Pipedream: Drax’s £2billion plan to ‘capture’ carbon emissions and pump them under the North Sea

It’s a dream if they think it makes any difference to anything other than the company balance sheet, except the ‘upto 10,000 jobs’ they claim it will create and support. Do we hear the sound of yet more subsidies going down the climate plughole?
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Bosses at Drax Power Station says they are waiting to hear whether the government will greenlight plans for a £2billion hi-tech scheme to capture carbon emitted from its biomass burners and pump it under the North Sea to be stored, reports yahoo!.

They say the scheme could potentially capture 95 per cent of the carbon emitted from the power station’s two biomass burners at Selby – removing eight million tonnes of carbon a year, and supporting up to 10,000 jobs.

Drax plant director Bruce Heppenstall said the power station had already run two pilot projects to test out the ‘Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage’ (BECCS) technology.

It was, he said, a ‘game changing technology’ that leading climate scientists at the UN’s IPCC said could play a critical role in addressing the climate crisis.

£1.3bn Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon officially sunk as developer loses planning appeal

Credit: TLP

Unreliable, ‘poor value for money’ electricity project bites the dust. For now, anyway.
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Plans for the £1.3bn Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon have been dealt a blow by the Court of Appeal, which has ruled that work on the project did not commence within five years of receiving planning approval and therefore the development consent order (DCO) is no longer valid, says New Civil Engineer.

The project, put together by developer Tidal Lagoon (Swansea Bay), was to build the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant. This would span Swansea Bay to form a lagoon between the River Tawe and the River Neath.

The structure would have had 16 turbines producing a up to 320MW per day.

UK Trapped In A Green-Energy Cul-De-Sac

Try to cover up the chronic energy policy mistakes made in the name of climate theories by doling out vast sums of borrowed money to the struggling customers. That’s the current UK approach. Why should anyone be content with putting the exchequer ever further in the mire to keep futile net zero dogma alive?
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Often I have referred to the situation that the UK, Germany, California, and others have set themselves up for as “hitting the green energy wall,” says Francis Menton (via Climate Change Dispatch).

But now that the UK has actually gotten there and has begun to deal with the consequences, I’m not sure that “hitting the wall” is the best analogy.

A better analogy might be “driving into the green energy cul-de-sac.” After all, when you hit a wall you can probably just pick yourself up and turn around and be on your way.

In the cul-de-sac, you are trapped with no evident way of getting out.

Norway’s future CO2 cemetery takes shape – but what’s the point?

Credit: klimatetochskogen.nu

An expensive exercise in futility. As noted below, ‘the scheme will be able to process 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, then later between five and six million tonnes. But that is just a tiny fraction of annual carbon emissions across Europe.’ Even Greenpeace opposes it. It’s for show, not for any useful purpose.
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On the shores of an island off Norway’s North Sea coast, engineers are building a burial ground for unwanted greenhouse gas, reports Phys.org.

The future terminal is to pump tonnes of liquefied carbon dioxide captured from the top of factory chimneys across Europe into cavities deep below the seabed.

The project in the western municipality of Oygarden aims to prevent the gas from entering the atmosphere and contributing to global warming.

‘Greenwashing’ power station given £2.4m in daily subsidies must ‘justify environmental claims’

Biomass on the move [image credit: Drax]

These allegations have been ongoing for years. ‘Renewable’ trees during a supposed climate emergency – how does that work? Maybe the end game is approaching, or more likely some fudge will emerge.
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A power station accused of “greenwashing” which is handed £2.4 million in government subsidies every day must justify its environmental claims, the OECD has said.

Drax’s claim that it generates “carbon neutral” electricity by burning wood is being examined over allegations that it misleads consumers in breach of guidelines set down by governments across the world, reports The Telegraph.

Net Zero Policy Already Costing UK Households Over £2,000 A Year

Offshore wind farm [image credit: Wikipedia]

UK governments are legally forced to follow the Climate Change Act and even then they’re coming up short, according to a High Court verdict this week. How long can this climate-induced madness go on?
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A new analysis by Net Zero Watch reveals that Net Zero policies are already costing every household over £2,000 ($2,400) per year, says Climate Change Dispatch.

Spending programs and the Emissions Trading Scheme together cost around £300 ($360), while green levies – mostly subsidies to renewables – are adding another £350 ($420).

Renewable energy also imposes a range of indirect costs as businesses pass on their costs to consumers, which may add up to another £600 ($719).

Finally, there is a significant cost due to the constraints put on fossil fuel extraction in the UK.

Boris Johnson accused of misleading the public on the rising cost of green energy levies

Our Boris misleading? Where have we heard that one before? The government likes to pretend ‘green’ subsidies are doing people a favour and somehow saving the climate, but they aren’t.
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Net Zero Watch has accused the Prime Minister of being economical with the truth about the cost of renewable energy levies.

