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11th May 2025
Just Have a ThinkApparently, we clear fell old growth forests in North America, using fossil fuels, then convert to wood pellets, then transport across the Atlantic, using Fuel Oil. Then transport to Yorkshire, to burn in vast amounts at Drax.
Now Drax was constructed to use Yorkshire Coal.
Let’s Just Have a Think, about that?
Almost certainly more CO2 entering the air, than if we had continued to use Yorkshire Coal
but I guess it ticks some boxes?Just Have a Think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9f16OTL1LgIf it turns out this report is right and fossil fuels account for 18% of the Carbon entering the atmosphere by human causes, this might mean a complete rethink on Net Zero.
As if this report is correct, only concerning ourselves with Net Zero, as far as fossil fuels go, will not wind down the Global Warming by much?
I wonder if any governments, will take note?Something like 10% of human induced Carbon dioxide ( in the air) is breathed out by humans.
Humans breathe out about a kilo of carbon dioxide / day.
1/1000 x 365.25 x 8.25 billion = 3.0133125
Humans breathe out about three billion tons of Carbon dioxide a year.It is claimed that humans contribute a little more than thirty billion tons of Carbon dioxide a year to the air.
One litre of petrol combusted makes
What I meant to post was that burning a litre of petrol produces 2.3 Kg of CO2 and 1 Kg of water, diesel 2.6Kg CO2 and 1.15 Kg water and LPG 1.7 Kg CO2.
Look around you and see the traffic. How far does one litre of fuel get you?Michael, great to see you watching Just Have a Think. He really does his homework.
You wrote:
– “Almost certainly more CO2 entering the air, than if we had continued to use Yorkshire Coal
but I guess it ticks some boxes?”Yes, and yes. By ticking those boxes, it attracts some massive subsidy, literally £millions per day. Drax would be entirely economically unviable without those subsidies. Drax is another reason British electricity is so expensive, which I forgot to mention in my earlier checklist.
I attended Drax’s Annual General Meeting, as a proxy to an activist shareholder (“Axe Drax”) and I think I caught them lying about their carbon emissions, just by looking at their own Yearly Report. They claim their CO2 emissions weigh considerably less than the weight of the pellets they produce. OK, the pellets are carbohydrates rather than hydrocarbons, so only some of the pellet mass is carbon. But the CO2 from burning, say, one kilo of carbon weighs over three kilos, because each oxygen atom combines with two oxygen atoms, and each oxygen atom weighs slightly more than a carbon atom. So, well over two thirds of the pellet mass would have to be not only yielding zero energy, but actually wasting whatever energy burning the pellets does produce, because it takes energy to vaporise the inert hydrate component during combustion. Does that sound like a decent fuel to you? I think it’s far more likely that Drax are lying. After all, they’ve lied about everything else, like felling ancient forest.
The chair dismissed my question as “a technical point”, i.e. not a concern for shareholders. I should have pushed harder – falsifying those figures could well put their massive subsidies at risk, without which they’d go bust very rapidly. That should be a concern for shareholders, wouldn’t you think?
– – – – – – – –You can tell when a politician is lying because you can see their lips moving, and I strongly suspect that Net Zero has very little to do with net zero, and much more to do with energy security. If the government really want to reduce global emissions, they could be fifteen times more effective by regulating the financial and insurance sectors than by reducing Britain’s emissions to zero, because Britain produces only 1% of global emissions, but London-based companies fund and insure 15% of global fossil fuel extraction. So what’s the real reason?
Fossil fuels are depleting; most British oil and gas has long since been extracted and burned. Britain’s gas-fired power stations are now dependent on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imported in enormous refrigerated seagoing tankers, plus the Langeled pipeline from Norway. That one pipeline brings in over a quarter of Britain’s entire energy demand – not merely electricity. One well placed depth charge or, in these modern times, one well programmed submarine drone, could bring the UK to its knees in about one day. “National security”? Don’t make me laugh. This country presently has NO security. That’s why Westminster wants wind and solar; Britain’s military could actually defend wind and solar installations if needs be. Langeled is as vulnerable as Nordstream was, and Westminster is very good at pissing off other countries; just ask Russia, Iraq or Libya.
