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> Reporters showed it's whole forests. They did not. Again, the article doesn’t say that, though, as I said, it’s written in (likely deliberately) confusing wa

by xyzzyz 4y ago

> Reporters showed it's whole forests. They did not. Again, the article doesn’t say that, though, as I said, it’s written in (likely deliberately) confusing way, so it’s not very surprising that you came out believing that after reading it.

tialaramex 4y ago
Reporters filmed a logging truck, full of logs, going from these forests to Drax's pellet plant. That's all the plant does, it makes pellets for fuelling the vast power station. There's no sign of other magical trucks, maybe taking logs to be milled for IKEA or for sale in US hardware stores, and unsurprisingly Drax doesn't try to pretend such trucks exist. Drax has the license, Drax does the logging, Drax is the exclusive consumer of these logs, all the logs are "waste". According to the Canadian government 89% of the logs going into that plant were of a grade that a conventional timber mill would process for commercial use. Except no need, these logs are all "waste" turned into pellets to be burned for "green" credits. It isn't just the UK government who were hoodwinked. The pellet plant itself is the same scam. It originally told the Canadian government it would convert waste from nearby mills into pellets. "At least 95%" of the pellets would be from sawmill waste, free money for the Canadian economy. Except oops, turns out that wasn't quite true. Almost immediately they needed to import waste from further afield, and then they found a much cheaper option, instead of paying to haul waste from other mills just buy whole trees. Soon the majority of the "waste" for the pellet plant was perfectly good logs.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >It isn't just the UK government who were hoodwinked. The pellet plant itself is the same scam. It originally told the Canadian government it would convert waste from nearby mills into pellets. "At least 95%" of the pellets would be from sawmill waste, free money for the Canadian economy. Except oops, turns out that wasn't quite true. Almost immediately they needed to import waste from further afield, and then they found a much cheaper option, instead of paying to haul waste from other mills just buy whole trees. Soon the majority of the "waste" for the pellet plant was perfectly good logs. Citation please. There are more economically fruitful things to do with "perfectly good" logs than sell them to the nearby chip plant let alone the one far away.
  - pas 4y ago
    > There are more economically fruitful things to do with "perfectly good" at current energy prices in Europe? not necessarily. but it should be easy enough for Canada and/or the UK & EU to get to the bottom of this. after all they have some customs enforcement, so they know what goes out and comes in on the ships.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    The Canadian company ("Pinnacle Pellets") which was set up to do this no longer exists. Guess which company bought them... Did you guess their main customer, Drax? Because that's correct. What's left, at least on my first attempts is one lonely page of Drax's site: https://www.drax.com/northamerica/pellet-sales/ https://www.drax.com/northamerica/pellet-sales/ > There are more economically fruitful things to do with "perfectly good" logs than sell them to the nearby chip plant let alone the one far away. No need to "sell them" at all. Drax owns the logging outfit, the pellet company and the converted coal plant in the UK to burn the pellets. It is converting Canadian forests into cash in the UK, any "prices" which exist internally are notional and don't represent actual money anybody actually paid for anything. Now, that UK plant gets paid market prices for electricity, which is currently a very reasonable (by recent standards) £115 per MWh, which is equivalent to if you were charged about 12¢ per kWh before anybody pays their overheads or makes a profit. But earlier today it was £439 per MWh. But, on top of those prices, it also get a green subsidy because it persuaded the British government that this is just waste you see, it's not chopping down perfectly good trees, they're waste and so this is carbon neutral, see ? Somehow Drax was profitable when prices were about £45 per MWh. So, now their income from burning the same amount of wood is more than double, sometimes closer to ten times what it was, and yet you think there's no incentive for them to do the thing the documentary showed they are doing ? Why? Edited to add: Here's a news release from the acquisition https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/13/2209296/0/en/Drax-Completes-Acquisition-of-Pinnacle-Renewable-Energy-Inc.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/13/220929...
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Perfectly good according to whom, exactly? Expert journalists? I can scarcely believe that pellet plants are paying nearly as much for good logs as sawmills.

