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ChrisRR t1_jad72na wrote

UK includes burning biomass in their definition of clean fuel, so take it with a pinch of salt

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antrky t1_jadfc1a wrote

Good documentary on BBC panorama about how we are essentially cutting down virgin trees in Canada, turning them into pellets, shipping them half way round the world, and burning them in the U.K. as “renewable” energy.

We are also subsidising the company doing this to the tune of 1.7million pounds a day. They posted profits of £700million this year

Drax power station

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QggOne t1_jadubaf wrote

There was also the Cash-For-Ash scandal in Northern Ireland. The NI executive gave a lot of subsidies for wood pellet burning.

The subsidies at one point significantly exceeded the price of buying wood pellets. This led to people burning wood pellets in empty farmhouses to make large amounts of money.

Coincidentally, a lot of those who made money out of this, were NI political party donors.

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Djeikup t1_jaemp5l wrote

Sounds like they were ahead of their times with "cryptomining".

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Mr_MacGrubber t1_jadntom wrote

I live near Baton Rouge, Louisiana and there are a couple of gigantic “silos” that hold pelletized wood going to the UK. They are domes and have the nib things on the top so it looks like a pair of huge tits. Haha

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Muzle84 t1_jadv59x wrote

Milk of Human Kindness. Stay Strong!

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SILENTSAM69 t1_jadt4w2 wrote

Poor documentary really since they don't understand how this actually is far greener than burning fossil fuels. It plays into the ignorance of the population who think planting trees helps sequester CO2.

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judokid78 t1_jae8685 wrote

Well trees do sequester CO2; all be it momentarily until they decompose. But that can be like a couple of hundred years depending on the tree and the environment it grows in.

While burning biomass is at best carbon neutral, shipping it around the world is probably the worst way to do it. The shipping and transportation industry is the largest source of CO2 emissions. Adding to that industry in the name of green energy is misleading at best. Burning locally sourced biomass like some farms do is much better.

Lastly virgin old-growth forests are our best carbon sinks; trees sequestering CO2. Cutting virgin trees to burn as fuel releases previously stored carbon as well as hindering that virgin forest's ability to store carbon.

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Yellow_Snow_Cones t1_jaejkc1 wrote

>Lastly virgin old-growth forests are our best carbon sinks

I thought it was the algae in the ocean that does the most scrubbing. Which isn't always good since it makes the ocean more acidic and it messed with shell fish's shells.

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judokid78 t1_jaetvaw wrote

Ok maybe not best. I think you're right about algae doing more scrubbing than our boreal forests.

But I will have to check on the acid thing. As far as I know atmospheric CO2 levels contribute more to ocean acidification.

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SILENTSAM69 t1_jae9zba wrote

I hate calling it green as it still causes general air pollution. Shipping it is a huge problem. Better to just use the other carbon free sources of energy like renewables, hydro, nuclear, or geothermal, than to burn biomass.

Technically no living organism is a sequestration. Maybe for a human time scale it is, but not the environmental time scale. We could be growing vegetation and treating it as nuclear waste. The best form of long storage being large heavy lawn dart style containers dropped into the north Pacific. Sadly people don't do that with nuclear waste because of public ignorance and the stigma against putting waste in the ocean.

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wietlems t1_jaeku3h wrote

If I have to believe John Oliver, it's more about companies making fake claims that they are preventing forestation from happening and adding that to their numbers.

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Alimbiquated t1_jaeks7d wrote

However, the documentary fails to specify what percentage of pellets are made this way. In fact most are made from sawmill waste, which is cheaper and available in enormous volume.

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FartingBob t1_jadk3vi wrote

Right now 5% of the UK's power generation is currently coming from biomass, to put some data on that.

https://gridwatch.co.uk/

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Override9636 t1_jae5ap8 wrote

What is "Ccgt" in that chart?

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FartingBob t1_jae7gnu wrote

Natural gas. From their description: > CCGT: Combined Cycle Gas Turbine - These use Natural Gas to power a Turbine which turns a Generator. A second system uses the heat to produce steam which is used to turn a turbine which powers a generator. There are 39 CCGT power stations in the UK.

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IvorTheEngine t1_jaelgb8 wrote

A steam engine that runs on the waste heat of a jet engine. Sort of.

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SILENTSAM69 t1_jadsz36 wrote

If by clean they only mean a climate change contributed they are not actually wrong.

Most people don't realise that while plants pull CO2 out of their air they do not remove it from the carbon cycle. Only if the plants were treated as nuclear waste, or even better buried in the ocean would that CO2 actually be removed from the carbon cycle.

The problem is that the CO2 released from fossil fuels is being added to the carbon cycle. It had been buried long ago.

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frostbiyt t1_jaezbux wrote

If we planted trees, then used the lumber for buildings, wouldn't that essentially be removing that carbon from the carbon cycle, at least in the short term?

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SILENTSAM69 t1_jaf3g5w wrote

It takes it out of the atmosphere for the short term, but that is still part of the cycle. All organic compounds are part of the cycle. It isn't until it is trapped in rocks that it leaves the cycle.

Creating calcium carbonate is one way to remove it. Geological processes are not very fast though. It would be interesting if we could help speed up that process.

It isn't a popular way to fight climate change,but adding aerosols to the atmosphere would reduce climate change. The aerosols we inadvertantly release actually does reduce climate change now. The problem would be worse if not for it. Adding more internationally is a solution.

Some people say we should not geoengineer the planet. The problem is we already ate doing it unintentionally. It might help if we do it intentionally.

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SquatchWithNoHeroes t1_jaesgu9 wrote

Yes and no.

Depending on enviroment

Swamp, boggy terrains trap large amounts of CO2. On the other hand, the anaerobic decomposition that often occurs in such enviroments can emit large amounts of methane.

And expanding forests creates a net loss, while cutting them down obviously emits CO2.

All in all, forest can't be simply be grown magically, not all areas are suitable for forests. And I don't see many countries capable of embarking into antidesertification campaigns like China succesfuly.

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SILENTSAM69 t1_jaex3to wrote

Yeah very true. At least methane is less of a concern considering its cycle is so short lived compared to CO2 taking thousands of years to pull out of the system. I see some getting confused that methane traps more heat, but scientists are less concerned about it. The life cycle of the gas in the atmosphere being a big part of the problem.

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danielravennest t1_jadgn21 wrote

Biomass took CO2 out of the atmosphere while it was growing. Burning it returns the CO2. Whether it is sustainable, produces other pollutants, and the overhead emissions from harvesting and transportation is another matter.

Solar, wind, and nuclear are not CO2 free. Some emissions occur during their manufacture and maintenance. It is just a lot less than combustion.

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