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<li><strong><ahref="09-smart-meters.md">Smart Meters</a></strong> - Digital infrastructure rollout</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="10-electricity-levies.md">Electricity Levies</a></strong> - Hidden costs and taxes</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="11-price-cap.md">Price Cap</a></strong> - Energy price regulation</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="12-epcs.md">EPCs</a></strong> - Energy Performance Certificates</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="13-rhi-vs-bus.md">RHI vs Bus</a></strong> - Renewable Heat Incentive comparison</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="14-cfd-vs-marginal-pricing.md">CFD vs Marginal Pricing</a></strong> - Energy market mechanisms</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="15-2022-subsidies.md">2022 Subsidies</a></strong> - Emergency energy support</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="16-exercise-duty-road-pricing.md">Exercise Duty and Road Pricing</a></strong> - Transport energy policy</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="17-brexit-friction.md">Brexit Friction</a></strong> - EU exit impacts on energy</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="18-9-5-school-holidays.md">9-5 School Holidays</a></strong> - Demand management challenges</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="19-planning-problem.md">Planning Problem</a></strong> - Infrastructure development barriers</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="20-conclusion.md">Conclusion</a></strong> - How to fix Britain's energy system</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="01-01-introduction.html">Introduction</a></strong> - Welcome and overview</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="02-02-biomass.html">Biomass</a></strong> - The biomass energy problem</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="03-03-feed-in-tariffs-and-rocs.html">Feed-in Tariffs and ROCs</a></strong> - Renewable energy subsidies</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="04-04-north-south-and-nimbys.html">North-South and NIMBYs</a></strong> - Geographic and political opposition to energy infrastructure</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="05-05-nuclear.html">Nuclear</a></strong> - Nuclear power policy and development</li>
<li><strong><ahref="07-09-smart-meters.html">Smart Meters</a></strong> - Digital infrastructure rollout</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="08-10-electricity-levies.html">Electricity Levies</a></strong> - Hidden costs and taxes</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="09-11-price-cap.html">Price Cap</a></strong> - Energy price regulation</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="10-12-epcs.html">EPCs</a></strong> - Energy Performance Certificates</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="11-13-rhi-vs-bus.html">RHI vs Bus</a></strong> - Renewable Heat Incentive comparison</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="12-14-cfd-vs-marginal-pricing.html">CFD vs Marginal Pricing</a></strong> - Energy market mechanisms</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="13-15-flexibility-balancing-storage.html">Flexibility, Balancing and Storage</a></strong> - The grid's hidden challenges and balancing mechanisms</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="14-16-exercise-duty-road-pricing.html">Exercise Duty and Road Pricing</a></strong> - Transport energy policy</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="15-17-brexit-friction.html">Brexit Friction</a></strong> - EU exit impacts on energy</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="16-18-interest-rates.html">Interest Rates</a></strong> - Impact of interest rates on energy investment</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="17-19-shale-gas.html">Shale Gas - A Missed Opportunity</a></strong> - Economic benefits, environmental considerations, and political factors</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="18-20-power-versus-other-sectors.html">Power Versus Other Sectors</a></strong> - Energy sector competition and policy priorities</li>
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<li><strong><ahref="19-21-glossary.html">Glossary</a></strong> - Commonly used acronyms</li>
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@@ -32,16 +32,16 @@ <h3>Part 1: The Generation Mess</h3>
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<mainclass="chapter">
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<h1>Chapter 2: Biomass</h1>
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<h2>Introduction</h2>
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<p>Biomass is the burning of wood or crops for energy. Mankind has relied on it since first burning firewood. With industrialisation in the 19th and 20th centuries, it got displaced by more abundant and energy dense fossil fuels like coal (and later oil and gas). In Britain today, the mostly use biomass in wood fires stoves heating homes and at the massive Drax power station.</p>
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<p>Biomass is the burning of wood or crops for energy. Mankind has relied on it since first burning firewood. With industrialisation in the 19th and 20th centuries, it got displaced by more abundant and energy dense fossil fuels like coal (and later oil and gas). In Britain today, the mostly used biomass is in wood fires stoves heating homes and at the massive Drax power station.</p>
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<h2>What's good about biomass?</h2>
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<p>Before slating it, it's worth noting biomass technologies have a number of advantages:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>Flexible storage</strong>: biomass fuels such as wood pellets, biodiesel/ethanol can be stored in silos or big tanks just like fossil fuels, ready to be burnt when they're needed. Compared to electrified renewable technologies like wind and solar, they don't necessitate storing energy in batteries that use rare earth materials, and they're often not too much of a risk to the environment when they're stored. They can also be used for heat (e.g. a stove), transport (e.g. a biodiesel car/truck) or power generation (e.g. Drax).</li>
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<li><strong>Conversion</strong>: you can often repurpose or convert existing fossil fuel appliances to run on biomass fuels. Drax power station previously burnt coal, diesel cars and trucks can be converted to run on vegetable oil derived biodiesel, coal fireplaces can be retrofitted with a wooden stove.</li>