Fracking? Secure, but mere dregs. I’m only guessing, but I doubt fracked gas on its own could get us through more than two winters. Remember, it only took us about three decades to burn nearly the entire North Sea’s conventional gas deposits, conventional deposits being far richer and larger than the stuff you have to frack for. When they have to repeatedly fracture the underlying geology to get gas out, you know they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Do NOT screw up our groundwater for two more years’ worth of gas! That’s as crazy as cutting down all the world’s forests just to get hamburgers.
– – – – – – – –Sorry, I’m still mega busy. I hope I’ve given you some food for thought. I may return in another week or so.
Michael, technical point – the paper examined by Just Have a Think said 18% of the overall warming was down to fossil fuels, not the CO2. That paper looked at warming and cooling. Burning fossil fuel also releases sulphates which cause cooling, offsetting the warming somewhat.
I suggest you look up “termination shock”. Warning; it’s not good news!
That’s a really important paper; agriculture’s methane emissions are a big problem. I see you’ve been quantifying CO2 emissions from human breathing, but livestock now outweigh humanity two-to-one! And they’re mostly young animals, in or just past their growing phase, in which they make the most demand on the biosphere.
Glenn knows; he’s vegan, I think. My diet is now nearly vegan.
Clark,
I believe you don’t think we should any longer be too bothered about base-load?
Sorry, if I have misunderstood.Three things have happened in the last few weeks, two in London and one in Iberia.
Iberia, Spain has been moving away from base-load.
Their present administration have been shutting base-load plants in their vision of an all green future.
Some Hydro, some Wind and a lot of Solar.
It is thought that they also wish to get rid of Nuclear.
Recently they went dark for a day.
So, almost no functioning petrol stations, no Metro, almost no trains, most schools closed, hospitals none functioning and people dying by being burnt by candle fires. Traffic lights switched off, people dying in vehicle accidents at traffic light crossings. Ambulances unable to be directed.
The blackout started in the heart of the Solar area.
No definitive reasoning has yet been put forward by their current administration.
An administration that gets electricity supply wrong will be voted out at the voters next chance.
London, Heathrow, a 70 year old transformer being used at 100% plus, probably thinned out tube wall, sprung a leaked and the hot fluid gushed out catching the substation alight, when the fire brigade turned up the intense heat coming from that transformer, preclued the firemen from getting close, plus they did not want to be involved in explosions.
Then , this week, a transport wide electrical outtage in London, so far, nobody knows what happened.
There is some suggestions, that these blackouts are much more likely because we now have less base-load.
Spinning turbines, keep things honkey dorry.
Like – Hydro, Gas, Coal, Nuclear
but not like D.C. Solar and not like D.C. wind.The London Tube network plunged into CHAOS as multiple London Underground lines hit by massive power failure.
Outage at power station leaves thousands of travellers stranded in central London.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tube-elizabeth-line-massive-power-cut-business-london-b1227283.html
A massive power cut brought parts of the Tube and the Elizabeth line to a standstill after a fire broke out at a substation in west London.So, another substation problem?
As we come to expect most people to have electric cars and electric cooking and electric heating, as steel plants move to electric arc production, we will need a lot more electricity supply, it is creaking, already in England.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxvyxlnn9do
Black Out in London
Quote BBC
“We accept that incidents like this can occur but do expect TfL to do much better when it comes to communicating with the millions of people who are reliant on their services.“Directing all passengers to their website is not practical if the site then crashes.”
A spokesperson added: “Passengers also need reassurance that public transport services will be more “resilient in future” to incidents such as this.”
Good point, transport needs to be more resilient – not less resilient.
Cross rail is now over head electric supply – National Grid.
HS” will be similar.More resilience in the Nation Grid required for an all electric future?
I’ve mentioned this guy before at a YT channel called “Practical Engineering.” He has a whole playlist list of 21 20 min videos on the electrical grid here.
I learned a lot and you might like them. Look at the Texas grid failure one to see how easily the grid can fail. Also the Black Start one. You might have a different view after watching. The grid is arguably the most complex machine on the planet even more so than fighter jets, space rockets or quantum computers.
