Biomass power station produced four times emissions of UK coal plant, says report

 

Drax was responsible for 11.5m tonnes of CO2 last year, or nearly 3% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. Photograph: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

 Drax received £22bn in subsidies despite being UK’s largest emitter in 2023, though company rejects ‘flawed’ research

 

The Drax power station was responsible for four times more carbon emissions than the UK’s last remaining coal-fired plant last year, despite taking more than £0.5bn in clean-energy subsidies in 2023, according to a report.

The North Yorkshire power plant, which burns wood pellets imported from North America to generate electricity, was revealed as Britain’s single largest carbon emitter in 2023 by a report from the climate thinktank Ember.

The figures show that Drax, which has received billions in subsidies since it began switching from coal to biomass in 2012, was responsible for 11.5m tonnes of CO₂ last year, or nearly 3% of the UK’s total carbon emissions.

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.

Frankie Mayo, an analyst at Ember, said: “Burning wood pellets can be as bad for the environment as coal; supporting biomass with subsidies is a costly mistake.”

The company has claimed almost £7bn from British energy bills to support its biomass generation since 2012, even though burning wood pellets for power generation releases more emissions for each unit of electricity generated than burning gas or coal, according to Ember and many scientists. In 2023, the period covered by the Ember report, it received £539m.

 The government is considering the company’s request for billpayers to foot the cost of supporting its power plant beyond the subsidy scheme’s deadline in 2027 so it can keep burning wood for power until the end of the decade.

 

Drax has won the support of the government thanks to claims that its generation is “carbon neutral” because the trees that are felled to produce its wood pellets absorb as much carbon dioxide while they grow as they emit when they are burned in its power plant.

The company plans to fit carbon-capture technology at Drax using more subsidies, to create a “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” (BECCS) project and become the first “carbon-negative” power plant in the world by the end of the decade.

A spokesperson for the company dismissed the thinktank’s findings as “flawed” and accused its authors of ignoring its “widely accepted and internationally recognised approach to carbon accounting”.

“The technology that underpins BECCS is proven, and it is the only credible large-scale way of generating secure renewable power and delivering carbon removals,” the spokesperson added.

A government spokesperson said the report “fundamentally misrepresents” how biomass emissions are measured.

“The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change is clear that biomass sourced in line with strict sustainability criteria can be used as a low-carbon source of energy. We will continue to monitor biomass electricity generation to ensure it meets required standards,” the spokesman said.

Climate authorities, including the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UK’s Climate Change Committee, which provides official advice to ministers, have included BECCS in their long-term forecasts for how governments can meet their climate targets.

The government’s own spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has warned that ministers have handed a total of £22bn in billpayer-backed subsidies to burn wood for electricity despite being unable to prove the industry meets sustainability standards.

Mayo said: “Burning wood for power is an expensive risk that limits UK energy independence and has no place in the journey to net zero. True energy security comes from homegrown wind and solar, a healthy grid and robust planning for how to make the power system flexible and efficient.”

The FTSE 100 owner of the Drax power plant made profits of £500m over the first half of this year, helped by biomass subsidies of almost £400m over this period. It handed its shareholders a windfall of £300m for the first half of the year.

 

 

Water dispute between São Paulo State and Rio de Janeiro State ( Brazil ) GreenHouse Effect

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2014/03/1429820-alckmin-rebate-cabral-e-diz-que-rio-e-dos-paulistas.shtml

LONDON – Climate change could be about to alter life in the sea, according to new research in Nature Geoscience.

By Tim Radford, Climate News Network

Researchers at the University of Southern California have been experimenting with common microbes, hoping to predict which will flourish in a warmer and more carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.

The microbes are two genera of cyanobacteria. These tiny creatures – blue-green algae responsible for huge occasional “blooms” in the sea – are life’s bottom line: they fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and they photosynthesize atmospheric carbon to release oxygen, so they deliver staples for survival both for all plants and for all animals.

These microbes are everywhere. U.S. researchers recently charted the predicted change in cyanobacteria populations in the arid soils of the North American continent over the next century: now this second team has begun to look at life in the sea.

Fishing boats in Thailand. How will rising CO2 in the oceans affect their future?
Credit: apes_abroad via Wikimedia Commons

David Hutchins and colleagues studies two groups of nitrogen fixers; Trichodesmium andCrocosphaera: the first forms vast and often visible colonies, the second is harder to see, but is found everywhere.

They tested seven strains of the two microbes, from different locations in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, under laboratory conditions in artificial atmospheres that mimicked the predicted carbon dioxide concentrations under various climate scenarios.

The researchers found that as carbon dioxide levels rose, nitrogen-fixing productivity rose too, by up to 125 percent. But the responses varied according to the strain under test: some did better under pre-industrial conditions; some flourished as they neared the levels predicted for a “greenhouse” world.

