Friday, 9 August 2024

The nonsenses that are Drax - and police priorities

In amongst all the nonsense on the streets, somehow PC Plod managed to muster sufficient force outside Drax power station to arrest 22 protesters and disperse a would-be protest camp.  This was under the terms of a draconian court order obtained by Drax, the terms of which would make you think the Crown Jewels were contained therein.

As it happens, in winter months Drax is a pretty essential part of the UK power fleet, the biomass it burns being a significant source of despatchable power.  And the group organising the protest has in the past pulled off some fairly intrusive coups at power stations.  The reason for the protest is a good one, though: outrageously, Drax - the biggest emitter of CO2 in the UK by a country mile - is subsidised by the billion for being a zero emitter.  This is on the wholly fallacious, indeed laughable basis that somehow the trees it burns magically regrow instantaneously, sucking back all that CO2 from the atmosphere.  It's so crazy, it makes you blink with astonishment and yet, by an outright perversion of some arcane IPCC carbon accounting principles (which have nothing to do with the matter at hand, and indeed by the IPCC's own edict shouldn't be used in this way), Drax - and HMG - are allowed to get away with this fiction for the purposes of recording "decarbonisation".  And of course for justifying paying out those billions. 

Without this longstanding carbon-accounting trick, the UK would be even further away from "decarbonisation" than it already is.  And the Drax subsidies expire in 2027.  The shameless rent-seekers are of course demanding new subsidies to commence that year, until they are good and ready for their next shameless fraud, BECCS (= "biomass electricity with carbon capture & storage").  Because, of course, if you emit zero CO2 (on paper) and bury (some of) the actual CO2 you emit, tadah!, you have conjured up "negative emissions" - even more useful for the national CO2 account.

A shame this is all the merest bollocks.  And costly bollocks, too, in terms of both greatly reduced energy efficiency and cash subsidies - all for our electricity bills, naturally.  The decision as to whether this monstrous BECCS proposition will be allowed to fly (and of course the "bridging" subsidies for keeping Drax going between 2027 and, errr, "whenever") falls to Miliband.  He's really in a jam because, as every authority reporting on the matter has made clear, his crazy plans absolutely hinge on everyone believing the Drax story in all its blatant falsity.  AND it puts up electricity bills!

Whatever will little Mili do?

ND

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Just Stop Oil will ... just stop?

Matt said...

I would think he'll continue with the fantasy and resign the subsidy.

electro-kevin said...

There is also the matter of the much vaunted "650,000 extra green jobs !"

So that's 650,000 extra salaries we're going to have to cover to pay for the same electricity that we get today.

Nick Drew said...

To be fair, Kev, conceptually they have it that those jobs are (in part) compo for the 000,000s that will be lost due to higher electricity bills etc, closure of fossil fuel-based industries, further de-industrialisation, etc etc. it's called the "green new deal" or "the just transition" or whatever

Did I just say "higher elec bills" ?! Wash my mouth out !

electro-kevin said...

Understood Nick. Yup. That's alright then.

Anonymous said...

Little Milli will double down........ 'cos if he doesn't, the whole sham collapses

dearieme said...

Proposal: continue to import the American wood chips then tip them into abandoned coal mines. Describe the process as "carbon capture". I imagine this would be much cheaper than the currently favoured alternatives.

Elby the Beserk said...

dearime. Titter. Good one.

dustybloke said...

At some future date this will be spoken of in the same breath as dunking or burning witches as a method of “curse capture”…

Diogenes said...

Milli is not alone in being barking. Intrigued by the idea floated (ho ho) by Jacob Rees-Mogg about the possibility of drawing power from nuclear-powered submarines to get energy to a British town. Or the promise of “a beacon of bountiful, green energy” from nuclear fusion in Nottinghamshire.

Do PM send the nutcases to Energy, the indecisive to Northern Ireland and the innumerate to the Treasury?

Elby the Beserk said...

Meanwhile...

https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2024/08/12/fossils-from-greenlands-icy-heart-reveal-it-was-a-green-tundra-covered-in-flowers-less-than-1-million-years-ago/

"Ice cores show Greenland was almost completely ice-free at some point in the last one million years, but the article notes that this ‘happened at lower levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide than present-day levels’. Call it natural variation, but as usual an alarmist can see *potential* trouble anywhere. Here they do at least admit that climate cycles can occur."

Matt said...

Now that the absolute levels of CO2 being a problem has been debunked, the problem now is rate of change. When there was more CO2 in the atmosphere it was the result of a gradual process, but recently it's been very rapid. Bad you see!