

They made a hundred million quid profit last year.

#AxeDrax Campaign – biofuelwatch

www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

 

[greer3]

They made a hundred million quid profit last year.

#AxeDrax Campaign – biofuelwatch

www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

We've been taken for a ride. They should give a refund of any money they've been given for their 'green energy' by the government.

 

[Andy Lakin]

Probably of interest to anybody interested in this topic and the wider environment The Scramble For Rare Earths is on the BBC Sounds app. It discusses the environmental impact of mining/ processing rare earth metals and the future. One very interesting area is the increased need for rem's for green projects such as making magnets to enable wind turbines to work more efficiently.

As others have said the amount of fossil fuels used to deliver the raw material must be massive. I don't know if things have changed but ships are well known to have far less strict rules on emissions allowing them to use fuel that is far more polluting than other more refined forms of fuel

 

[greer3]

Just reading 'The Elements Of Power' by David S Abraham. He covers the murky world and sometimes environmentally unfriendly methods of producing rare earth metals used in 'green' energy.
Ships are cleaning up their act a little but nearly all cargo ships use diesel combustion engines to turn the propellers, plus diesel generators that power onboard lighting systems and communications equipment. Around 60% of vessels still burn heavy bunker fuel, a viscous, carbon-intensive petroleum product that’s left from the crude oil refining process.