by xyzzyz 4y ago

tialaramex 4y ago

Reporters filmed a logging truck, full of logs, going from these forests to Drax's pellet plant. That's all the plant does, it makes pellets for fuelling the vast power station. There's no sign of other magical trucks, maybe taking logs to be milled for IKEA or for sale in US hardware stores, and unsurprisingly Drax doesn't try to pretend such trucks exist. Drax has the license, Drax does the logging, Drax is the exclusive consumer of these logs, all the logs are "waste". According to the Canadian government 89% of the logs going into that plant were of a grade that a conventional timber mill would process for commercial use. Except no need, these logs are all "waste" turned into pellets to be burned for "green" credits. It isn't just the UK government who were hoodwinked. The pellet plant itself is the same scam. It originally told the Canadian government it would convert waste from nearby mills into pellets. "At least 95%" of the pellets would be from sawmill waste, free money for the Canadian economy. Except oops, turns out that wasn't quite true. Almost immediately they needed to import waste from further afield, and then they found a much cheaper option, instead of paying to haul waste from other mills just buy whole trees. Soon the majority of the "waste" for the pellet plant was perfectly good logs.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>It isn't just the UK government who were hoodwinked. The pellet plant itself is the same scam. It originally told the Canadian government it would convert waste from nearby mills into pellets. "At least 95%" of the pellets would be from sawmill waste, free money for the Canadian economy. Except oops, turns out that wasn't quite true. Almost immediately they needed to import waste from further afield, and then they found a much cheaper option, instead of paying to haul waste from other mills just buy whole trees. Soon the majority of the "waste" for the pellet plant was perfectly good logs. Citation please. There are more economically fruitful things to do with "perfectly good" logs than sell them to the nearby chip plant let alone the one far away.
- pas 4y ago
  > There are more economically fruitful things to do with "perfectly good" at current energy prices in Europe? not necessarily. but it should be easy enough for Canada and/or the UK & EU to get to the bottom of this. after all they have some customs enforcement, so they know what goes out and comes in on the ships.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  The Canadian company ("Pinnacle Pellets") which was set up to do this no longer exists. Guess which company bought them... Did you guess their main customer, Drax? Because that's correct. What's left, at least on my first attempts is one lonely page of Drax's site: https://www.drax.com/northamerica/pellet-sales/ https://www.drax.com/northamerica/pellet-sales/ > There are more economically fruitful things to do with "perfectly good" logs than sell them to the nearby chip plant let alone the one far away. No need to "sell them" at all. Drax owns the logging outfit, the pellet company and the converted coal plant in the UK to burn the pellets. It is converting Canadian forests into cash in the UK, any "prices" which exist internally are notional and don't represent actual money anybody actually paid for anything. Now, that UK plant gets paid market prices for electricity, which is currently a very reasonable (by recent standards) £115 per MWh, which is equivalent to if you were charged about 12¢ per kWh before anybody pays their overheads or makes a profit. But earlier today it was £439 per MWh. But, on top of those prices, it also get a green subsidy because it persuaded the British government that this is just waste you see, it's not chopping down perfectly good trees, they're waste and so this is carbon neutral, see ? Somehow Drax was profitable when prices were about £45 per MWh. So, now their income from burning the same amount of wood is more than double, sometimes closer to ten times what it was, and yet you think there's no incentive for them to do the thing the documentary showed they are doing ? Why? Edited to add: Here's a news release from the acquisition https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/13/2209296/0/en/Drax-Completes-Acquisition-of-Pinnacle-Renewable-Energy-Inc.html https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/13/220929...
xyzzyz 4y ago
Perfectly good according to whom, exactly? Expert journalists? I can scarcely believe that pellet plants are paying nearly as much for good logs as sawmills.