So The Governement Wants To Tackle Wood Burning Does It?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44203396
I suggest they look at the big stuff like Drax first. Cutting down square miles of NA and using diesel to ship it to UK to burn and then not counting the emissions! ...and that's supposed to be eco friendly! right oh!

[youngmafbog]

Interesting one this. Personally I hate the stinking stoves and being asthmatic I welcome anything to clean the air, but surely it is likely to be Tory voters affected since it is mostly a "middle England" thing to do?

[Islay]

Many of us that live out in the sticks rely on our stoves to heat our houses as oil is so expensive - wonder if they will give grants to bring us up to date with central heating?

[ToraToraTora]

what I'm saying is they should tackle the big stuff first like all these "biomass" power stations, rather than picking on private householders.

[youngmafbog]

I dont think it is aimed at those in the sticks.

Townies only.

[youngmafbog]

They should tackle both TTT. Wouldn't be difficult to do it all together.

[EDDIE51]

I would ban barbeques .You can guarantee that on a nice sunny day,just as you go to hang out the washing , you will be choked by smoke and paraffin fumes, as someone lights a BBQ to burn a few burgers.

[Cloverjo]

It seems wrong to focus on wood-burning homes. How many of them are there now? Hardly any, I think. Concentrate on the people razing forests for palm oil.

[youngmafbog]

Cloverjo, you have missed the point.

Whilst I agree with you entirely (We always avoid palm oil where possible) this is more about pollution in the UK.

Eddie, BBQ's generally run for 1/2 hour and disperse not for hours on a foggy night. Bet you are a bundle of laughs at a party.

[naomi24]

I agree TTT. This is nothing more than making the right noises.

[Gromit]

Drax powerstation is in Yorkshire and its fuel is imported from the US and Canada. If only there were some coal mines in Yorkshire that could supply this station.

[youngmafbog]

So you want coal fired power stations now then Gromit?

Thought you were a Green?

[Hopkirk]

Biomass is a damned sight greener than coal.

With coal you are releasing carbon trapped underground.

By planting trees and harvesting them for burning you are using the trees to capture CO2 in the atmosphere to make the fuel.

[Gromit]

Drax is primarily a Coal fired power station. It can burn Petcoke and biomass as a secondary fuel.

The anti pollution measures are health driven. They are to lower pollution hotspots in highly populated towns and cities. While woodburners contribute a little to that pollution, the vast majority comes from cars.
Drax is in the Yorkshire countryside and not a serious threat to health.

[Gromit]

Wood burning stoves = 1.5 million
Motor vehicles = 38 million.

[ToraToraTora]

In fairness to Gromit coal, would be more eco friendly than this "biomass" silliness.

[ToraToraTora]

hoppy, the biomass thing is a con. They cut down CO2 absorbing forests then use fossil fuels to process into pellets and transport them half way across the world then burn them releasing CO2. They claim they plant a new tree for every one cut down so they don't count the CO2 emissions from the power station, even if they do plant the new trees a new sapling is never going to offset the amount of CO2 release by burning 100 year old tree.

[youngmafbog]

//Wood burning stoves = 1.5 million
Motor vehicles = 38 million. //

Now that has to be the most pointless comparison of figures I have ever seen.

[New Judge]

“Biomass is a damned sight greener than coal.”

It most certainly is not. The “Biomass” illusion is one of the great confidence tricks of our age. 3Ts posted a very pertinent question last month to which I made a fairly lengthy reply:

https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Society-and-Culture/Question1604591.html

I’ll paste a few bits of my reply to save you wading through it:

-----
You have to burn about five times as much wood than coal to produce the same amount of energy with much of the heat being used simply to drive off the moisture contained in the wood as it is added to the furnace. Even leaving that aside and the fact that the wood has to be harvested, processed and transported four or five thousand miles (just as coal does), wood only has a smaller net emissions figure than coal because they plant saplings and their value and that of the carbon the trees are said to have absorbed before they are felled is used to “offset” (whatever that might mean) the emissions from burning the wood. Effectively burning the wood is done (on paper) with nil emissions. The saplings (which will take about 200 years to grow – if they survive) also fail to absorb as much carbon as their mature counterparts and in the long term the deforestation taking place to fuel to biomass industry will result in a net gain of carbon in the atmosphere.

The biomass industry would like us to believe that the fuel used in power stations is produced from waste-wood by products. In the main it is not and the stuff being imported to the UK from Canada and the USA is principally whole trees felled from forests specifically for the purpose.

There is a very good report here which explains all this far better than I can:

https://www.ecowatch.com/chatham-house-biomass-study-2288764699.html

If you cannot be bothered to read it, the concluding paragraph says this:

“Burning forest biomass is not a climate solution. It often worsens climate change by emitting more carbon than burning coal. These findings have now been corroborated by an established UK institution with a history of independent and rigorous research. It should serve as a wake-up call to policymakers in both the UK and EU that their renewables incentives and subsidies aimed at reducing carbon emissions from power plants are—in the case of forest biomass power—likely having the opposite effect and making our climate problems worse.”
-----

[New Judge]

“Drax is primarily a Coal fired power station. It can burn Petcoke and biomass as a secondary fuel.”

Drax power station in Yorkshire is the UK’s largest, providing 7% of the country’s energy needs. Since 2010 some of its power plants have been gradually converted to burn biomass. Far from being a secondary fuel, three of Drax’s six firing units are fully fired by biomass, the third having been converted in 2017. Firing with Petcoke is minimal. It now consumes more than 7.5 million tonnes of the stuff annually. This is virtually all sourced from the USA and Canada. The deforestation requirement to sustain this supply is around 4,500 square miles – more than half the size of Wales - each and every year.

“Drax is in the Yorkshire countryside and not a serious threat to health.”

It is midway between Goole and Selby, being about five miles from each. The combined population of these two towns is about 35,000. It is also the largest single polluting plant in the UK and I would suggest that its emissions pose a far more serious threat to health than a few woodburning stoves spread across the nation. If Mr Gove wants to see a reduction in woodburning he might do better to start there than hassling a few families.


The government’s aim to improve air quality are laudable. Unfortunately preventing a few families from burning a bit of wood in the winter will be far more of a nuisance than a benefit when places like Drax are burning wood sourced from deforestation carried out on an industrial scale. Still at least they will be seen to be “doing something” even if it is a complete wasted of time.