Speaking during his visit to India, Mr Johnson rejected growing calls for scrapping green levies on energy bills, claiming that renewable energy “has helped to reduce bills”.

EV Race Ignores Russian, Chinese Mineral Speed Traps

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Beep beep! Trouble ahead for mineral-hungry EV producers, especially in countries that don’t want mining on their soil.

PA Pundits International

By Larry Bell ~

Billboard size speed limit signs and flashing police radar scanning dashboard warnings be damned!

U.S. and European electric vehicle (EV) companies are racing to cash in on markets driven by dependence upon government subsidies which, in turn, rely on scarce and costly materials needed for batteries controlled by foreign adversaries.

Mining required for those EV batteries will soon dominate the world production of many critical minerals, and already accounts for about 40% and 25%, respectively, of all global lithium and cobalt.

Take nickel, for example, of which Russia produces about 7% of the global supply and 20% of the world’s class 1 (98% pure quality) used both for advanced electric vehicle batteries and stainless steel production.

In March, after prices soared 66% to more than $100,000 a metric ton, the London Metal Exchange suspended nickel trading after a three-month contract price more than doubled.

Prompted…

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Energy crisis: Conservative MPs urge Boris Johnson to scrap taxes as bills rocket

Overcharged and overtaxed. UK energy customers are getting clobbered from all directions: the markets, the so-called climate levies, and taxes. The government is in disarray as its renewables-based policies force the pace of cost increases.
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Energy bills have soared as global wholesale prices have risen rapidly – but some Tory MPs and peers say they have increased more in the UK because of taxes the government has the power to remove.

Twenty Conservative politicians have urged Boris Johnson to scrap energy taxes as bills continue to rocket, reports Sky News.

The MPs and peers have written a letter in the Sunday Telegraph to ask the prime minister and Chancellor Rishi Sunak to help consumers facing “fuel poverty”.

Energy prices in the UK are being forced up faster than any other comparable country due to “taxation and environmental levies”, they wrote.

UK’s largest electrolyser to supply hydrogen storage facility at Scottish windfarm

Whitelee wind farm, Scotland [image credit: Bjmullan / Wikipedia]

Here’s the UK government’s latest shot at ‘net zero’ climate virtue signalling. Subsidised wind farms will help produce subsidised hydrogen to fuel subsidised hydrogen vehicles such as buses and bin lorries. This is obviously even more costly than just using the wind-sourced electricity itself to run vehicles, but gets round the battery weight problem for larger vehicles like buses and goods vehicles. But to scale up, the number of wind turbines needed is going to have to be far higher than now, to provide fuel as well as nationwide electricity. Is that even feasible, let alone affordable?
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A hydrogen storage plant will be built at the UK’s largest onshore windfarm near Glasgow, after the UK government approved a £9.4m grant, reports E&T News.

The Whitelee green hydrogen project will become the UK’s largest electrolyser, a system which converts water into hydrogen gas as a way to store energy.

Hydrogen is seen as a key replacement for fossil fuels in certain applications as the world moves towards decarbonisation.

It produces just heat and water as by-products when burned or used in fuel cells, making it a highly attractive alternative to fossil fuels in industry, power, shipping and transport.

Scotland’s electricity export ‘success’ subsidised by its own customers – England & Wales

Artist’s impression [credit: ScottishPower Renewables]

Wind power sent from Scotland to the rest of the UK mainland receives heavy financial backing from all UK power consumers in the form of subsidies and constraint payments charged against bills. Such subsidies would presumably stop if Scotland left the UK.
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Scottish exports rose in 2019 by more than £3.5bn, buoyed by trade with the rest of the UK, new figures show.

Statistics published by the Scottish Government show exports of £35.1bn outside the UK, an increase of £1.1bn (3.4%) during that year, says insider.co.uk.

Wind energy in crisis as expansion stalls in Germany

Feldheim village near Berlin, Germany.

Subsidies drying up. Public resistance to wind turbines in the neighbourhood. Is the climate steamroller running out of puff in Germany?
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The German wind power industry is suffering setback after setback, says The GWPF.

Hardly any new turbines are being built, and more and more old wind turbines are being phased out. Now wind industry lobbyists are calling for new subsidies and construction rules to be relaxed.

In the Free State of Bavaria there is almost nothing going on when it comes to wind power.

Asian coal plant drive alarms climate alarmists

Coal-hungry China [image credit: democraticunderground.com]

Prosperity before flaky climate theories for Asia’s present and future industrial powerhouse economies. Once again we’re sold the myth of ‘cheaper renewables’, which always need subsidies — even for being turned off.
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Five Asian countries are responsible for 80 percent of new coal power stations planned worldwide, says Phys.org, with the projects threatening goals to fight the climate crisis, a report warned Wednesday.

