Build Back Greener.

[Suff]

Verdox completed it's first round of funding this year. So it is taking time, as usual.

I'd expect the technology to take a decade to come to any viable large scale solution. But it does look like a very interesting way to do it.

You said

If we are not using carboniferous fuels to generate power, heat our homes and for cooking, then the need for CCS is diminished - certainly in our plan.

However that does not seem to be the plan completely. It seems they want to do carbon reduction by growing trees, then locking that carbon into CCS by burning the trees as biomass and then storing the Carbon in permanent sinks. The lower the CCS energy required, the more power from burning the trees. The better the storage, the more carbon we can offset by sucking it out of the atmosphere.

Looks like Verodx may be a provider for the UK solution.

It is a bit funny though. Because, right now, we are sucking gas out of the ground and burning it. Yet, given a few thousand years, some water and a lot of pressure and our CO2 sinks could become methane wells.....

[Workingman]

It is looking as though Rolls Royce has got the funds (gov't and private) to build four Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). They are somewhere between the reactors on nuclear subs and aircraft carriers and can put out about 500MW of power, four of them = 2GW That is nearly 2/3 of the output for about 43% of the cost of Hinkley. They are proven technology.

If we get the 16 to 20 in the original business plan we would get an additional 10GW (3x+ 1 Hinkley) for only double the cost and in under a decade.

[Suff]

The Rolls-Royce led-UK SMR Consortium has said it aims to build 16 SMRs, each with a generation capacity of 470 MWe. These could produce around 20% of the country's grid energy by 2050.

In May, Rolls-Royce announced that it aimed to start the UK resgulatory process for its SMR this autumn. The announcement followed the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's opening of the Generic Design Assessment to advanced nuclear technologies. The consortium aims to be the first such design to be assessed by UK regulators, in the second half of this year, which will "keep it on track" to complete its first unit in the early 2030s and build up to 10 by 2035.

It sounds good and it would have gone really fast before Fukushima. However the work done on Hinckley for the security of the site is publicly available and can be easily replicated. What held Hinkley up in the first place was the changing requirements to ensure another Fukishima could not happen in the UK. When they finally got all that sorted out and had a design which was acceptable, they started moving.

For RR and their consortium, this work can be picked up and re-used. Also because they are SMR, their footprint is smaller and requires less backup power to keep it going. Sea level defences need to be the same although for a smaller site.

The article claims 16 by 2050, but then says "complete its first unit in the early 2030s and build up to 10 by 2035". That is a pretty BIG delivery target and very fast too.

One of the major benefits of the SMR is that with so many sites being built, it is possible to build them all in parallel and have an extremely fast delivery. Something you can't do with massive monolithic sites. As has been seen. The bigger the project the longer it takes and the more issues you see.

About time the government got it's rectal head extractor out and started using it.

Of course, if they succeed, it closes down the debate about whether we have enough power to give to EV's.... Because we'll still have our current Gas and Biomass power gen and also Hinckley and some of the other current reactors. Plus another 40GW of wind power in train right now.

[cromwell]

Well hopefully in that case we will be able to shut down Drax power station. It's putting out more Co2 burning Canadian biomass now that it did when it was burning UK coal, according to some sources.

[Suff]

Well hopefully in that case we will be able to shut down Drax power station. It's putting out more Co2 burning Canadian biomass now that it did when it was burning UK coal, according to some sources.

The difference being that this CO2 was sequestered from the atmosphere in the last 50 years and not locked away for millions of years to be released now. Also it is from managed sources so everything we burn and emit now will be sucked out again in the next 50 years or so with new planted tree growth.

It sill needs carbon capture but Biomass is always better than burning coal so long as it is managed biomass from areas which will be reforested.

It is the same as my central heating. Yes it emits CO2 to burn the wood in the log boiler, but the wood comes from managed cuttings and it is always reforested.

[Workingman]

Ah, the biomass con.

If I go out and coppice the Ash and Rowan just at the edge of my garden and burn them on the fire it is true that the CO2 my actions released will be sequestered as the trees regrow, so pretty much a carbon neutral system. Almost.

If I go down to the local wood yard an buy their logs it's, sort of OK. It is a managed wood and as a sideline they make charcoal. However their chain saws, tractors, winches and cranes, as well as other vehicles use petrol or diesel. It's not too bad, minimal, but in real terms not strictly carbon neutral, so their biomass halo slips a bit

Drax does not have a halo. It ships in 20,000 tonnes of wood pellets every day through the energy intensive port of Immingham. Those pellets come thousands of miles from Canada, the US and Brazil in bulk carriers using some of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. The pellets are made from trees felled using machinery powered by FF and shipped to factories in vehicles using FF and then produced using energy largely from FF.

