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Drax profits up in green boom
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GrahamH



Joined: 23 May 2015
Posts: 523

PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 15 7:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Drax power station for all it's bad press is a wonderful piece of engineering.
I remember walking down the inside of one of the flues towards the bottom of the stack, the light was filtering down the 850 foot tall shaft and the faint illumination showed the roof of the flue ascending to about 90 foot to where it met the shaft.
With the silence, the light levels and the immense structures I was reminded of the interior of a cathedral.
From on top of the stack, looking down at the 375 foot tall cooling towers and the rest of the site was astounding and later, in the generating/turbine building, itself nearly three hundred foot high seeing the shaft that all the rest of the processes were in place for.
As a piece of engineering it works remarkably well and has adapted to the changes in fuels and legislation over its fairly long life. The largest power station in Western Europe, the tallest industrial chimney in the UK, started generating about 1976.
Hopefully Drax and it's like will be replaced by a green option but when, and by what who knows.

Rob R



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 15 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

GrahamH wrote:
Drax power station for all it's bad press is a wonderful piece of engineering.
I remember walking down the inside of one of the flues towards the bottom of the stack, the light was filtering down the 850 foot tall shaft and the faint illumination showed the roof of the flue ascending to about 90 foot to where it met the shaft.
With the silence, the light levels and the immense structures I was reminded of the interior of a cathedral.
From on top of the stack, looking down at the 375 foot tall cooling towers and the rest of the site was astounding and later, in the generating/turbine building, itself nearly three hundred foot high seeing the shaft that all the rest of the processes were in place for.
As a piece of engineering it works remarkably well and has adapted to the changes in fuels and legislation over its fairly long life. The largest power station in Western Europe, the tallest industrial chimney in the UK, started generating about 1976.
Hopefully Drax and it's like will be replaced by a green option but when, and by what who knows.


I agree, and it makes a good photo, too

Tavascarow



Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 15 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Mistress Rose wrote:
Using anaerobic digestion would be a good way of producing gas to power various things, but think you would need vast amounts of both grass and digesters to produce enough to run a power station.

Tavascarow, while we could get a lot of timber from unmanaged woodland, I don't think we have enough to provide for electricity generation long term. Getting more woodland managed has been an aim of the Forestry Commission for a long time, but most woodland is privately owned, so the owners either don't want to bother or wait until the price is high before felling. Some timber is virtually unsalable as it has got too big. We are using beech that was grown for making paper for firewood as there are no pulp mills taking new hardwood in the UK. The shut as the price of power was too high.
I'm not talking about unmanaged woodland.
That's far to valuable to nature.
Although with sympathetic management they would be better for nature.
I'm talking about the large acreage of monocrop conifers planted by forestry commision. Deserts as far as natures concerned & low value timber.
I think the answer why is if people see how many acres of woodland Drax consumes in a day they wouldn't see that as being green.
Wont stop them from using more electrickery though.

Rob R



Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 15 8:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Mistress Rose wrote:
Using anaerobic digestion would be a good way of producing gas to power various things, but think you would need vast amounts of both grass and digesters to produce enough to run a power station.


Yep, but it's going to oxidise any way, may as well capture the energy somehow. I think it's mainly maize they're using at the moment but I've heard, recently, of one taking grass.

Tavascarow



Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 15 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

I fail to see why their isn't an anaerobic digestion plant at every sewerage works. Recovering energy from s*** & making the by-product less polluting & with less heavy metal contamination actually a valuable fertilizer makes perfect sense to me.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 15 6:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Conifer plantation isn't as sterile as it is made out to be Taviscarow. In the north of England and Scotland it is home to red squirrels and pine martens. The pine martens are seeming to oust/kill the grey squirrels, so valuable in expanding such red squirrel populations as we have. I would also disagree about unmanaged woodlands. If you look at the flora of an unmanaged woodland it is very sparse as there is very little light below the canopy. We re-coppiced one acre that was mainly ash and hazel, and hadn't been coppiced for up to 50 years. From about 4 species we now have over 70. I am sure there are others, but with all the growth there, I couldn't get to all of it, and ended up with burrs in my hair as it was. We now get silver washed fritillaries and other butterflies in there. Insects attract bats, birds and other animals etc.