China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam are planning to build more than 600 coal plants, think-tank Carbon Tracker said.

The stations will be able to generate a total of 300 gigawatts of energy—equivalent to around the entire electricity generating capacity of Japan.

‘Obscene’ UK windfarm subsidies revealed

Some electricity consumers may feel like muttering obscenities if they see the figures. Meanwhile the BBC insists renewables are now cheaper than coal.
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The Global Warming Policy Forum has condemned what it called the “obscenity” of windfarm subsidies and has called for a complete rethink of energy policy.

GWPF research has shown that just six offshore windfarms are now sharing £1.6 billion pounds in subsidies between them every year.

Three receive annual subsidies of over a quarter of a billion pounds each year.

Lib Dem leader puts ‘green’ and ‘wealth’ in same sentence at party conference

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

How things that need constant subsidies could generate wealth is known only to frequent visitors to Cloud Cuckoo Land. Has this former ‘green energy’ lobbyist never heard of Ponzi schemes? Suffice to say they tend to end badly for the ‘investors’, at least the ones who stay in too long.
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The Liberal Democrats want the government to use profits from green infrastructure projects to create a new fund for climate action and green jobs, reports BBC News.

Leader Sir Ed Davey put forward his “sovereign green wealth fund” proposal at his party’s spring conference.

He said the government raised £9bn last month from auctions to build wind farms on the coasts of England and Wales.

Climate change: Former UN vice chair calls on UK to review policies on burning wood for energy

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.

Europe’s Green Deal in trouble as Biden administration warns EU against carbon border tax

European Union map [image credit: Wikipedia]

Call it the Grim New Deal. Everyone must dance to the EU’s climate-obsessive tune – they wish – or pay trade penalties. But opposition is already mounting.
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Europe’s Green Deal and its planned carbon border tax are in serious trouble as the Biden administration raises concerns about its potentially disastrous fallout on international trade and relations, says The GWPF.

According to the European Commission the EU’s Green Deal and its 2050 Net Zero target are threatening the very survival of Europe’s industries unless a carbon border tax is enforced upon countries that are not adopting the same expensive Net Zero policies.

The Great Pretenders: Intermittent Wind & Solar Simply Can’t Compete with Coal & Gas & Nuclear

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The message hasn’t reached South Korea, now proposing a wind ‘farm’ *SEVEN* times bigger than anything yet seen.

STOP THESE THINGS

Oh yes, they’re the great pretenders: useless in calm weather or after the sun goes down, wind and solar can never really compete with coal, nuclear or gas.

And anyone trying to convince you otherwise, ought to be gently encouraged to seek psychiatric help.

Especially after America’s big freeze left millions of wind and solar ‘powered’ Texans freezing in the dark.

Comparing ever-reliable coal, nuclear or gas with never-reliable wind and solar is patent nonsense; and only an eco-loon or renewable energy rent seeker entertains that process.

In the latter case, it’s because the wind and solar rort depends upon the engineered pretence that wind and solar are cheaper than the rest.

Ever insightful, Donn Dears takes a look at the number games played by America’s wind and solar crowd in their efforts to pretend to be playing in the big league.

Distorting the Levelized Cost of Electricity
Power for…

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We still don’t know enough about new heat technologies to decide the best way forward

Posted on 2 March, 2021 by Green Alliance blog

This post is a reblog of an article by Dr Robert Sansom, independent consultant and member of the IET’s Energy Policy Panel.

Recently, Professor Cebon wrote on this blog that pursuing the hydrogen economy would be a mistake. I am neither an advocate of hydrogen nor am I associated with the oil and gas industry, but I was the lead author of a report, produced by the IET in 2019, which focused on the engineering questions that need to be addressed if the UK is to transition to hydrogen.  There are also major questions around the electrification of heat. Until these questions are dealt with, I do not believe anyone can say that one technology is better than another.

Boris Johnson’s ‘Green Revolution’ in chaos

Green dud [credit: Green Deal guide]

Bureaucracy is often slow and inefficient, maybe even more so where handing out public money – subsidies in this case – is involved. Who knew?
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England’s much-hyped £2bn green homes grant is in chaos, renewable energy installers say, with some owed tens of thousands of pounds and struggling to stay in business, reports The Guardian (via The GWPF).

Members of the public have been left waiting nearly four months, in some cases, to take advantage of the scheme to fit low carbon heating systems.

Some installers say customers are pulling out after losing faith in the green grants.

Boris Johnson touted the grants as one of the key programmes in his ten 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution.