As climate obsessives in the UK demand the cancellation of plans for a coal mine in Cumbria, the spotlight falls once more on the far more relevant issue of industrial-scale biomass burning, which produces more ’emissions’ of carbon dioxide than coal but rakes in fortunes in subsidies. The world must wait decades for new trees to grow enough to fully replace the ones burnt. The illogicality of it all won’t go away.
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A former vice chairman of the United Nations’ climate advisory body has called on the British government to review its policies surrounding the burning of wood for energy, reports Sky News.
Jean Pascal van Ypersele, Professor of Environmental Sciences at Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, has told Sky News he believes subsidies given to the industry by the UK government are “contradictory” to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement – signed by countries in 2015 to try to limit global warming.
The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial strategy says subsidies are only given to biomass which complies with strict sustainability criteria and biomass is a “valuable” part of the National Grid.
Trees are a natural way to tackle climate change [Talkshop comment – or so the theory goes] and soak up carbon.
But Mr van Ypersele, who was vice chairman of the IPCC – the body which assesses science on climate change – says burning wood pellets creates a ‘carbon debt’ and accounting rules don’t properly take into consideration the time it takes for replacement trees to grow back.
He said: “We release the CO2 now hoping that future woods will absorb the CO2 in the future. But that’s a very strong assumption. Burning wood doesn’t make much sense if you want to reduce CO2 emissions.”
The UK is the world’s biggest importer of wood pellets. In the move away from coal over recent years there has been a switch towards burning biomass to generate power.
Continued here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
WTFAY?
The British government has no duty to respond to “a former vice chairman of the United Nations’ climate advisory body.”
Sky News trying to be funny?
I agree burning trees is counter-productive especially when the green ecoloons decry the use of real biomass – coal.
“What is more ridiculous than a Death Commando transformed into a priest?” (–Dune)
Why, it is a politician striving to be an economic engineer.
Generation upon generation, certain persons have tried to ride that donkey, only to find it goes its own way, if it hasn’t been driven to madness.
It would be hilarious if the Co2 footprint of burning biomass was accounted for honestly. If it was, we would find that burning coal has a much smaller Co2 footprint and a much higher calorific value. As such, I recommend that HMG immediately introduce subsidies for coal mining and power production – all to save the planet from harmful emissions of course!
A lot of energy is used converting damp wood to dry wood pellets. Do they do that in a ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ way? Unlikely, as boilers are usually involved.
The chips flow downward through the gasifier (operating at 1,472 F).
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/12181/watching-wood-dry
Drax costs £800 million in subsidy per annum or have I got that wrong?
Coal:
C240 H90 O4 NS anthracite (H:C ratio: 0.375:1)
C137 H97 O9 NS bituminous (H:C ratio: 0.708:1)
Diesel:
C12 H23 (average) (H:C ratio: 1.916:1)
Wood: C6 H12 O6 (H:C ratio: 2:1)
Natural gas: C H4 (H:C ratio: 4:1)
All fuels are merely means of locking hydrogen up such that it’s not as immediately-explosive as H2 is. H2 has a wide explosivity index (ie: it is explosive at a wide range of concentrations), leaks through metal containers, and embrittles the metal leading to catastrophic failure with little to no warning.
Of course, ranking fuels according tot their H:C ratio is an exercise which is predicated upon CO2 actually causing CAGW… which it doesn’t. Yet again, as usual, the climastrologists are diametrically opposite to reality.
CO2 being a polyatomic molecule, an increased atmospheric concentration of CO2 actually causes the adiabatic lapse rate to become more vertical. Its higher specific heat capacity (as compared to the homonuclear diatomics and monoatomics) convectively transits more energy from surface to upper atmosphere per parcel of air as compared to a parcel of air with lower CO2 concentration.
The increased convective transit of energy acts to reduce temperature differential between different altitudes, which (all else held equal) would act to warm the upper atmosphere. This is the reason the climastrologists originally claimed that a signature of CAGW would be an upper atmosphere hot-spot.
That hot-spot was never found, because the increased atmospheric concentration of CO2, while it does convectively transit more energy to the upper atmosphere (which would cause the upper atmosphere to warm, all else held equal), that is overwhelmed by the increased atmospheric CO2 concentration’s ability to radiatively cool the upper atmosphere.
Near-surface extinction depth is ~10.4 m at current CO2 concentration, and a doubling of CO2 concentration would reduce that to ~9.7 m. The troposphere is essentially opaque to 13.98352 µm to 15.98352 µm (to account for the absorption shoulders of CO2) radiation. In fact, it’s opaque to that radiation right up to ~15 – 20 km (TOA for that wavelength of radiation). That’s where the effective emission height of CO2 is.
