I'm mildly supportive of biomass (and trash) burning as a part of the energy system, as a continually shrinking fraction as cheap renewables roll out. It's app

I'm mildly supportive of biomass (and trash) burning as a part of the energy system, as a continually shrinking fraction as cheap renewables roll out. It's apparently eco enough that the Guardian needs to use some dodgy comparisons to make it look bad: > Drax produced four times more carbon dioxide than the UK’s last remaining coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, which is due to close in September. Drax also produced more emissions last year than the next four most polluting power plants in the UK combined, according to the report. These plants, biomass and coal, produce CO2 when they burn stuff. The plant that is still running is going to generate more than the one that's in the process of shutting down. Similarly, 1 big plant will generate more CO2 than 1 small plant. It will probably be more efficient and cheaper and probably cleaner than multiple small plants generating the same amount of energy though. Drax is a very big plant. This is fairly basic stuff. I think biomass does actually produce more CO2 per kWh than coal, so there's a slightly more respectable stat they could have used. But it's close enough that if you give biomass any credit for avoiding rotten wood emitting methane or capturing CO2 then it might win. They're definitely not as clean and green as renewables, and we should be tilting things towards rolling those out and phasing these out, but as noted by the article we've only just phased out coal. It's sadly one of those areas where the eco-purists at the Guardian can provide fodder for the climate denial element of HN where they can be performatively outraged by any kind of green policy that they can possibly misconstrue. Ban plastic straws because a turtle gets one stuck up it's nose and you'll never stop hearing about how this hasn't solved climate change for example. Back to biomass, the other misdirection you see is people who want to ban old growth logging (an issue on which I broadly agree) pointing to a forest cut down primarily for timber and connecting it to biomass, because timber production doesn't tap into the climate denial hysteria. Probably a smart move if all you care about is getting your logging story into a newspaper, but just as dishonest as the misleading stats quoted above.