Drax Power Station

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I've refused to look at Drax stock as quite simply I see the company's life span as short term.

But does this article suggest I should review that thought?

5th November 2019
Net zero carbon industry plans to cut emissions and protect jobs
https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/ ... tect-jobs/

Creating the “world’s first net zero carbon industrial cluster” could help protect thousands of jobs and make a major impact to cutting emissions, its backers said.
...
Creating the zero carbon hub could capture 53 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, around 15% of the UK’s current annual emissions

AiY

[JoyofBricks8]

The whole importation of pelleted wood from North America to be burned at Drax is barking mad and wholly unsatisfactory.

The whole thing is a load of greenwash. Would rather set my own money on fire than support such pitiful and abject abasement to ecoloons.

What is this CCS technology? How much does it cost? Has it worked anywhere else? Does it make any money? Does it make any difference to atmospheric CO2 sufficient to justify the inevitably poor economics?

Basic questions, but no real answers, because it is not a real technology and there is no chance of it ever succeeding in its objectives.

[anon155742]

The whole importation of pelleted wood from North America to be burned at Drax is barking mad and wholly unsatisfactory.

The whole thing is a load of greenwash. Would rather set my own money on fire than support such pitiful and abject abasement to ecoloons.

What is this CCS technology? How much does it cost? Has it worked anywhere else? Does it make any money? Does it make any difference to atmospheric CO2 sufficient to justify the inevitably poor economics?

Basic questions, but no real answers, because it is not a real technology and there is no chance of it ever succeeding in its objectives.

The irony is that the most advanced CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage) technology on earth is trees!

[dspp]

The whole importation of pelleted wood from North America to be burned at Drax is barking mad and wholly unsatisfactory.

The whole thing is a load of greenwash. Would rather set my own money on fire than support such pitiful and abject abasement to ecoloons.

What is this CCS technology? How much does it cost? Has it worked anywhere else? Does it make any money? Does it make any difference to atmospheric CO2 sufficient to justify the inevitably poor economics?

Basic questions, but no real answers, because it is not a real technology and there is no chance of it ever succeeding in its objectives.

The irony is that the most advanced CCS (Carbon Capture & Storage) technology on earth is trees!

That claim was true for a period of 60-million years, between 350-million years ago and 290-million years ago.

Since then trees have indeed been a good carbon capture system. However they have not been a carbon storage system, courtesy of those pesky bacteria etc.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie ... -on-earth/

I am in no way defending Drax of course, or CCS. Having run a CCS plant I am very aware of the difficulties.

regards, dspp

[scotia]

Having run a CCS plant I am very aware of the difficulties.
regards, dspp

I'm intrigued - I thought Carbon Capture was only slightly more than an ill-advised pipe dream. I was unaware of up-and-running schemes. Can you re-educate me?

[jackdaww]

The whole importation of pelleted wood from North America to be burned at Drax is barking mad and wholly unsatisfactory.

The whole thing is a load of greenwash. Would rather set my own money on fire than support such pitiful and abject abasement to ecoloons.

.

============================

i like it !

[dspp]

Having run a CCS plant I am very aware of the difficulties.
regards, dspp

I'm intrigued - I thought Carbon Capture was only slightly more than an ill-advised pipe dream. I was unaware of up-and-running schemes. Can you re-educate me?

Scotia,
I'd rather not go into all the gory details, suffice to say it was not one of the best moments of the oil & gas major concerned. Running amine plants to do carbon capture is fairly straightforward in downstream activities, but less so on upstream assets. It is horrendously uneconomic needless to say. The project was divested amid a great lack of publicity. I have the T-shirt !
regards,
dspp

[scotia]

Having run a CCS plant I am very aware of the difficulties.
regards, dspp

I'm intrigued - I thought Carbon Capture was only slightly more than an ill-advised pipe dream. I was unaware of up-and-running schemes. Can you re-educate me?

Scotia,
I'd rather not go into all the gory details, suffice to say it was not one of the best moments of the oil & gas major concerned. Running amine plants to do carbon capture is fairly straightforward in downstream activities, but less so on upstream assets. It is horrendously uneconomic needless to say. The project was divested amid a great lack of publicity. I have the T-shirt !
regards,
dspp

Many thanks for the post. I have always had severe doubts about the science and engineering around carbon capture (and its storage), but was unaware of the economics. The last figure I heard suggested about a 25% loss in power generation to operate the amine plants - or to put it crudely, a 25% increase in the amount of Carbon Dioxide for the same electrical power output. I'll not press you on the figures for your plant!
And I'll congratulate you on the way it seems not to have received much publicity!

[AsleepInYorkshire]

The whole importation of pelleted wood from North America to be burned at Drax is barking mad and wholly unsatisfactory.

The whole thing is a load of greenwash. Would rather set my own money on fire than support such pitiful and abject abasement to ecoloons.

What is this CCS technology? How much does it cost? Has it worked anywhere else? Does it make any money? Does it make any difference to atmospheric CO2 sufficient to justify the inevitably poor economics?

