OT: coal fired generation

[Andrew]

Siemens was quick off the mark to buy the massive transformers from some of our decommissioned coal fired plants.

[Andrew]

Creosote !. Also one of the road tunnels under the Thames has to be closed regularly to scrape away the black 'bitumen' that is oozing in from an ancient nearby town gas plant.

[Brian Gaff]

Many years ago, back in the days when Tomorrows World was on our screens there were numerous devices, and techniques which claimed to burn coal cleanly and use the co2 for some other process. I guess this never happened, or was too expensive or inefficient, as like a lot of the ideas floated there, nothing seemed to come from them. Brian

[Martin Brown]

Burning coal cleanly back then meant desulphurisation to remove SO2. Most power stations have such kit fitted today.

There is a remarkable amount of sulphur even in low sulphur aka smokeless fuel. Some of the low sulphur "smokeless fuel" I found in my parents coal bunker left over from the 1970's era had formed flowers of sulphur crusts on after 50 years untouched. Perhaps not all the stuff being sold as smokeless was actually the real thing.

Worst offenders were dense hexagonal cast extruded blocks that burn wonderfully well with lots of heat. But way more sulphur than I expect was allowed - unclear how it came to be sold in cities.

[Andy Burns]

Kwasi Kwarteng seems to have worked out that it's mad for it to be burning american wood and raking in £billions of subsidies ...

[The Natural Philosopher]

Unfortunately it was government policy that made them start doing it in the first place. Don't blame Drax.

With luck they may install some RR nukes in due course

[AnthonyL]

There was a Ch4 or Ch5 (I think) documentary several years ago that traced the journey of the pellets which were supposed to come from already dead/decaying woodland and forest, but as expected that proved not to be the case and perfectly good trees were felled.

The "carbon footprint" didn't start its count until the pellets arrived on site, so all the carbon costs of collecting and tranportation were ignored.

But somebody put a rubber stamp on it all (how many brown envelopes) and further distrust of our leaders and big business builds up.