Drax's £50m renewables project throws biomass into coal mix

[Aurora]

The Guardian - 19/05/08

The UK's largest power station, Drax, launched a ?50m project today aimed at replacing 10% of the coal it uses with biomass. Mixing materials such as wood chips, sunflower husks or grasses with coal to generate electricity could reduce the power station's annual carbon dioxide emissions from coal by several million tonnes.

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[RenewableCandy]

Under the plans, biomass would be ground into a fine powder and injected directly into the power station's coal-fired furnaces.

Pity they have to mix the two. If the biomass were burned separately the ash could be retrieved and put back on the land. Not to do so means that the fuel isn't, strictly speaking, renewable: the soil gets poorer (this is Yorks/Lincs soil, which we need to keep in good shape if we're all going to eat!). And the fly ash and bottom ash end up in landfill, or get used to build roads.

[emordnilap]

The Guardian - 19/05/08

The UK's largest power station, Drax, launched a ?50m project today aimed at replacing 10% of the coal it uses with biomass. Mixing materials such as wood chips, sunflower husks or grasses with coal to generate electricity could reduce the power station's annual carbon dioxide emissions from coal by several million tonnes.

Article continues ...

There's a handy word for you.

[Catweazle]

Engineers at Drax estimate that it will take 1.5m tonnes of biomass to replace the energy that comes from 1m tonnes of coal.

That's more energy from biomass than I had expected