I know Michael you want to blame renewables but perhaps it was privatisation, profit seeking and lack of maintenance or investment because of maximising profit. Is net zero/Ed Milliband the cause of the shit state of the rail service or the roads?
Michael, I’m not sure what base load actually means; I think it may be an outdated concept. What do you think it means?
Indeed, spinning turbines help smooth over sudden inequalities between supply and demand, but there are many other ways to do that. Of course there will be teething problems with any new way of doing things.
My own approach would have been to start this transition decades earlier, getting the new infrastructure up, running and field tested while the old infrastructure was still adequate, so there would always have been a fall-back. But then I’m an admirer of Brunel’s approach to engineering – which gets called “over-engineering” in these modern, market-driven times. I hate the term; there should always be redundancy. Governments these days worship “the market”. That is not how Britain prevailed in WWII; some important lessons seem to have been forgotten.
The Spain/Portugal blackout is just more of the same; the companies hadn’t done the upgrades advised in 2021, they opted for “saving money” instead. And it did save money – until last week.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002c9sr/prime-ministers-questions-14052025
Prime minister’s question
look at 27 minutes in.
John Lamont M.P.
Quote
“nobody sensible supports his crazed Energy Secretary”Oh dear, it is unravelling for Milliband.
Clark
“Michael, I’m not sure what base load actually means; I think it may be an outdated concept. What do you think it means?”
Hi Clark, well there is an example just over the English Channel.
France, about 2/3 of the French Electricity supply comes from Nuclear.
Big spinning turbines.
I would call that base – load.
When Britain got most of its Electricity from Coal, I would call that base – load.
When Germany got most of its Electricity from Coal, I would call that base – load.I think the term could probably be used if more than 50% of a countries Electricity supply came from large turbines, say a mix of Hydro/Coal/Gas and Nuclear
or any combination.
I can’t see how Solar could be described as base – load, as it is unable to produce Electricity in the Dark.It takes seconds to find out what what the term “based load” actually means when used in the context of electricity distribution and the grid.
From Wikipedia base load.
“The base load[2] (also baseload) is the minimum level of demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for example, one week. (24 hours, a specific hour during the day, a minute)
Note, it is not defined in terms of power generation capacity or how that power is generated. It’s defined in terms of demand only.
Read the whole article and you’ll have a better understanding of the difficulties in meeting that demand even if there were no renewables at all.
Also note the references to “the market.” The entire electricity production, distribution and maintenance ought to be renationalised and managed on non-profit basis.
Clark, ET,
I think there “might” have been some fiddling to tweak understanding of what base – load really means, to fit in with Net Zero “modern” orthodoxy.
The old orthodoxy, was quite easy to fathom.According to National Grid plc chief executive officer Steve Holliday in 2015, and others, baseload is “outdated”.By 2019, Steve Holliday had left his position as CEO of National Grid plc and went on the record to say that,
“It’s hard to conceive that nuclear does not have an important role to play”In England, will still have some functioning Nuclear Reactors, we are currently constructing more Nuclear Reactors.
Some would have you imagine this is renewable?
I guess it is a viewpoint?
Their main function is to act as base – load.
A foil to the Green stuff, meaning Solar and Wind, which are very changeable.Michael, in electrics, ‘load’ always refers to demand, not to supply. So for instance, “load shedding” (for which the grid operators are legally obliged to issue warnings) means power cuts. It means the suppliers turn off the electricity, thereby reducing the actual demand upon the system.
Re. Kathryn Porter:
– Before setting up her own company, Porter’s website records her work with oil and gas producers in finance roles at Barclays Capital, the energy company EDF, French bank Societe Generale and most recently at British gas parent company Centrica, with “North Sea oil and gas producers and small electricity generators”.
– On the Watt-logic website, Porter states: “I help owners of conventional [i.e. fossil fuel] energy assets to optimise their portfolios, carry out due diligence for the sale or acquisition of new assets, and adapt their business models in the face of changing markets.”
Centrica, no less! Parent company of Centrica Storage, which helped create high gas prices by trashing Britain’s only long-term gas storage facility at Rough in the North Sea!