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<li><strong>Consumer Adoption</strong>: because they're tangible and similar to fossil fuels, they're often easier to persuade consumers to switch to. Biodiesel and bioethanol fuelled cars engender less range anxiety than EVs. Biomass boilers require less modification to home radiators than heatpumps.</li>
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<li><strong>Consumer Adoption</strong>: because they're tangible and similar to fossil fuels, they're often easier to persuade consumers to switch to. Biodiesel and bioethanol fuelled cars engender less range anxiety than EVs. Biomass boilers require less modification to home radiators than heat pumps.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>So what's the problem with Biomass?</h2>
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<p>In a nutshell, biomass isn't efficient. It's a very old technology, dating to cavepeople's first use of firewood, and we have to rely on some plant's growth cycle to capture stored energy. Plants aren't that efficient at storing the energy they photosynthesize from sunlight. To get any meaningful contribution to our energy needs from biomass requires large scale cultivation of crops and plants. And when we burn biomass fuels in power stations or stoves, we are lucky to usefully extract 30 or 40% of the energy the plants have captured. All together, this means to get any siginificant proportion of our energy from biomass requires converting massive tracts of land to growing large numbers of similar plants or crops. Such monocultures can't fail to have profound impacts on ecosystems affecting other wildlife, and competing with use of land for food production.</p>
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<p>In a nutshell, biomass isn't efficient. It's a very old technology, dating to cave people's first use of firewood, and we have to rely on some plant's growth cycle to capture stored energy. Plants aren't that efficient at storing the energy they photosynthesize from sunlight. To get any meaningful contribution to our energy needs from biomass requires large scale cultivation of crops and plants. And when we burn biomass fuels in power stations or stoves, we are lucky to usefully extract 30 or 40% of the energy the plants have captured. All together, this means to get any significant proportion of our energy from biomass requires converting massive tracts of land to growing large numbers of similar plants or crops. Such monocultures can't fail to have profound impacts on ecosystems affecting other wildlife, and competing with use of land for food production.</p>
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<h2>How do you solve a problem like Drax?</h2>
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<p>Drax is massive. It is the largest power station the UK has ever had, with a capacity of 3,960 megawatts - enough to power over 6 million homes. It was built in 1974 in Yorkshire on the banks of the River Ouse, to burn coal sourced from the nearby Yorkshire coal fields. At the time, almost all Britain's power came from coal, and there were many other power stations like Drax. In the rivers like the Ouse, Trent, and Aire that empty into the River Humber, the area was nicknamed "megawatt valley" and accounted for over 40% of Britain's power generation at its peak. When Drax opened in 1974, it was the largest coal-fired power station in Europe and one of the biggest in the world - a symbol of Britain's industrial might and energy ambitions. At its peak, Drax was one of the largest carbon emitters in Europe, releasing over 20 million tonnes of CO2 annually - more than many entire countries. While there are larger coal plants in Germany and Eastern Europe, Drax was certainly among the biggest emitters in Western Europe.</p>
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<p>When the UK signed up to the EU Renewable Energy Directive in 2009, it committed to generate 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. At the time, only around 3% of Britain's power was from renewables, and the challenge seemed daunting, especially as Britain's most established low carbon generation technology, nuclear power, couldn't be used toward the target. Now as it turned out, in 2020 Britain generated 24% of its power from wind and a further 4% from solar, because these technologies fell drastically in price and were deployed at scale around the country in a way that exceeded earlier expectations. So Britain never needed Drax to meet this target. Britain also left the EU in 2020-1, which certainly wasn't expected in 2009! </p>
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<p>In Northern Ireland, subsidies for Biomass became particularly controversial when the Northern Ireland Audit Office revealed in 2016 that a subsidy to promote biomass use in smaller businesses (like farms) had been overly generous. Because the subsidy offered exceeded the cost of wood pellets, businesses had an incentive to burn as much biomass as possible. This experience has rightly made subsequent governments around the UK more critical</p>
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<h2>Biofuels</h2>
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<p>Less topical of late, petrol and diesel are required to contain 5-10% of biofuel, typically derived from crops like corn, sugarcane, and palm oil. This creates a direct competition between fuel and food production, as agricultural land is converted from growing food to growing energy crops. The result is often large-scale monoculture plantations that replace diverse ecosystems, reduce biodiversity, and can drive up food prices in regions where these crops are grown. In some cases, the environmental impact of clearing forests for biofuel plantations has been so severe that the carbon emissions from land-use change exceed the carbon savings from using biofuels instead of fossil fuels. The cost of manufacturing biofuels significantly higher than fossil fuel derived petrol and diesel too, at least before taxes are added.</p>
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<p>Perhaps worth mentioning some quantification of the inefficiency of said biofuels. Suppose oilseed rape is used as an input to the production of biofuel. Rapeseed yield can be up to 3,000kg/ha per harvest, i.e. 0.3kg/m²; 1kg rapeseed contains about 0.5kg oil; with oil containing 38MJ/kg the energy gained is consequently 5.7MJ/m². This energy spread over one year (1 harvest per year) results in 5,700,000J /365/24/60/60 s = 0.180W/m² average power. Conversion to bio-diesel incurs certainly some additional losses. In contrast, the solar irradiation at sea level is about 1kW. With on average 4h/day and an efficiency of 20%, a 1m² solar panel would produce an about 1000<em>4/24</em>0.20 = 33W average power. Therefore, a factor of 184 more power can be harvested from solar panels than from growing rapeseed to produce biofuels. Consequently, biofuels from crops are indeed questionable in terms of efficiency. </p>
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