I agree with you about using sewage for power generation, and as you say Rob, using unused grass would also be useful, especially as where you are not grazing/cutting seems to do damage to the soil.

Graham, Drax does sound an amazing structure. When you look at the engineering of a lot of places, they really are very good. Pity that some of them are so ugly though like that 'Gherkin' shaped thing in London which always reminds me of a 1960s picture of a rocket, and the Lloyds building there too. We had a similar thing in Portsmouth called the Tricorn; built in the 1960s using new technology. It was cold and leaked water, the ramp up to the car parks was too tight and it looked awful. It has now been demolished, and instead they have the Spinnaker Tower. Again very clever, but only acceptable if painted white. I saw it before painting and it just looked like a lump of concrete. I worked at the other end of the scale and some of our microelectronics looked quite jewel like.

alison
Downsizer Moderator


Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon
PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 15 11:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Agree the spiniker looks better, although it would be good if they could get the lift working.

Mistress Rose



Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15539

PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 15 6:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

They have given up with it. There is no way it is ever going to work as it is affected by the wind. There has been another fiasco recently about getting sponsorship from Emirates Airlines and they were going to paint part of it red. Trouble is red and white is the colours of Southampton Football Club, arch rivals of Portsmouth. They have now decided to paint parts blue and gold, which are Portsmouth's colours. Then they discovered they had to get permission from the National Lottery as they got a big grant from them, but that was after 2 lots of paint had been bought. Seems the Lottery isn't going to take their money back now, but a total shambles from start to finish. Personally I prefer the view from Portsdown Hill, and you don't have to pay to go up it.

Slim



Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Posts: 6533
Location: New England (In the US of A)
PostPosted: Sun Aug 02, 15 11:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Tavascarow wrote:
I fail to see why their isn't an anaerobic digestion plant at every sewerage works. Recovering energy from s*** & making the by-product less polluting & with less heavy metal contamination actually a valuable fertilizer makes perfect sense to me.


There are a lot of large dairies here, and phosphorus runoff is a large problem. Anaerobic digestion has been found to be quite a positive in capturing methane potential, and limiting excess phosphorus effluent

https://www.greenmountainpower.com/innovative/cow/how-it-works/

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45374
Location: yes
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 15 5:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

supply

demand

still it is less toxic to the locals and their livestock than the molybdenum infested petcoke they experimented with as a cheap (5/10%)addition to the imported coal a few years ago

I HAVE QUITE A BIT OF TECHNICAL DATA ON DRAX.but decided some battles should be avoided ,especially when dark forces seem involved,especially as to do a proper job would require a multi disciplinary academic team who would get blacklisted even if they could get funding for the initial overview study of such things as the strong correlation between wind direction and admissions to hospital with asthma and other lung problems,hypocurosis in live stock etc etc .

they have improved the scrubbers and abandoned the petcoke but i still dont like em much .

as to the biomass ,tis cheap and a good attempt at greenwashing.

Ty Gwyn



Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4562
Location: Lampeter
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 15 8:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

as to the biomass ,tis cheap and a good attempt at greenwashing.

Any idea price per tonne into Drax or Immingham docks?

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45374
Location: yes
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 15 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

less than coal per unit of heat at a guess

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45374
Location: yes
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 15 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

ps but that might include the greenwashing tax breaks

Ty Gwyn



Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4562
Location: Lampeter
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 15 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

Reckon the whole biomass project has been a guess from start to finish,and that was before reading them 2 links you posted Dpack.

dpack



Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45374
Location: yes
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 15 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

properly done it could be a decent component of a mixed source energy policy,the drax way isnt quite like that.

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