Burn palm oil to keep the lights on. Doh.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 07 Mar 2013, 06:53

Burning palm oil seems to be the latest desperate attempt by our government to keep the lights on. Fail. https://submissions.epetitions.direct.g ... ions/46293

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 07 Mar 2013, 09:13

signed.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 07 Mar 2013, 14:18

Perhaps Eric Pickles should be rendered down for fuel instead of trashing the planet.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 07 Mar 2013, 14:38

signed, and reposted to facebook. Total lunacy.

Post by **clv101** » 07 Mar 2013, 14:38

Biofuels in themselves aren't totally daft, however, importing palm oil to generate electricity, when we waste such vast amounts of it is idiotic.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 07 Mar 2013, 16:19

I've just been talking to a bloke who works for a firm on the Humber Bank that imports biomass by ship, turns it into something else and exports it to a refinery in the Middle East where it is turned into diesel and then reimports the diesel. There may have been a few other steps but it was all a bit complicated to follow and somebody had just given me a bacon butty. It was a sustainability for business breakfast event.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 07 Mar 2013, 16:28

I presume the intention is to sustain business, not the environment. When does the planet stop next? I want to get off.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 07 Mar 2013, 16:31

clv101 wrote:Biofuels in themselves aren't totally daft, ........

Most of them are IMO eg all the agricultural crops grown using fertiliser. Can you name any, apart from wood, which aren't?

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 07 Mar 2013, 16:59

woodburner wrote:
clv101 wrote:Biofuels in themselves aren't totally daft, ........
Most of them are IMO eg all the agricultural crops grown using fertiliser. Can you name any, apart from wood, which aren't?

Hemp

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 07 Mar 2013, 17:07

Are you saying it needs no fertiliser input?

For what it's worth here are my experiences of Hemp growing here in Canada having grown 160 acres this year for seed.

Here, you have to have a licence from some nice French lady in Quebec from some govt. quango along with police quecks before you can grow, sell and store hemp.

Seed is expensive and no sprays are available so you need a clean seedbed and good establishment, so once started this crop is a fantastic competitor, but does not like wet feet.

Combining can be a problem as it raps arround any shaft it can and so will destroy bearings or go on fire, and if very dry the dust can gather and also burn. So preparation of combine is a must, cover all exposed shafts.

4 growers in this area all had completely differing problems, feeder house chain feeds, rapping arround thrashers, and destroying wobble boxes.

I just cut the seed heads off with the header as high as it would go and got the seed into air bins as soon as possible. It doesn't ripen evenly so shelling will happen and some green will need attention.

We then swathed the straw (swather now needs repair) and round baled.

Real problems... marketing, the buyers that contracted to you at planting are bust by harvest, no market for the straw as the plant that was being built doesn't exist and the stuble is just a bed of twine that will be a b... to zerotill.

Will I grow it again? Doubt it unless we go through another period of poor crop prices for other grains and oilseeds, but a 1000lbs/acre of seed here in Canada is achievable at $80/lb and nothing can match that on my farm.

More http://www.fwi.co.uk/community/forums/h ... 13524.aspx

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 07 Mar 2013, 17:13

woodburner wrote:Are you saying it needs no fertiliser input?

Any crop will grow more abundantly if fertiliser is added. Although it is also the case that hemp occurs naturally in places where the soil quality is poor.

woodburner · Post by **woodburner** » 07 Mar 2013, 17:40

UndercoverElephant wrote: Any crop will grow more abundantly if fertiliser is added.

Not true, 2.5kg of fertiliser per hectare will stop many wild flowers growing. Wild flowers are grown as crops too.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 07 Mar 2013, 19:11

woodburner wrote:
clv101 wrote:Biofuels in themselves aren't totally daft, ........
Most of them are IMO eg all the agricultural crops grown using fertiliser. Can you name any, apart from wood, which aren't?

Miscanthus. Elephant Grass. Happen, after the bacon butty, I was talking to a bloke promoting it's cultivation. It grows on pretty poor soil with zero inputs. A farmer near me is growing it on land that was always a problem and never very productive. Harvesting is done in early spring when the machinery is otherwise idle and other work on an arable farm at a low point.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 30 Oct 2015, 12:42

Monbiot's latest piece is depressing.

Saddening.

Dispiriting.

Bleak.

Makes me ashamed to be an optimist.

http://earthsky.org/todays-image/fires-in-indonesia

Mark · Post by **Mark** » 04 Nov 2015, 14:55

New emissions figures give boost to UK renewable fuel industry:
http://www.edie.net/news/6/UK-renewable ... newsletter

Emissions from arable land in the UK could be 15% lower than previously thought, according to new estimates, marking a potential boost in the amount of crops grown specifically for use in renewable fuels.

A five-year study, produced by 23 organisations including the Renewable Energy Association (REA), National Farmers Union and DEFRA, found that emissions produced by the UK’s arable sector are significantly lower than previously thought. The REA said the findings meant that renewable fuels produced from UK feed wheat and sugar beet have an even lower relative carbon footprint compared to fossil diesel and petrol. Clare Wenner, the head of the REA sustainable transport group, said: “This major study proves that our domestically produced renewable fuels have a great GHG reduction benefit. “Add to this the valuable high protein animal feed co-products that go back to livestock farmers and you have a fantastic environmental story. We should be proud of our achievements.”

Around a third of the renewable liquid transport fuels used in the UK comes from UK feedstocks with an average carbon saving of 65% compared to fossil fuels. And the new report suggests that environmental savings could be even greater. For example, the GHG intensity of wheat ethanol and oilseed rape biodiesel is 15% and 16% lower than expected, respectively. Likewise, the report found that emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide from UK arable land is about half of IPCC estimates.

The study could help increase the uptake of biofuels, which until now have been controversial, thanks to their potential impact on food production and the expected emissions from growing crops. The transport sector currently gets around 4.4% of its fuel from renewable sources, putting the UK behind schedule to meet a legally-binding target of 10% by 2020.