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One of Labour's more important policies is to repair the damage that the Tories did to the energy production system. The UK has a huge amount of potential wind

One of Labour's more important policies is to repair the damage that the Tories did to the energy production system. The UK has a huge amount of potential wind energy just from off-shoring. Hopefully they'll start building onshore too and closing more of these ugly and polluting biomass plants.

pjc50 2y ago
Are there that many biomass plants? Or is it just Drax? Which is something of an asterisk in the "no coal" story, in that the UK's largest coal burner is still running, just on imported wood pellets. Supposedly from sawmill waste in the US and Canada. I'm not sure how "green" that really is. I once did a back of the envelope calculation that if you tried to run Drax on domestic timber only you would consume every tree in the country within a year.
- gidorah 2y ago
  Doesn't seem to be sawmill waste https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160
mschuster91 2y ago
> Hopefully they'll start building onshore too and closing more of these ugly and polluting biomass plants What's the issue with these? Biomass plants take the energy from biologically degradable farm and food waste that would otherwise decompose and degrade, releasing its energy as methane and other byproducts into the atmosphere, on either farm fields (where it contributes to overfertilization of fields and water bodies by runoff) or on dung piles/compost heaps. Modern farming, particularly livestock farming, produces an awful lot of such waste that needs to be taken care of, and small but livestock-intensive countries such as Denmark or the Netherlands have to ship the biowaste across the EU because by EU regulations and practicality they cannot dispose of it domestically. Biomass reactors make the process a whole lot easier. They take the biowaste, extract all energy they can by having bacteria and fungi break it down, burn the gas for electricity and district/local heating, and the solid remainder can then be landfilled safely.
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  I think you are mixing up three separate types of power generation > Biomass plants take the energy from biologically degradable farm and food waste that would Drax doesn't do that, drax burns wood pellets: https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sustainable-bioenergy/sourcing-sustainable-biomass/ https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sustainable-bioenergy/so... There are biowaste plants, I think there is one in thetford, but they are dirty and produce more CO2 per kwhr than gas (from what I recall, do check that first.) The thetford one is an incinerator, so requires a lot of processing to remove water. > Netherlands have to ship the biowaste thats because its really high in nitrates, and will kill waterlife should it run off. > Biomass reactors make the process a whole lot easier. not at scale. They are dirty, difficult to run and are dangerous at large scale. They often need to be heated. They also use a lot of water. You can use it to generate low grade heat though. but needs to be mixed with something like straw so that the balance of sloppy to twiggy is right (not a technical term...)
Mvandenbergh 2y ago
Which damage? The electricity system has done most of its decarbonising under either the coalition or Conservative governments, they used quite a lot of the machinery (the CfDs, capacity market, etc) setup at the end of the last Labour government but it has been the subsequent governments that have chose the annual budgets for the auctions as well as setting up the carbon budget system. There have been only two things that I would regard as material mistakes in this time: First, not adjusting the max strike price for offshore wind in AR5. Second, changing the planning rules to make it very hard to build onshore wind. Everything else, including things like the offshore bootstraps / HND which are now receiving FID (like EGL2 which was just approved), the upcoming decision on zonal pricing, and most of all the massive buildout of solar and offshore wind generation and battery storage has happened under previous governments. It's arguably the only area of policy which has gone quite well over the last decade, so I'm intrigued which damage you have in mind.
briandear 2y ago
Why replace ugly coal with ugly windmills? Why not build nuclear plants instead?
- ben_w 2y ago
  Nuclear plants are essentially identical levels of ugly to coal: from the outside both are concrete cuboids with cooling towers. Aesthetics are not a reason either way, or the UK wouldn't have had brutalism. Actual reason is that nuclear is expensive, while wind is much cheaper even after adding costs for storage etc. Also that the UK can't cross-subsidise the power plants from the military because they no longer have a big enough military to justify the nuclear weapons they already have, let alone a big enough militarily to justify the capability to breed more plutonium.
kmlx 2y ago
> In 2020, the Boris Johnson-led government decided to permit onshore wind power, and since December 2021 onshore wind developers have been able to compete in subsidy auctions with solar power and offshore wind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingd...
- swores 2y ago
  Adding my reply that explains why your claim that there hasn't been a ban since 2021 is only technically correct while actually misleading as to the real effects (to this comment that's in a more prominent thread). Pasting from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41444838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41444838 : Yes, there hasn't technically been a universal ban since a few years ago, but until this year legislation basically allowed NIMBY's to veto any new onshore wind farms with no way for local authorities to force approval through, which is why less than ten new onshore wind projects were approved England in 2021-23 compared to hundreds in Scotland. So sure, not officially a ban but it was effectively a ban. And that's what the new government have fixed: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policy-statement-on-onshore-wind/policy-statement-on-onshore-wind https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policy-statement-...

