Twenty Two Years And Counting.
ChatterBank5 mins ago
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Electric cars are a false remedy. You said so yourself Tora
// Are they more damaging to the environment that the petrol/diesel ones? I mean the electricity has to be generated from fossil fuels mainly (in our case anyway) so surely lots of energy is lost in generating the electricity, so is it not better to have the cars powered directly by fossil fuels? Is the whole electric car thing a false remedy? //
// Are they more damaging to the environment that the petrol/diesel ones? I mean the electricity has to be generated from fossil fuels mainly (in our case anyway) so surely lots of energy is lost in generating the electricity, so is it not better to have the cars powered directly by fossil fuels? Is the whole electric car thing a false remedy? //
That's great sunk, does not change my statement above, it's better to use the fossil fuels directly if that is what we use to generate the electricity. Hopefully one day we will be fully using renewables and nuclear power. Then great, I am on board with lecky cars but I am still concerned about infrastructure, range etc You seem to be trying to pick a fight sunk, I'm pretty much agreeing with you.
//...is Drax included in that category?//
Yes Drax is included in the "renewables" category and it is a massive deceit.
Last year Drax burned the equivalent of 14 million tons of green wood. That's about half a ton a second. The vast majority of this fuel is sourced from mature trees felled in the USA and Canada. It is processed into pellets using an industrial process, part of which involves driving moisture from the wood and crushing it and it is hugely energy hungry. Here's Drax's own take on that process:
https:/
After that the finished product is shipped 5,000 miles to the UK where it is carted from various ports to Drax by up to seventeen of the largest trains in the UK every day.
Burning wood is nowhere near as energy efficient as burning coal and the emissions produced are greater per Kwh and just as harmful (but not included in the UK's emissions total). The Yorkshire and Midlands power stations were built where they are because they were a few miles from productive coal mines and could be fed with minimum transport costs.
The "renewable" description of burning freshly logged and processed wood is a confidence trick of epic proportions. For the privilege of conducting it Drax received £2.5m in subsidies last year (paid for by all energy consumers) which it will use towards converting the remainder of its plant to burning wood. Drax produces around 5% of the UK's electricity and to say its fuel is "renewable" and its processes sustainable is, like Mr Hancock last week, taking the gullible public for complete fools.
Yes Drax is included in the "renewables" category and it is a massive deceit.
Last year Drax burned the equivalent of 14 million tons of green wood. That's about half a ton a second. The vast majority of this fuel is sourced from mature trees felled in the USA and Canada. It is processed into pellets using an industrial process, part of which involves driving moisture from the wood and crushing it and it is hugely energy hungry. Here's Drax's own take on that process:
https:/
After that the finished product is shipped 5,000 miles to the UK where it is carted from various ports to Drax by up to seventeen of the largest trains in the UK every day.
Burning wood is nowhere near as energy efficient as burning coal and the emissions produced are greater per Kwh and just as harmful (but not included in the UK's emissions total). The Yorkshire and Midlands power stations were built where they are because they were a few miles from productive coal mines and could be fed with minimum transport costs.
The "renewable" description of burning freshly logged and processed wood is a confidence trick of epic proportions. For the privilege of conducting it Drax received £2.5m in subsidies last year (paid for by all energy consumers) which it will use towards converting the remainder of its plant to burning wood. Drax produces around 5% of the UK's electricity and to say its fuel is "renewable" and its processes sustainable is, like Mr Hancock last week, taking the gullible public for complete fools.
