Green Building Forum - Biomass - a burning issue

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:32:42 +0100

Posted By: James Norton...can some one fill me in on this Lackman business as I can't be arsed to read 750 pages...!

J

Sorry James you will find Steamytea did a link to the report towards the bottom of page 25 . The report itself is only about 10 pages long and mainly pretty graphs so wont take long to read but does raise interesting points.

the link from memory has europarl and lackmann in the url

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:43:14 +0100

James

For some reason the page 25 link I just referred to is no longer there so here it is again

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/20060601/itre/lackmann_en.pdf

Biomass - a burning issue

SteamyTea — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:46:01 +0100

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/20060601/itre/lackmann_en.pdf

Biomass - a burning issue

Joiner — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:10:33 +0100

Makes sense to my layman's eyes. Although there is the recurring worry over...

"A mix of instruments is necessary for an efficient support of biofuels: Blending quota alone would enable mineral oil trusts to choose where to purchase biofuels. This will lead to an increase of imports and also to an increase of
production of the cheapest biofuels which are presently available (bioethanolform sugar cane and biodiesel from palm oil). However, palm oil production implies particularly high environmental damage and social problems (deforestation and use of pesticides)."

I would love European biomass technology to be the answer (or one of them, at least), but it seems that advocates go around with one eye shut, or at least partially so, when it comes to feedstocks. Accepting that the UK has enough locally-sourced 'stuff' to feed the furnaces is counter-intuitive when you've seen how much timber you need just to keep a bog-standard wood burner ticking over for the duration of a bad winter. Even accepting the much higher efficiencies of a modern plant, when you see the actual fuel requirements of these extremely high-temperature monsters your head starts to shake in disbelief. I'd LOVE to share the optimistic view, but somehow...

Once you start talking imports then you're talking markets establishing not just the price but the availability. About three years ago the UK experienced problems sourcing even unglamorous Scandinavian redwood because exporting countries could get a better deal elswhere. It's the economic reality that Steamy keeps reminding us of. It's the bucket of cold water over the door!

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:39:04 +0100

Just thought it useful to paint the bigger picture and came across this report which gives a good insight as to where we our with UK energy and trends over the recent years.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Statistics/publications/brief/190-uk-energy-in-brief-2010.pdf

Biomass - a burning issue

Joiner — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:27:15 +0100

John, it's either taking a hell of a time to download or the link is broken - or my computer is!

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:12:34 +0100

Joiner

Maybe SteamyTea can come along and put a direct link in. I used to have the facility to do that but I must have upset somebody as I am no longer able to do it.

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:30:26 +0100

Biomass - a burning issue

Joiner — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:55:43 +0100

Ha ha. Cul de sac, Jeremy, leading to...

Green Building Press

ERROR!

We apologise because the page you are looking for may no longer exist or may have been moved.

Please use the back-button on your browser and try again. Or click here to go to our main site page.

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:11:36 +0100

This forum does weird things to HTML tags for some reason. I've just tried a few tweaks, but can't get the tags to work properly on that url. Neither the anchor or href tags seem to work as they should when it comes to inserting links.

For example (and this post is in text mode to disable html) is supposed to insert an anchored url link, where "URL" is the link. For some reason this doesn't seem to work here.

Biomass - a burning issue

SteamyTea — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:13:34 +0100

http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Statistics/publications/brief/190-uk-energy-in-brief-2010.pdf

Works for me, rookies

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:16:10 +0100

Give us a clue!

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:16:48 +0100

ST

I knew you could do it

Biomass - a burning issue

SteamyTea — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:18:38 +0100

Just type in the URL or copy and paste it. Make sure the Text radio button is active and add comments.

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:23:54 +0100

Strange. So using text mode automatically creates hyperlinks, whereas using html mode doesn't allow the use of html tags to create hyperlinks. Sort of counter intuitive and I can see why it catches people out. The forum also seems to remember if your last reply was in text or html mode and presets the radio button for the next reply, something that's caught me out, usually when the blockquote and cite tags don't work.

Biomass - a burning issue

Joiner — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:27:11 +0100

I did copy and paste it!

Biomass - a burning issue

SteamyTea — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:21:15 +0100

Did you get a 'white space' in at the beginning or end of the line?
Things like line breaks, new lines, paragraph markers can play havoc. They sometimes look like \n or \b

Biomass - a burning issue

Joiner — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:49:01 +0100

Nope. Always make sure all aliens are eliminated!

Biomass - a burning issue

djh — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:27:38 +0100

Posted By: JSHarrisThe forum also seems to remember if your last reply was in text or html mode and presets the radio button for the next reply, something that's caught me out, usually when the blockquote and cite tags don't work.

That's the thing I most often use the edit button for, to resubmit a posting with the Text/Html button set properly

Biomass - a burning issue

SteamyTea — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:37:10 +0100

Me to

Biomass - a burning issue

Brianwilson — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:29:12 +0100

http://www.stockmarketwire.com/article/4243025/Drax-soars-on-possible-biomass-subsidy.html
It is interesting that subsidy for offshore wind is to be cut in order to double subsidy for co-firing using imported biomass. Can anyone explain logic?

Biomass - a burning issue

Joiner — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:38:32 +0100

Ask a government minister to explain. I believe it's an excellent way to get to sleep.

