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There appears to be very roughly 500 million tons of wood in English forests, so Drax would need to use a little over a million tons per day to work through it
by Arnt 5y ago
There appears to be very roughly 500 million tons of wood in English forests, so Drax would need to use a little over a million tons per day to work through it all in a year.
- ben_w 5y agoI’ve not been able to find a mass estimate for UK forests, but UK timber production appears to be 10.8 million tons per year, if I’m comprehending this right: https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statistics/statistics-by-topic/timber-statistics/uk-wood-production-and-trade-provisional-figures/ https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statis... For the entire capacity of Drax (not just biomass), 3.9 GW-years / (18 MJ/kg) — the energy density Wikipedia lists for “wood”, but I bet it is more complicated than that — I get 6.8 million tons/year. The Wikipedia page about the power station says in 2013 they planned to import 7.5 million tons.
- Arnt 5y agoI found forest area and mass for some other places, and the forest area for England. 10.8 fits, that means trees are between 50 and 100 years old on average when they're cut (not all of the wood is usable for timber, so it's not just 50, and the UK is bigger than England).