There is nothing remotely carbon neutral about a Drax biomass pellet.

[Suff]

As opposed to shipping coal from Australia??

I agree, if we were to re-forest moors in both England and Scotland and use them for Biomass, then it would be one hell of a lot cleaner and far more CO2 neutral.

However, that being said, there is a need for pragmatism. If we ship 200m tonnes of wood to the UK and burn it for electricity, then re-plant in Canada, it is better than shipping 200m tonnes of coal from Australia.

But, when, not if, shipping goes ammonia or some other fuel we can use which doesn't emit CO2, that shipping will be considered "viable" again. But if we have no infrastructure to do that, because we were too focused to see that a big reduction with some minor CO2 costs is a BIG reduction, then we won't have the infrastructure to do it.

Trees don't always grow where the most energy intensive needs are. We have to work out how to transport that biomass without emitting CO2 and to use that biomass to best effect.

Remembering that if the biomass we import has sequestered CO2 and we capture the CO2 when we burn it to generate electricity, we have actually sequestered CO2 whilst generating electricity from the carbon.

It is not there yet. But it will get there if we try. If we keep on refusing to do something just because it doesn't meet a pristine view of the world we will fail. I talk on a daily basis to people who think Nuclear should be shut down, world wide, tomorrow and if you can't charge your EV they are going to make your only car choice; they don't give a rats ass.

[Workingman]

What's with the fantasy numbers - 200m tonnes? Since about 2012 the UK has been importing less and less coal, on average about 6m tonnes per year, and we are now down to under 3m tonnes from all sources. However, Drax alone imports 7.5m tonnes of pellets every year.

As for replanting the Pennine hills and moors and the glens of Scotland, what a pipe dream that is. It is never going to happen, EVER. As for CCS, it is in its infancy, and has been forever, is a complex, energy intensive and expensive process and there are only about two dozen meaningful schemes operating globally, capturing about 0.1 per cent of the annual global emissions from fossil fuels. Another pipe dream - as yet.

When it comes to sequestration it is always directly measured as CO2 taken out as the trees grow v putting it back as they burn. A sort of closed-loop system. Nothing is ever mentioned of the other CO2 released in the felling, processing and transport, of all types, to make it happen. It is just brushed under the carpet - yet it is massive.

And here's another thing. The 50 year old tree I cut down and burn over the winter does equal CO2 out v CO2 put back in, but I can only do it.... how often? I can plant another tree to keep things even, but that's going to take another 50 years grow and square things. I will have to wait a long time before I can do it again. Or maybe I can plant 50 trees and do it every year, but where would all the land come from? It does not scale.

Biomass does not work as it is currently presented, but it sounds good if you close your ears to its negatives.

[Suff]

Biomass does not work as it is currently presented, but it sounds good if you close your ears to its negatives.

Granted I plucked a number. That being said we peaked coal in 1980 with 90m tonnes used in power generation.

The 50 year window only causes a jump in the first 50 years. Then it becomes sustainable. So long as you plant the trees continuously, after the first 50 years your continuous harvest is balanced by the continuous growth.

I know CCS is only in it's infancy. But it is, like many other industries targeted at carbon reductions, gaining a lot of funding. That electricity generated in the 1980's did not cover electric central heating or electric vehicles. Should Biomass and CCS become truly carbon negative, expect Biomass to become a very attractive choice for the energy producers.

Today it is not as good as it could be. But then neither is burning gas or coal.

I'm great with the Nuclear stuff though.

[Workingman]

Back to the future?

Just seen a thing about reuse and repair of pallets. 6,000 hectares of trees are used to create them and 250,000 tonnes of waste wood equal to 25,000 tonnes of CO2 is the result. The "new" idea would see many of them repaired.

I remember the old Europal and blue pallet systems from way back. A couple of local lads who did not do too well at school saw an opening. They rented an old yard, got a beat up flatbed Transit and went round building sites, supermarkets and so on collecting broken pallets. They would take them to the yard, cannibalise a few and use the good parts to replace elements and blocks on broken but repairable ones. The repaired pallets were then sold back to the various markets.

It seems that there is nothing new under the sun.