Fiddler's Ferry and other power stations are shutting down

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 14 Jun 2019, 09:08

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... g-16427176

A landmark power station is set to close with the loss of almost 160 jobs. Fiddlers Ferry owners Scottish and Southern Energy announced today the site will shut by the end of March 2020. Union officials described the news as a 'devastating blow' to the North West economy, but the company said it will seek to avoid compulsory redundancies where possible. It's hoped some of the 158 workers will be redeployed elsewhere in the company and some will have a 'continuing role' in managing the decommissioning of the plant, near Warrington. Fiddler's Ferry is SSE's last coal powered power station.

Continues....

Post by **adam2** » 14 Jun 2019, 11:42

Sad news for those thrown out of work as a result, but unavoidable if we are to meet our commitments and promises regarding reducing carbon emissions.
Also this power station is far beyond its original design life, and I have limited faith in reliable operation this winter.

As with other such closures, this is a bit worrying as regards security of electricity supply.
This represents the loss of 2GW* of generating capacity, or about 4% of national peak demand.
Is there sufficient gas burning plant to replace 2 GW of coal*

Renewables are playing an increasing part in UK electricity supply, but are of course generally intermittent.
Grid scale battery storage shows considerable promise, but seems unlikely to help much in the event of several calm but cold days.

*The original capacity of Fiddlers Ferry was 2GW, but 0.5GW has already shut.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 14 Jun 2019, 22:16

Sad news for those thrown out of work as a result, but unavoidable if we are to meet our commitments and promises regarding reducing carbon emissions.

â€œPromisesâ€� about carbon emissions is just political posturing. The latest promise by a certain T. May. She has made other promises over recent years. Which of them has been fulfilled? Which of them have any chance of being fulfilled? Why should this one be any different? Smoke and mirrors.

Additionally, I donâ€™t see any chance of reducing emissions and continuing anything like as normal. Drax has changed from using coal to using wood products from Canada. ......................

burning the equivalent of more than the UK's total annual wood production each year. In 2016 Drax burnt pellets made from approximately 13 million tonnes of wood, while the UK's annual production is around 11 million tonnes.

More.........

Post by **adam2** » 15 Jun 2019, 10:08

Well we HAVE ALREADY significantly reduced carbon emissions from electricity production and further reductions have been promised, not by any one politician, but as a general policy.

The replacement of Fiddlers Ferry by a mixture of natural gas and renewables is a part of this ongoing reduction.
I don't support the large scale burning of imported wood chips for electricity production.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 15 Jun 2019, 19:19

Thatâ€™s a bit of a cheat since the output of Drax burning wood is not counted as producing carbon. A lot of trees are being used, and there is not enough to replace them. This applies to other bionass crops, they just forget about all the fossil fuel inputs used to grow them.

Post by **clv101** » 15 Jun 2019, 20:07

woodburner wrote:...they just forget about all the fossil fuel inputs used to grow them.

No, they aren't forgotten about. Those fossil fuel imports are already counted, and belong to the forestry industry, the trucking and shipping industry. Otherwise they would be double counted.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 15 Jun 2019, 20:25

clv101 wrote:
woodburner wrote:...they just forget about all the fossil fuel inputs used to grow them.
No, they aren't forgotten about. Those fossil fuel imports are already counted, and belong to the forestry industry, the trucking and shipping industry. Otherwise they would be double counted.

Hang on a minute CLV.

Whether or not they are counted in the forestry industry, they need to be applied in any calculation of how much carbon is involved in Drax's burning of wood. In other words, all carbon that is put into the atmosphere as a function of getting that that wood into Drax's furnaces must be counted in any evaluation of how carbon efficient such an operation is.

Post by **clv101** » 15 Jun 2019, 21:15

If you ascribe it all Drax's electricity output, then the shipping industry, trucking industry, logging industry has magically become zero-carbon?

It doesn't matter where you count the carbon, you just need to be careful not to count the same carbon twice.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 15 Jun 2019, 21:52

clv101 wrote:If you ascribe it all Drax's electricity output, then the shipping industry, trucking industry, logging industry has magically become zero-carbon?

It doesn't matter where you count the carbon, you just need to be careful not to count the same carbon twice.

No, that is not what I said. Either you are being a bit thick or are being deliberately disingenuous.

Clearly, I am referring to the portion of those other industries' output that is specifically traceable to the output of Drax's wood burning operation may be viewed as part of the output of Drax via a vis the total carbon footprint of that wood burning operation from field to furnace.

Whether the above is easily traceable in practice is another matter. But, in principle, it is entirely appropriate to trace it.

In other words, all end-products have, embodied within them, all of the resources and energy consumption it took to produce them and, if all of that embodied resource and energy is accounted for, then the energy/resource books would, in principle balance to zero. In which case, no double counting occurs.

You may disagree with the above. In which case, by all means, point out where it is wrong. But, don't pretend to not understand it

fuzzy · Post by **fuzzy** » 16 Jun 2019, 11:02

As usual on this place, everyone is pretty much correct.

I don't know how carbon calc's are done, but I pretty sure that if there are gazillions of money involved it will be based on fraud and deception. I think the correct method is 'continued fractions' - basically long division. I suspect you need a time delay on various factors/inputs because of lifespan, stock inventory holding time, and erosion.

Here is a video on infinite fractions which shows the principle, although infinity is not required for carbon calcs. A quick utbe search did not reveal any simpler videos.

It is run at maths lecturer speed ie 3 times what normal people can do. The important bit is around 4 mins in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaasbfdJdJg

vtsnowedin · Post by **vtsnowedin** » 16 Jun 2019, 12:09

clv101 wrote:?

It doesn't matter where you count the carbon, you just need to be careful not to count the same carbon twice.

Agreed. I would count it at the point it leaves the tail pipe or smoke stack to enter the atmosphere.
Now a big diesel truck could be hauling a wind power blade to it's erection site or a load of disposable diapers to Walmart while passing a trash compactor truck hauling used ones to the landfill but it is the truck engine emitting the carbon in every case..
No matter how much carbon gets released building and maintaining the windmills it will be better then the carbon dumped by the paper and plastic industry or the fuel wasted heating poorly insulated houses and other buildings.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 16 Jun 2019, 17:44

clv101 wrote:If you ascribe it all Drax's electricity output, then the shipping industry, trucking industry, logging industry has magically become zero-carbon?

It doesn't matter where you count the carbon, you just need to be careful not to count the same carbon twice.

I'm happy to agree with Chris on this but it still doesn't make Drax use of wood fuel any greener. The shipping industry uses some of the dirtiest fuel possible in ships. Not quite as bad a coal but not far off.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 16 Jun 2019, 22:02

Hang on Ken. If you agree with that, then you are left with the nonsense where some product can be made that involves horrendous carbon consumption in the supply chain leading up to it's eventual entrance into the market place. But, having once entered the market place, given that its carbon consumption is then zero, the ludicrous claim can be made that it is "green".

Unless all of the carbon consumed in the supply chain that has specifically contributed to an end product is included in that end product's carbon account, there is no way to compare the carbon foot print of any products in any meaningful way. It all just become so much bullshit.

I can't believe I am having to spell this out.

Yes, I accept that, in practice, portioning off the specific percentage of the forestry and transportation sectors' carbon consumption that has contributed to getting that wood to the Drax power station may be difficult to calculate. But, in principle, that is where it needs to be allocated for the purpose of calculating Drax's total carbon consumption, both direct and indirect, vis a vis the use of that wood in their power station.

On the other hand, if I am missing something, please explain. All I have seen thus far is vague hand waving.

BritDownUnder · Post by **BritDownUnder** » 17 Jun 2019, 08:33

It is interesting to see that the UK is continuing to close coal power plants. While it is good to aspire to zero emissions it is also interesting to note that when I wrote this message Germany had 14GW of coal generation (split between 3GW of black coal and 11 GW of Brown coal which I think the UK does not have - or at least does not use) out of a total of 35GW while the UK had no Black coal generation out of 24GW in total. It looks like the UK and Germany have similar rates of nuclear electricity generation - about 5GW each.

Clearly someone is trying a bit harder than others in trying to reduce their indigenous coal electrical generation while utilising imported gas for a larger share of their generation.

Regarding Drax, I understand their 'biomass' power stations are fuelled by woodchips sourced from 'sustainable' forests in South-Eastern US states. Whether anyone believes it I don't know. However there must be a lot of chainsaws or larger equipment with chainsaw like attachments on the front that are using liquid fossil fuels to cut the trees down, drag them to the mill, transport the chips etc. Does anyone know how much fuel or CO2 per kWh of biomass electricity production this would amount to? I have no idea myself.

Post by **clv101** » 17 Jun 2019, 10:33

Little John wrote:
clv101 wrote:If you ascribe it all Drax's electricity output, then the shipping industry, trucking industry, logging industry has magically become zero-carbon?

It doesn't matter where you count the carbon, you just need to be careful not to count the same carbon twice.
No, that is not what I said. Either you are being a bit thick or are being deliberately disingenuous.

Clearly, I am referring to the portion of those other industries' output that is specifically traceable to the output of Drax's wood burning operation may be viewed as part of the output of Drax via a vis the total carbon footprint of that wood burning operation from field to furnace.

Yes, obviously only proportion of the shipping industry specifically related to Drax!

I'm not following the disagreement here. It doesn't matter how the carbon is counted, just that it's only counted once. Perfectly fine to tot up all the carbon associated with harvesting, processing, shipping wood to Drax and dividing that by the MWh output for a carbon intensity of generation. Alternatively, you can tot up the carbon and allocate it to the forestry industry, shipping industry etc.

What's not okay is to do both, ascribed a large carbon emission to the shipping industry, and then double count the same carbon on the MWh output.