CO2’s absorption of IR in the troposphere only has the effect of thermalizing that radiation and thus increasing CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), which increases convection of air to the upper atmosphere (carrying with it the latent and specific heat of polyatomic molecules… more polyatomic molecules will carry more energy and will more readily emit that energy in the upper atmosphere), which is a cooling process.
So CO2’s ability to thermalize energy in the troposphere is effectively saturated, whereas its ability to radiatively emit in the upper atmosphere is no saturated (nor will it ever be) with increasing CO2 atmospheric concentration.
This is the same for all polyatomic molecules… water for instance. The dry adiabatic lapse rate is ~9.81 K/km (due to the homonuclear diatomics and monoatomics), whereas the humid adiabatic lapse rate is ~3.5 to ~6.5 K/km.
The effective emission height is ~5.105 km.
7 – 13 µm: >280 K (near-surface).
>17 µm: ~260 – ~240 K (~5km in the troposphere).
13 – 17 µm: ~220 K (near the tropopause).
TOA (emission height) is that altitude at which the atmosphere becomes transparent to any given wavelength of radiation… and for some wavelengths, TOA is very near the surface. The emission profile is equivalent to a blackbody with a temperature of 255 K, and thus an effective emission height of 5.105 km.
Combine that 255 K effective emission height temperature with the lapse rate to get surface temperature, and you’ll find there is no “greenhouse effect”, thus no CAGW.
The lapse rate is said to average ~6.5 K / km. 6.5 K / km * 5.105 km = 33.1825 K. That is not the ‘greenhouse effect’, that is the tropospheric lapse rate. The climate loons have conflated the two. Polyatomic molecules such as CO2 and H2O reduce the adiabatic lapse rate, not increase it (for example: dry adiabatic lapse rate: ~9.81 K / km; humid adiabatic lapse rate: ~3.5 to ~6.5 K / km).
9.81 K / km * 5.105 km = 50.08005 K dry adiabatic lapse rate (due to homonuclear diatomics and monoatomics), which would give a surface temperature of 255 + 50.08005 = 305.08005 K. Sans CO2, that number would be even higher.
Water vapor (primarily) reduces that to 272.8675 K – 288.1825 K, depending upon humidity. Other polyatomics (such as CO2) also contribute to the cooling, to a much lesser extent. The higher the concentration of polyatomics, the more vertical the lapse rate, the cooler the surface. Also remember that the atmosphere is stable as long as the actual lapse rate is less than the adiabatic lapse rate… and a greater concentration of polyatomic molecules reduces the adiabatic lapse rate… thus convection increases.
IOW, polyatomic molecules increase thermodynamic coupling between heat source (in this case, the surface) and heat sink (in this case, space). They are coolants, not ‘heat-trapping’ gases.
In an atmosphere consisting solely of homonuclear diatomics (N2, O2), the molecules could pick up energy via conduction by contacting the surface and they could convect just as the polyatomics do, but they require a collision to perturb their net-zero magnetic dipole moment in order to emit… that’s why homonuclear diatomic vibrational mode quantum state excitation is relatively long-lived and meta-stable. So upper atmosphere radiative cooling would be reduced (collisional processes in the upper atmosphere take place far less often due to reduced atmospheric density), the upper atmosphere would be warmer, lower atmosphere air would have less buoyancy, the lower atmosphere would be warmer, thus the surface would be warmer.
Remember that radiative emission to space is the sole means by which the planet can shed energy. Also remember that CO2 (a polyatomic molecule) is the primary upper atmosphere coolant.
The climastrologists claim that an upper atmosphere cooling means a lower atmosphere warming, but that’s not how it works… it’s not a ‘see-saw’… it’s a lapse rate. Reduce the temperature at any given altitude for whatever reason, and the entire slope of the lapse rate will move to a lower temperature.
We’re just working through the humongous thermal capacity of the planet, which warmed due to a long series of stronger-than-usual solar cycles (the now-ended Solar Grand Maximum). Now the sun is quiescent, and it is predicted that it will enter a Grand Minimum which will likely rival the Dalton Minimum and may rival the Maunder Minimum.
Eventually, the long-term and dramatic upper atmosphere cooling must lead to lower tropospheric temperature. If it weren’t for the rampant data falsification (‘adjustment’) done by the climastrologists, we’d already see this happening… but the day will come soon enough that they cannot hide the temperature decline, whereupon their data tampering will become all too evident.