Basic questions, but no real answers, because it is not a real technology and there is no chance of it ever succeeding in its objectives.

Alternatively Drax Group claim the use of wood pellets instead of coal

1. Lead to an 80% reduction in Co2 emissions, including supply chain emissions
2. Are now responsible for the production of 15% of The UK's renewable electricity
3. Supports 20,000 jobs of which 2,373 are within Drax Group

Drax Group source their wood pellets from the US, Canada, Brazil and The European Union.

AiY

[dspp]

The whole importation of pelleted wood from North America to be burned at Drax is barking mad and wholly unsatisfactory.

The whole thing is a load of greenwash. Would rather set my own money on fire than support such pitiful and abject abasement to ecoloons.

What is this CCS technology? How much does it cost? Has it worked anywhere else? Does it make any money? Does it make any difference to atmospheric CO2 sufficient to justify the inevitably poor economics?

Basic questions, but no real answers, because it is not a real technology and there is no chance of it ever succeeding in its objectives.

Alternatively Drax Group claim the use of wood pellets instead of coal

1. Lead to an 80% reduction in Co2 emissions, including supply chain emissions
2. Are now responsible for the production of 15% of The UK's renewable electricity
3. Supports 20,000 jobs of which 2,373 are within Drax Group

Drax Group source their wood pellets from the US, Canada, Brazil and The European Union.

AiY

I am not aware of any large scale (Drax-sized) genuinely sustainable forestry. As with carbon capture I have a certain amount of on-the-scene experience. Drax is doing this in order to remain in business. That does not mean it is a good thing. As an investor I would run a mile.

regards, dspp

[Alaric]

Drax is doing this in order to remain in business.

It used to be the largest coal fired power station, so if still burning coal, it would perhaps be out of action when coal free days were boasted.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I am not aware of any large scale (Drax-sized) genuinely sustainable forestry. As with carbon capture I have a certain amount of on-the-scene experience. Drax is doing this in order to remain in business. That does not mean it is a good thing. As an investor I would run a mile.

I'm vaguely aware that Drax is struggling. Ferrybridge a mere 20 miles up the road was shut down after the 2014 fire, which I happened to pass on my way home from work that day. The cooling towers were recently "blown up".

Drax was constructed in the late 1960's near to it's fuel source, coal. My maternal grandparents watched it being built from their front windows. My apologies for that totally diverse comment. Just needed to put it out there

I'm also vaguely aware that Drax is responsible for a huge amount of the UK's energy. Egg's and baskets? There may be "alternative agendas" betwixt the UK Government and Drax. And I am guessing they boil down to timelines, profits and budgets.

Discover the steps we take to ensure our wood pellet supply chain is better for our forests, our planet and our future.
http://forestscope.info/
Indicates South USA forests that have "expanded" (amongst all the other information)

This is how you make a biomass wood pellet
https://www.drax.com/technology/this-is ... od-pellet/

AiY

[dspp]

I am not aware of any large scale (Drax-sized) genuinely sustainable forestry. As with carbon capture I have a certain amount of on-the-scene experience. Drax is doing this in order to remain in business. That does not mean it is a good thing. As an investor I would run a mile.

I'm vaguely aware that Drax is struggling. Ferrybridge a mere 20 miles up the road was shut down after the 2014 fire, which I happened to pass on my way home from work that day. The cooling towers were recently "blown up".

Drax was constructed in the late 1960's near to it's fuel source, coal. My maternal grandparents watched it being built from their front windows. My apologies for that totally diverse comment. Just needed to put it out there

I'm also vaguely aware that Drax is responsible for a huge amount of the UK's energy. Egg's and baskets? There may be "alternative agendas" betwixt the UK Government and Drax. And I am guessing they boil down to timelines, profits and budgets.

Discover the steps we take to ensure our wood pellet supply chain is better for our forests, our planet and our future.
http://forestscope.info/
Indicates South USA forests that have "expanded" (amongst all the other information)

This is how you make a biomass wood pellet
https://www.drax.com/technology/this-is ... od-pellet/

AiY

AiY,

Believe me, I'm very aware. There are also things that are not in those links. I would be very cautious about supporting any claims that Drax's forestry-chain is in a large-scale way ecologically sustainable.

There is no hidden agenda here. If Drax does not switch to biomass it closes completely within the next several years, and will be shoved out of the market by the combination of gas-fired power stations + wind/solar renewables + increasingly battery intermittency (not that Drax provides short-term intermittency support). But Drax can only switch to biomass if it can prove that its biomass is sustainable. The fly in the ointment is that large scale biomass of the Drax variety is not at all sustainable, and the experts all know that this particular emperor has no clothes on. Since there is rather a large amount of money hanging on Drax, this is why they bought the shitty end of Scottish Power's assets in 2018, sweetened with some of the nicer hydro bits as a figleaf, so as to try and survive for long enough to figure out a way through. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_Group .

regards, dspp