Comments on: Government publishes Clean Energy 2030 plan

By: Bonnie Monteleone

Bonnie Monteleone — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 23:11:29 +0000

As we continue to lose mature trees from massive fires, hurricanes, and development (one of our greatest protections and habitats for our already stressed ecosystem) why would cutting down 10s of 1000s of trees to ship to another country for energy be a good idea for this country? It only lines the pockets of those corporations involved at the expense of all life. It is time to stop this maleficent operation that is also funded by tax payers dollars in subsidies.

By: Andy Wood

Andy Wood — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:30:19 +0000

From the New Power article, “Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is to set out a detailed plan for achieving the target of clean power by 2030.”
With all due respect, the UK cannot claim to achieve “clean power” while burning American trees to generate electricity because that energy scheme is a fool’s errand, economically, ecologically, and climatologically. The biomass industry continues a long line of resource exploitation endeavors that, in the 18th and 19th centuries included boiling whales for oil, and felling some 90 million acres of North America’s once grand expanse of longleaf pine to furnish Great Britain with naval stores and timber, and, in the early 21st century, removing entire mountaintops to extract and burn a fleeting bit of coal.
Millions of years of evolutionary development, at habitat and species scales, are being squandered by corporate industrialists, under the guise of unprovable sustainability—unprovable because we cannot fully predict future conditions. No doubt yesterday’s whaling industry thought boiling whales was a sustainable biomass-to-energy strategy—just as coal industries thought mountaintop removal was sustainable. Today the global timber industry is hyping their business plan to burn 100-year-old American trees to generate minutes of electricity in Europe and Asia.
Our recent ancestors tried to kill the last whale to light a lamp, and history indicates we’ll use the same logic to burn the last tree to recharge our smartphones. As a prerequisite, Mr. Miliband needs to shun green-washing, willful ignorance, and foolishness when crafting meaningful global energy policy and strategies, .

By: Dr. Robert Parr

Dr. Robert Parr — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 13:13:31 +0000

As long as the UK’s clean power plan continues to rely on large-scale biomass power plants, fueled through the destruction of mature American Southern forests, the goal of providing a secure, affordable and truly de-carbonized energy system will remain elusive for any date into the future. The overwhelming public health, environmental and economic failures of the present system are well documented in many places but a good place to start for interested readers follows:
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/07/us/american-south-biomass-energy-invs/

By: Anne Carter

Anne Carter — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:17:09 +0000

On Wednesday 18th Dec 2024 alone, onshore and offshore wind turbines in Britain generated 22.5 gigawatts/68.3% of electricity required in renewable energy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/business/britain-s-wind-turbines-break-new-generation-record-for-second-time-in-a-week-b2667220.html?utm_content=bufferc1386&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
On New Years Day, between 1.30-2.00am, wind provided 63.6% of electricity. Times as specified by and seen on this very useful site right now:
https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live
Note that biomass provides just 3.5% and Gas 12%, at these particular times.
At 16.40, as above, Gas provides 34.9% energy and again, Gas, but at 16.00hrs, shows Gas carbon intensity at 87.5% . It is highly important clean energy transition takes place (HEET may useful and can reutilise Gas infrastructure).

The £7bn spent since 2012 +more wanted for carbon capture, on biomass subsidies for Drax, is the key to quick extra funding for genuine renewables such as fast, cheap, renewable wind and solar and prevent consumers and taxpayers paying off Drax’s wood pellet biomass subsidies.

If the “Sunshine Bill” eventually passes and new home developers must install solar panels, this will greatly help towards 2030 aims.
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3775

Ed Miliband is definitely leading this country in the right direction towards renewable, secure, affordable energy and it is wonderful to hear, see and read this finally and gain insights from journalists, industry and commentators. But all involved must take heed, biomass from woodpellets from trees is simply not clean nor sustainable and creates vast environmental destruction and causes health issues overseas. Plus those UK emissions. Drax is a hugely expensive mistake. I fear the UKs largest CO2 emitter will leave Ed with egg on his face. Drax will, if left unaddressed, scupper these otherwise well thought through and extremely welcome 2030 Energy plans.

By: Katherine Egland

Katherine Egland — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:57:34 +0000

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband was expected to say that “by sprinting to clean, homegrown energy, including renewables and nuclear, the UK can take back control of its energy and protect both family and national finances from fossil fuel price spikes with cleaner, affordable power.” Well, this is misleading given that most of this “homegrown energy” is actually literally grown in forests in the Southeast U.S. in cities like Gloster, Mississippi then cut and ground into tiny pellets then shipped to the UK to be burned for energy. The toxic manufacturing process of these pellets has compromised the health and threatened the lives of families in the U.S. who are subjected to deadly levels of emissions of Particulate Matter (PM2.5), Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), Nitrogen Oxide (NOx), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), methanol, formaldehyde, acrolein, diesel exhaust, etc. One UK based company has over 11,000 emissions violations in the U.S. where the trees being burned in the UK are actually grown. This dirty little secret cannot be ignored. It is a horrific human rights violation.

Katherine Egland
Gulfport, Mississippi, USA

By: JoAnne Phipps

JoAnne Phipps — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 19:49:05 +0000

Please ensure that all future strategies reject the greenwashing of the wood pellet/woody biomass industry as a “renewable or sustainable” energy source to reduce the UK carbon footprint. The biomass industry does none of those things & clear cuts huge areas of US southern forests in mainly minority communities causing horrific health consequences, loss of critical habitat & environmental damage. Please do not let any UK energy solution depend upon the ruin of low income communities in states like Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. Sincerely,
JoAnne Phipps
Natchez, MS, USA

By: Jack Spruill

Jack Spruill — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 16:24:19 +0000

How can any discussion about the Government’s Clean Energy initiatives fail to include the fact that the massive subsidiary it is paying power companies to burn trees to generate electricity is causing huge air quality problems in communities in the southern US and in British Columbia where the wood pellets are being manufactured. For example, see this report. https://www.landclimate.org/drax-usa-11000/

By: James Hewitt

James Hewitt — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 11:06:10 +0000

What is the definition of “clean power”??….
Does it include electricity generated by power stations whose emissions the UK government both subsidises and ignores? [The most glaring example being Drax the UK’s largest single source of CO2.]
Does it exclude leaks during the production and supply of methane – perhaps as LNG from USA – to be burned at Net Zero Teesside? [That proposal is to be underwritten by government, not least so that full-scale, long-duration performance tests can be carried out of downstream infrastructure needed for the permanent disposal of such CO2 as that power station might capture. Given the projected life of that power station (and what little remains of the global carbon budget), it is imperative that the 20-year - not the much lower 100-year - global warming potential of methane is used when assessing the greenhouse gas impact of the proposal.]