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:15:52 +0100

Posted By: Brianwilsonhttp://www.stockmarketwire.com/article/4243025/Drax-soars-on-possible-biomass-subsidy.html
It is interesting that subsidy for offshore wind is to be cut in order to double subsidy for co-firing using imported biomass. Can anyone explain logic?

Simple really.

If you look at the number of coal fired plants that have been ordered to close by 2015 due to eu emissions legislation it works out at approx 8500 MW capacity with only one new coal IGCC station approved of 900MW that leaves a very big black hole. However there is a loophole in the EU legislation whereby co firing with biomass makes the plant cleaner and extends its life beyond 2015. The problem with that is biomass costs more than coal and we dont want the generators to lose there extortionate profits because they need that to purchase nuclear so lets pay them a subsidy. The subsidy pot is empty but if we reduce the roc's on offshore wind from 2 roc's to say 1.5 roc's then we can give that to the generators to pay for the biomass.

Basically DECC have no long term strategy so end up fire fighting.

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:52:45 +0100

Posted By: renewablejohn However there is a loophole in the EU legislation whereby co firing with biomass makes the plant cleaner and extends its life beyond 2015.

Is that actually true? My belief was that it's a consequence of the way that emissions have been defined, such that biomass is not penalised as much as coal, rather than burning biomass being a real benefit to the atmosphere, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:07:13 +0100

Posted By: JSHarris
Posted By: renewablejohnHowever there is a loophole in the EU legislation whereby co firing with biomass makes the plant cleaner and extends its life beyond 2015.

Is that actually true? My belief was that it's a consequence of the way that emissions have been defined, such that biomass is not penalised as much as coal, rather than burning biomass being a real benefit to the atmosphere, but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

Yes it is true. Straight from the horses mouth

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/position/41191.aspx

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:18:40 +0100

Posted By: renewablejohn

Yes it is true. Straight from the horses mouth

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/position/41191.aspx

Looks like I was right, it is a loophole from the way the regulations are phrased to trade current much higher CO2 against possible future sequestration. Total harmful emissions to the atmosphere from burning biomass will be a lot higher; around 90% more CO2 will be released per kWh than from burning coal, but emissions of NOx and SO2 will be lower.

I remain unconvinced by the arguments that biomass is carbon neutral, given that we've already stripped the planet of vast swathes of it, released it to the atmosphere as CO2 and have many years of replanting to go before we can even get back to where we were 100 years ago. As we also still seem to be stripping biomass from the planet (generally and globally, rather than specifically) at a rate greater than we are replanting on a global scale it seems to be a net pollutant (not withstanding the point I know you're bound to make about "sustainable" regrowth at the micro, rather than global macro level, John).

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:14:20 +0100

Posted By: JSHarris
Posted By: renewablejohn

Yes it is true. Straight from the horses mouth

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/position/41191.aspx

Total harmful emissions to the atmosphere from burning biomass will be a lot higher; around 90% more CO2 will be released per kWh than from burning coal, but emissions of NOx and SO2 will be lower.

Not going to get into a debate about conventional thermal coal stations versus conventional thermal biomass stations as in my opinion all these dinosaur plants should be closed purely on efficiency and emissions criteria.
Now if your statement above is in relation to Coal versus Biomass in a Buggenum type IGCC plant then the statement is not true as CO2 levels are approx 20% less in a biomass only plant compared to a coal only plant.

Biomass - a burning issue

JSHarris — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:26:47 +0100

Posted By: renewablejohn
Not going to get into a debate about conventional thermal coal stations versus conventional thermal biomass stations as in my opinion all these dinosaur plants should be closed purely on efficiency and emissions criteria.
Now if your statement above is in relation to Coal versus Biomass in a Buggenum type IGCC plant then the statement is not true as CO2 levels are approx 20% less in a biomass only plant compared to a coal only plant.

I agree that in a purpose designed wood burning power station the CO2 figures per unit energy extracted should be equal (given that coal and wood are essentially the same thing, just with different densities), but all the evidence I've read suggests that biomass produces significantly more CO2 when burnt as an alternative to coal in power stations.

It seems that the stop-gap measure being adopted is to burn biomass in conventional power stations, to exploit the loophole in the EU emission limits that allows the extra CO2 to be discounted for burning wood.

Biomass - a burning issue

renewablejohn — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:24:55 +0100

Posted By: JSHarris
Posted By: renewablejohn
Not going to get into a debate about conventional thermal coal stations versus conventional thermal biomass stations as in my opinion all these dinosaur plants should be closed purely on efficiency and emissions criteria.
Now if your statement above is in relation to Coal versus Biomass in a Buggenum type IGCC plant then the statement is not true as CO2 levels are approx 20% less in a biomass only plant compared to a coal only plant.

I agree that in a purpose designed wood burning power station the CO2 figures per unit energy extracted should be equal (given that coal and wood are essentially the same thing, just with different densities), but all the evidence I've read suggests that biomass produces significantly more CO2 when burnt as an alternative to coal in power stations.

Buggenum is not a purpose designed plant for biomass. It was designed as a coal plant but has since been developed to accept a wide variety of wastes or biomass initially as a CHP plant but more recently as a gas injection plant and a development plant for Carbon Capture and Storage/Conversion.
One short term solution would be to build coal IGCC plants and as biomass becomes economically available substitute for coal. Certainly an easier route then dead end nuclear.

Biomass - a burning issue

SteamyTea — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:31:35 +0100

Why is nuclear 'dead end'?