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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16059
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 Posted: Tue Feb 24, 15 8:00 am Post subject: |
 
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I would agree with you Ty Gwyn. There are several subjects in this that I would like to highlight.
We have far too much unmanaged woodland, which is why we are losing woodland birds, animals, flowers and insects.
There are too many deer removing the undergrowth and exacerbating the situation.
It is difficult in the UK to get enough biomass for something as large as a power station. There are just not the woods locally with sufficient 'spare' wood to maintain the supply.
At least this one is going to work on wood pellets. Some proposals are for importing wood chip from places like the States. The Forestry Commission have already raised the issue of potentially importing pests and diseases that way. Pellets are at least a bit less likely to bring these in.
Imo, we need to devolop the use of brash as bio mass. This is usually just left on the ground. Although there are advantages in this, such as making homes for small mammals and birds, and returning nutrients to the soil as it rots, with help from various fungi, bacteria and insects, anyone who has done any forestry will know it makes a lot of itself and can be a potential hazard. At least some used as bio mass would be a great advantage.
Sorry about the minor rant, but this is a subject I feel rather strongly about, working in the woods. |
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OtleyLad
Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 15 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Tavascarow wrote: |
Look at the amount of Sitka spruce growing now where we had Birch, Mountain ash & Scots Pine?
Funnily enough planted to provide pit props for the coal mining industry!!  |
Maybe Chris can confirm,but i believe the Forestry Commission was set up after the 1st WW,due to the disruption of supplies of timber from Norway,
And these Norwegian supplies were needed because the valley sides in South Wales were the Mountain Ash,Birch and Oaks grew had been stripped year`s earlier to go underground.
Talking of sustainabilty,think of all that timber that was used,in 40 million year`s we will have replenished seams of coal,lol.
My initial point with this post was to show the arrogance of calling this system renewable energy and thinking about the whole size of its carbon footprint when compared to burning Yorkshire coal ,the nearest available ,being the Scottish opencasts are being halved in production. |
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 15 10:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Ty Gwyn wrote: |
| Tavascarow wrote: |
Look at the amount of Sitka spruce growing now where we had Birch, Mountain ash & Scots Pine?
Funnily enough planted to provide pit props for the coal mining industry!! |
Maybe Chris can confirm,but i believe the Forestry Commission was set up after the 1st WW,due to the disruption of supplies of timber from Norway,
And these Norwegian supplies were needed because the valley sides in South Wales were the Mountain Ash,Birch and Oaks grew had been stripped year`s earlier to go underground.
Talking of sustainabilty,think of all that timber that was used,in 40 million year`s we will have replenished seams of coal,lol.
My initial point with this post was to show the arrogance of calling this system renewable energy and thinking about the whole size of its carbon footprint when compared to burning Yorkshire coal ,the nearest available ,being the Scottish opencasts are being halved in production. |
I imagine a fair amount of timber got shipped across the channel to shore up trenches & under trench excavations as well.
I fully support renewables as you know, but like all things they have to be managed properly.
The carbon footprint of even timber pellets shipped from the other side of the world would still be less than from extracted coal, as long as the source is renewable.
Of course if all they do is deforest virgin woodland & carry on till there's none left that's different.
If I had to choose between burning coal & saving the forests or burning the forests & leaving the coal underground I know which I'd choose.
Ideally surplus agricultural land should be growing SRC, & the population should limit their electrical needs. But one has logistical problems & the other is cloud cuckoo land. |
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 1:11 am Post subject: |
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The article i linked regarding the wood pellet burning in Lynmouth only mentioned sourcing from the US and Canada,
The wood chip that is proposed[not heard its started as yet] for Drax,is sourced from the swamps of Louisiana and Carolina,i`m wondering what environmental effect this will have removing this vast amount of swamp timber,which i doubt will be re-planted.
And the factor that a lot seem to miss is,Jobs are exported,but then again the UK Government may think that idle people have a less carbon footprint,i see it as just madness.
And if global warming,climate change is such a big thing,and our directives come from the EU,had`nt someone better point this out to Germany,who is going big time in Lignite power generation,far more polluting than coal.
And like you mentioned earlier about the carbon trading,one has to think Why is the UK Government proposing burning foreign wood in this power station,one reason could be to cover up the pollution from Fracking,
Or am i thinking like a politician. |
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 16059
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 7:31 am Post subject: |
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The Forestry Commission was, as you said, set up after WWI John. It was because a combination of using timber for war work, lack of care during the war, the lack of men after the war and change of land ownership caused by death of the owners and their heirs meant that the woodlands were in a bad way as far as timber was concerned.
SRC such as willow or poplar has its downside Tavascarow. It needs fertiliser, is harvested in a very energy intensive way using machines and then needs processing into pellets or chips. This uses a lot more energy than cutting trees with a chainsaw then extracting them and processing them into say logs. As I said before, using the brash from the tops of trees would be far more energy efficient. Producing pellets is a the most energy absorbing method of using wood, without the transport.
There are some jobs that need coal rather than wood. Steel making is one; before coke was used all furnaces were very small as they had to rely on the charcoal that could be made within about 3 miles of them. By using modern transport, this would be less of a problem, but it uses a lot of wood to make charcoal, so I think Ty Gwyn is correct that we cannot rely on wood for everything.
I am also rather concerned about this ' Ideally surplus agricultural land should be growing SRC'. If our agriculture was properly organised, we would be growing more to feed the people of this country rather than importing so much. Also the edges and banks should be kept as grass. It absorbs nutients and stops them nutrifying the woods, downs and heaths, and provides homes for insects which leads to birds etc. |
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 10:15 am Post subject: |
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| Ty Gwyn wrote: |
The article i linked regarding the wood pellet burning in Lynmouth only mentioned sourcing from the US and Canada,
The wood chip that is proposed[not heard its started as yet] for Drax,is sourced from the swamps of Louisiana and Carolina,i`m wondering what environmental effect this will have removing this vast amount of swamp timber,which i doubt will be re-planted.
And the factor that a lot seem to miss is,Jobs are exported,but then again the UK Government may think that idle people have a less carbon footprint,i see it as just madness.
And if global warming,climate change is such a big thing,and our directives come from the EU,had`nt someone better point this out to Germany,who is going big time in Lignite power generation,far more polluting than coal.
And like you mentioned earlier about the carbon trading,one has to think Why is the UK Government proposing burning foreign wood in this power station,one reason could be to cover up the pollution from Fracking,
Or am i thinking like a politician. |
I don't know enough about fracking to comment. & thankfully here it will never be a problem. There's no gas in Granite.
I don't know how many tonnes of wood produces a megawatt of leccy but I imagine we would clear fell the nations forests in a decade or two to keep pace. Importing from abroad where there are vast tracts of forest & fewer people, or as with America, fewer people who will complain, is far easier.
But as you say if the timber isn't replanted, & at a rate that can replace that harvested it's no longer sustainable or carbon neutral, we are just mining the coal of the future. |
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Ty Gwyn
Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter
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Tavascarow
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
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Nick
Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford
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