pjc50 2y ago

Are there that many biomass plants? Or is it just Drax? Which is something of an asterisk in the "no coal" story, in that the UK's largest coal burner is still running, just on imported wood pellets. Supposedly from sawmill waste in the US and Canada. I'm not sure how "green" that really is. I once did a back of the envelope calculation that if you tried to run Drax on domestic timber only you would consume every tree in the country within a year.

gidorah 2y ago
Doesn't seem to be sawmill waste https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68381160

mschuster91 2y ago

> Hopefully they'll start building onshore too and closing more of these ugly and polluting biomass plants What's the issue with these? Biomass plants take the energy from biologically degradable farm and food waste that would otherwise decompose and degrade, releasing its energy as methane and other byproducts into the atmosphere, on either farm fields (where it contributes to overfertilization of fields and water bodies by runoff) or on dung piles/compost heaps. Modern farming, particularly livestock farming, produces an awful lot of such waste that needs to be taken care of, and small but livestock-intensive countries such as Denmark or the Netherlands have to ship the biowaste across the EU because by EU regulations and practicality they cannot dispose of it domestically. Biomass reactors make the process a whole lot easier. They take the biowaste, extract all energy they can by having bacteria and fungi break it down, burn the gas for electricity and district/local heating, and the solid remainder can then be landfilled safely.

KaiserPro 2y ago
I think you are mixing up three separate types of power generation > Biomass plants take the energy from biologically degradable farm and food waste that would Drax doesn't do that, drax burns wood pellets: https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sustainable-bioenergy/sourcing-sustainable-biomass/ https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sustainable-bioenergy/so... There are biowaste plants, I think there is one in thetford, but they are dirty and produce more CO2 per kwhr than gas (from what I recall, do check that first.) The thetford one is an incinerator, so requires a lot of processing to remove water. > Netherlands have to ship the biowaste thats because its really high in nitrates, and will kill waterlife should it run off. > Biomass reactors make the process a whole lot easier. not at scale. They are dirty, difficult to run and are dangerous at large scale. They often need to be heated. They also use a lot of water. You can use it to generate low grade heat though. but needs to be mixed with something like straw so that the balance of sloppy to twiggy is right (not a technical term...)

Mvandenbergh 2y ago

Which damage? The electricity system has done most of its decarbonising under either the coalition or Conservative governments, they used quite a lot of the machinery (the CfDs, capacity market, etc) setup at the end of the last Labour government but it has been the subsequent governments that have chose the annual budgets for the auctions as well as setting up the carbon budget system. There have been only two things that I would regard as material mistakes in this time: First, not adjusting the max strike price for offshore wind in AR5. Second, changing the planning rules to make it very hard to build onshore wind. Everything else, including things like the offshore bootstraps / HND which are now receiving FID (like EGL2 which was just approved), the upcoming decision on zonal pricing, and most of all the massive buildout of solar and offshore wind generation and battery storage has happened under previous governments. It's arguably the only area of policy which has gone quite well over the last decade, so I'm intrigued which damage you have in mind.

briandear 2y ago

Why replace ugly coal with ugly windmills? Why not build nuclear plants instead?

ben_w 2y ago
Nuclear plants are essentially identical levels of ugly to coal: from the outside both are concrete cuboids with cooling towers. Aesthetics are not a reason either way, or the UK wouldn't have had brutalism. Actual reason is that nuclear is expensive, while wind is much cheaper even after adding costs for storage etc. Also that the UK can't cross-subsidise the power plants from the military because they no longer have a big enough military to justify the nuclear weapons they already have, let alone a big enough militarily to justify the capability to breed more plutonium.

kmlx 2y ago

> In 2020, the Boris Johnson-led government decided to permit onshore wind power, and since December 2021 onshore wind developers have been able to compete in subsidy auctions with solar power and offshore wind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogger_Bank_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingd...

swores 2y ago
Adding my reply that explains why your claim that there hasn't been a ban since 2021 is only technically correct while actually misleading as to the real effects (to this comment that's in a more prominent thread). Pasting from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41444838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41444838 : Yes, there hasn't technically been a universal ban since a few years ago, but until this year legislation basically allowed NIMBY's to veto any new onshore wind farms with no way for local authorities to force approval through, which is why less than ten new onshore wind projects were approved England in 2021-23 compared to hundreds in Scotland. So sure, not officially a ban but it was effectively a ban. And that's what the new government have fixed: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policy-statement-on-onshore-wind/policy-statement-on-onshore-wind https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policy-statement-...