The research demonstrates what any evolutionary biologist would have predicted: that environmental conditions “select” for particular species with the appropriate adaptations, and that as conditions change, so do populations. What it means in practical terms for the rest of the planet is less certain.

This is basic research which exploits the university’s large “library” of marine microorganisms, and establishes a baseline of data that will give some guide to ocean productivity in the future, but quite how it will affect the marine food chain – and oceans cover 70 percent of the planet, so it is a big question – is still to be established.

“Our findings show that CO2 has the potential to control the biodiversity of these keystone organisms in ocean biology, and our fossil fuel emissions are probably responsible for changing the types of nitrogen fixers that are growing in the ocean,” said Professor Hutchins. “And we’re not entirely certain how that will change the ocean of tomorrow.”

Tim Radford is a reporter for Climate News Network. Climate News Network is a news service led by four veteran British environmental reporters and broadcasters. It delivers news and commentary about climate change for free to media outlets worldwide.

Prepare for 5°C Warmer World

Preparen-se para um Mundo 5 graus mais quente.

LONDRES - Pelo cientista, Sir Robert Watson | O mundo perdeu a chance de manter as emissões de gases do efeito estufa abaixo do nível necessário para evitar que a temperatura suba acima de 2 ° Celsius. De acordo com o cientista britânico, que usou para presidir o IPCC, o Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudança do Clima. ( a perspctiva hoje, segundo o cienista é  de 5 graus Cº)

Um mundo de 5 ° C mais quente do que hoje poderia esperar-se colheitas caindo em países desenvolvidos (observe  seca de 2012 nos EUA) e em desenvolvimento, o aumento do nível do mar ameaçando muitas grandes cidades (New York, Santos, Rio, Balneário caboriú etc...)....







By Alex Kirby, Climate News Network

LONDON — The world has missed the chance to keep greenhouse gas emissions below the level needed to prevent the temperature climbing above 2° Celsius, according to the British scientist who used to chair the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The scientist, Sir Robert Watson, chaired the Panel from 1997 until 2002, when he was
ousted after U.S. pressure for his removal. Watson said there is a 50-50 chance of preventing global average temperatures rising more than 3°C above their level at the start of the industrial age, but a 5°C rise is possible.

That would mean the Earth warming more than it has since the end of the last Ice Age. Speaking at a symposium at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Watson said:
"All the promises in the world, which we're not likely to realize anyway, will not give us
a world with only a 2°C rise. All the evidence, in my opinion, suggests we're on our way to a 3°C to 5°C world.

"Some people are suggesting that we try to geo-engineer our way out of the problem,
intervening in the climate system to moderate warming.

"I'm very, very nervous about that," he said "It shows a level of arrogance that we know how to manage our environment. It certainly needs a lot of research."

Watson concluded: "There are cost-effective and equitable solutions to address climate
change, but political will and moral leadership is needed, and the changes in policies,
practices and technologies required are substantial and not currently under way."

Watson told the Climate News Network: "We're going to have more people in the world and they'll be wealthier, so energy demand is bound to rise.

"We look like having huge quantities of gas from shale. That can be a useful transitional tool: it emits half the carbon you get from coal. But it's not a long-term solution, unless you can use it with carbon capture and storage, CCS. I'm optimistic that CCS can work, but it's got to be shown to work, and what costs and energy penalties it will entail.

"We now know we can't rule out a possible 5°C temperature rise, and we need to start
preparing for it.

"When I was chairing the IPCC we were all very optimistic that we'd have a global agreement to limit emissions, though we knew it would be difficult. But we were hopeful that emissions would not go up at the tremendous rate they are rising now."

A world 5°C warmer than today could expect falling harvests in developing and developed countries, sea level rise threatening many major cities, and significant water shortages. More species would be facing extinction (10 percent of species are thought to be at risk for every 1°C of warming), there would be more (and more intense) extreme weather, and a growing risk of abrupt and major irreversible changes in the climate system.

Watson was voted out as the IPCC's chair in 2002. The weekly New Scientist reported that the year before, shortly after the inauguration of U.S. president George W. Bush, an ExxonMobil executive wrote to the White House asking: "Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the U.S.?"

Watson is now science director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, UK, and chief scientific adviser to the UK Government's

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Sir Andy Haines, former director of the London School of Hygiene, told the Climate News Network: "We're not making much progress on climate change at the moment. We need more arguments combining environment and health – cutting coal-burning, for instance, improving access to clean energy, walking and cycling instead of using cars.

"We need to look not just at population, but at consumption in the developed countries. A lot of vested interests don't want to go down that road. We can change by paying for
externalities, like the adverse effects of air pollution.

"We can address the inequalities which are evident in areas like heart disease rates and diet. And we need to influence the UN's new sustainable development goals to include both health and environment indicators."

Alex Kirby, a former BBC environment correspondent, is a founding journalist of Climate News Network. Climate News Network is a news service led by four veteran British environmental reporters and broadcasters. It delivers news and commentary about climate change for free to media outlets worldwide.

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