You don’t half pick’em, Michael! A coral scientist who calls coral “cockroaches”, a former MP who plays down climate change because he wants to inflict the noise, pollution and traffic of his own airline on his constituents, and now a ‘consultant’ for the very companies that benefit from high gas prices! Ever suspect you’re being duped?
Clark, let us pretend this lady gets paid one million pounds a year from some fossil fuel company, does that mean
that nobody can believe a word she says?
I think you have said about the lips of politicians moving, proving they nearly always tell porkies.Even if half of that which Kathryn Porter claimed is not true, perhaps half is true.
It is true that Iberia lost Electrical power for a day and people died.
It is true a sixty five year old transformer ( being used more than 100% of design parameters) burst near Heathrow, causing our main airport to shut down for a day.
It is true that the British grid is one hundred years old and creaking.
These things are just true, it almost does not matter if you eat Coal for breakfast, these statements are true.Ed Milliband
A traitor along with his brother milking the system.
His dad hated this country but loved the benefits of this country
Miliband is deluded
Should be suspended as a M.P. and subjected to a psychological assessment.
He is a ‘year zero’ socialist. He and his brother are not known as ‘the Marx brothers’ for nothing.“Miliband is a Completely Unstable Narcissistic Traitor!” (Silver Fox Hot Takes, 16 May 2025) – 3m 25s [ YouTube, Invidious ]
Mayhem about to ensue
O.K.
let us try a little brain power.Ed Milliband wants the British Electrical Grid to be 95% Green by 2030.
That is impossible.
Therefore Ed is deluded.
He imagines that the only thing that matters is cutting out Carbon.
Does he consider security of supply?
Does he consider economics?
Does he consider that the voters may not be on-board with this delusion?
No, Ed wants to go faster and further.
He is not concerned with Democracy.Sorry for banging on about Ed Milliband, I do consider Democracy to be important.
If Global Warming is an existential threat to our existence on this Earth, then let it be proved by named scientists.
Ed Milliband is a person out of his mind.
We should not be taken in by his mental confusions.
Real thinking is needed, not lunacy.coherence
the quality of being logical and consistent.
“this raises further questions on the coherence of state policy”Many, many decades ago, coherence was described to me as aligning the two hemispheres of your brain.
As we in the U.K. move quickly, headlong into Net Zero, perhaps we could consider that we are off-shoring our Carbon outpourings to China.
The Chinese manufacturing uses Coal. Solar panels are made using Coal.
Then fuel oil is used to transport their stuff from China to the U.K.
Most likely we are increasing World outpourings of Carbon dioxide by de-industrialising our own country?
coherence seems to have done a runner.China, for the first time, has it emissions declined by one percent and not due to economic factors. It’s because of their renewable energy investment and rollout.
Michael, you are obsessed with net-zero bashing. You presented to us that humans breath out 3 billion tonnes of CO2 but make no comment on the enormously greater contribution from burning fossil fuels. Not to mention the other pollutants burning fossil fuels produces. I even linked to the chemistry calculation. Your bias is not allowing you to zoom out and see the bigger picture.
You are still trying to pin the blame for every grid mishap on renewables where there is no evidence except tenuous circumstantial associations broadcast by people paid by big oil to keep their enormous money making gig going.
ET
it probably is true that a Solar Farm, when running, is not pushing Carbon dioxide into the air.
However, if we are to consider the whole life episode, it will be quite different.
Many of the minerals will be gained by open-cast mining.
This will use fossil fuels.
Much fresh water is used in these processes.
Slave labour is used in these processes.
The open wound on the land, is left open, that land no longer absorbs Carbon dioxide, in fact much Carbon will have been released into the wild by these open-cast mining operations.
A Solar Farm has a working life of about fifteen years.
At the end of life the panels are run over by a steam roller, the only parts saved are the Aluminium alloy frames, the rest is put in holes in the ground.
Then the land that the Solar Farm is built upon, will not be absorbing much Carbon from the air because bugger all is growing on it.
If the Solar panels are to come to England, they will be transported on ships burning fuel oil.
So, during the short life of a solar Farm, it is not all good news.
