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Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 8:37 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

Once mines close they cannot be reopened.
Progress would have investment in cleaner coal and a planned transition, e.g. not flipping to the next most short term profitable energy source.

That's my thinking as well. Drax is being fuelled with imported wood chip harvested from sensitive environments elsewhere in the world because it's cheaper than harvesting the low value plantation growth we have here in the UK.
Sitka Spruce & Larch plantations have low economic value, little habitat value, but harvesting costs are higher.
That is still destruction but habitat instead of climate.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 8:47 am Post subject:

Shane wrote:

For a carbon tax to be successful, it needs to be globally applied and rigidly policed. If it's brought in across the UK in isolation, all our energy-intensive businesses will close down overnight (or require heavy government subsidies), and we'll end up importing the products that they produce from countries that don't have a carbon tax.

That's the same argument politicians use for nuclear weapons.
You are right, there is plenty of evidence that we have exported our carbon generation abroad but I see it from a different perspective.
With low energy technology & advances in renewable storage it's possible now to power all the homes in the UK with renewable energy.
Heavy industry may still need power from coal or nuclear but the savings increased renewable generation would bring to the planet would be large.
Yesterday (apparently) Germany generated 100% of their power from renewables.
Germany isn't exactly a backward economy with little industry.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 8:54 am Post subject:
Heavy industry in the UK hasn't been sacrificed on the altar of climate change but the altar of economics. Our heavy industry has been sold to foreign competitors who have then closed shop & moved the business where production costs are lower. That was happening a long time before reducing carbon emissions was in the political sphere.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 11:47 am Post subject:

Tavascarow wrote:

Yesterday (apparently) Germany generated 100% of their power from renewables.
Germany isn't exactly a backward economy with little industry.

Isn't it largely via maize grown for AD, though?

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 2:30 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

Tavascarow wrote:

Yesterday (apparently) Germany generated 100% of their power from renewables.
Germany isn't exactly a backward economy with little industry.

Isn't it largely via maize grown for AD, though?

I don't know.
That's why I bracketed apparently.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 3:31 pm Post subject:
I saw it elsewhere but Monbiot says so.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 4:26 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

I saw it elsewhere but Monbiot says so.

I agree with him.
I know Germany has embraced solar more than the UK but don't have a clue how much of their "renewable" is from cultivation.
We (as in UK) need to get all sewerage treatment plants to have bio-digesters installed.
I personally wouldn't use the by product on food crops because there are too many contaminants & many of them nasty. But even so the waste is much more benign than just screening & liming before sending it out to sea which is IIRC what happens down here.

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Mon May 16, 16 4:42 pm Post subject:

Yesterday (apparently) Germany generated 100% of their power from renewables.
Germany isn't exactly a backward economy with little industry.

I noticed this post of your`s Tav,and instantly wondered what Germany was doing with its vast amounts of Lignite it mines from it`s huge opencasts,which were expanded up until 2 yrs ago with new power plants built alongside,

I failed to find any info after 2014 on the web,it`s most likely my thick internet skills,or could it be possible the info is being hid ,on purpose?

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Tue May 17, 16 5:59 am Post subject:

Sorry Rob, but I don't think our environment, wildlife & human rights issues are being exported, rather that they are being enforced by the EU because our present government would get rid of them as soon as turning round if they could. It seems Boris made an idiot of himself on employment yesterday which seems to indicate that he would reduce safeguards on employment law for one thing given half a chance.

Ty Gwyn, no we don't hear about the lignite power generation in Germany, but they may well keep those on standby in the same way as our coal stations are in the UK. It takes longer to run up a coal station, so they may have those in reserve for winter or planned heavy usage periods.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Tue May 17, 16 6:38 am Post subject:

I did read about a large number of protesters shutting down (for a while) one of the largest lignite mines in Germany a couple of days ago.
�here and no further�.

Quote:

The protesters achieved their goal of stopping the open-cast mine's 220-metre-long bucket-wheel excavators.

�These coalfields pose an existential threat to humanity, which is why our movements need to step in once again and shut them down,� according to writer and activist Naomi Klein, quoted in The Guardian.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue May 17, 16 8:22 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

cleaner coal

which is quite different from clean coal.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Tue May 17, 16 8:56 am Post subject:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

https://www.energypost.eu/german-lignite-accord-will-take-lot-get-lignite-germany-let-alone-europe/

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4613
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Tue May 17, 16 9:07 pm Post subject:
Thank`s Nick, I found a similar one last night from 2015,but nothing more up to date to show that Germany has cut its Lignite use.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Thu May 19, 16 8:31 am Post subject:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/18/portugal-runs-for-four-days-straight-on-renewable-energy-alone?CMP=share_btn_tw

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Thu May 19, 16 1:31 pm Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

Don't be sorry, just don't be wrong. Is the EU isn't enforcing them on imports of all the stuff that crosses EU borders up to the same environmental, wildlife and human rights as those produced here? If not we're exporting it.

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