Drax aims to go coal-free after biomass subsidy review

Aurora · Post by **Aurora** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:04 am

Business Green - 26/07/12

Drax Group has confirmed plans to convert its North Yorkshire power station to run mainly on biomass, after the government yesterday announced it would limit the subsidy available to plants powered by a mix of renewable and fossil fuels.

Article continues ...

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:15 pm

Drax produces 4 GW of power (7% of the electricity we use in the UK at the moment).

Assume a one-Ha field will produce about 10 tonnes at 5MWh-per-tonne of heat-energy per year, that's 50 MWh per year, or a rate of very roughly 5 kW.

...of which Drax can turn about 50% into electricity. So each Ha of God's Own County will produce 2.5 kW of that 4 GW total.

The number of Hectares needed, then, is A LOT. Or, 40,000,000,000/2,500. 16 Million.

Wikipedia says the area of the whole of Yorkshire is 11 million Ha! Have I ballsed up somewhere? Is this plan actually feasible??

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:49 pm

Canada still has plenty of forest we can cut and ship here using oil burning ships.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:14 pm

Perhaps it does, but that's ridiculous.