12/2/2023 Continuing objection, sent to the Planning Inspectorate, for further climate and resources destroying plans by Drax, spurious ‘carbon capture and storage’ greenwash.
We object to the compulsory acquisition of additional land for the incorrectly named, totally experimental high-carbon and polluting ‘Drax power station bioenergy with carbon capture, and storage extension order’ -Drax BECCS- on planning and environmental grounds. The objection includes the associated ‘National Grid Yorkshire Green Energy Enablement Project’ also misnamed, as biomass and hydrogen are not ‘green energy’. See previous submitted objections to those, for background.
Post combustion carbon capture technology, to capture carbon dioxide from the existing biomass units at Drax, does not work and examples of this are exposed in the Biofuelwatch report ‘Carbon capture from biomass and waste incineration; hype versus reality’ viewed here- https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2022/biomass-and-msw-ccs-report/ None of the other biomass/waste burning plants remove ‘approximately 95% of carbon dioxide from flue gases..resulting in overall negative emissions of greenhouse gases’ and serve merely as ‘greenwash’ or greenhush, for companies involved, in order to obtain grossly misused subsidies.
The plans do not provide total mass balance of energy use, pollution or total carbon dioxide emissions. There is no full life cycle assessment. As ‘anchor emitters’ Drax, the biomass burners and the associated hydrogen production plants excessive energy use, CO2 and water vapour greenhouse gas emissions do nothing to help meet the UK Governments Carbon Budget or energy efficiency targets.
The waste of resources is in breach of the Brundtland Declaration that youth, children and future generations be left with the same resources we have recourse to.
DRAX CARBON CAPTURE/BIOMASS GREENWASH
Drax themselves have admitted that they lack data on carbon capture. https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2021/drax-beccs-response-december21/
The burning of biomass is high-carbon https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2018/biomass-basics-2/
The Drax BECCS proposals enable Drax to destroy more forests, worldwide. https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/yorkshire-power-station-drax-destroying-25169572 and falsely claim this process as ‘low-carbon or carbon neutral’. In 2019, campaign group Sandbag warned that Europe’s BECCS plans would accelerate the climate crisis by destroying forests quicker than they can grow back, due to the massive amount of tree cutting needed to fuel BECCS plants. The group warned that the amount of biomass pellets needed to fire Europe’s BECCS plants would equate to half the size of Germany’s Black Forest each year. Similarly, the Daily Telegraph reported earlier this year that the UK government’s BECCS targets would require burning the equivalent of the New Forest National Park every five months. In this context, Drax reveal themselves to be climate crisis deniers and biodiversity destroyers.
Health risk to workers and communities from the burning of Drax biomass wood pellets are considerable https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/02/drax-faces-prosecution-over-health-risk-dust-biomass-pellets-allegations-employee-safety-power-plant
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are investigating Drax, for violation of guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct https://www.banktrack.org/company/drax_group/pdf
In 2021 the UK Competition and Markets Authority published new guidance to support global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and the regulator is to launch a review of misleading green claims, we look forward to Drax’s inclusion.
Derby/South Derbyshire Unfriends the Burning Earth
Object before 5 December 2022 to the wasteful, destructive, resources intensive, ocean and sea bed destroying, energy-inefficient, high-carbon (not low as claimed) Humber Low carbon pipelines project. The coast and sea bed stretching for ten miles out to sea, ‘belongs’ to the Crown; such a wasteful and destructive scheme would reveal the Crown as complicit, in making the ocean a dumping ground.
Some points below, email to humberlowcarbon@nationalgrid.com;-
We object to the ‘Humber Low Carbon Pipelines Project’ and the associated marine/offshore element of the development, on planning and environmental grounds.
The project is purely experimental and plans do not provide total mass balance of energy use, pollution or total carbon dioxide emissions. There is no full life cycle assessment. As ‘anchor emitters’ Drax and the hydrogen production plants excessive energy use and CO2 emissions do nothing to help meet the UK Governments Carbon Budget or energy efficiency targets.
The waste of resources is in breach of the Brundtland Declaration that youth, children and future generations be left with the same resources we have recourse to.
DRAX CARBON CAPTURE/BIOMASS GREENWASH
Drax themselves have admitted that they lack data on carbon capture. https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2021/drax-beccs-response-december21/
The burning of biomass is high-carbon https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2018/biomass-basics-2/
The National Grid proposals enable Drax to destroy more forests, worldwide. https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/yorkshire-power-station-drax-destroying-25169572 In 2019, campaign group Sandbag warned that Europe’s BECCS plans would accelerate the climate crisis by destroying forests quicker than they can grow back, due to the massive amount of tree cutting needed to fuel BECCS plants. The group warned that the amount of biomass pellets needed to fire Europe’s BECCS plants would equate to half the size of Germany’s Black Forest each year. Similarly, the Daily Telegraph reported earlier this year that the UK government’s BECCS targets would require burning the equivalent of the New Forest National Park every five months.
Find information on the health risk from burning of Drax biomass pellets https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/02/drax-faces-prosecution-over-health-risk-dust-biomass-pellets-allegations-employee-safety-power-plant
In 2021 the Competition and Markets Authority published new guidance to support global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and the regulator is to launch a review of misleading green claims, including those made by fossilfuel oil producer Shell. We question why the National Grid chooses to associate with, what is basically, a greenwashing, polluting industry. If the Drax biomass process is ‘low-carbon’, then there is no reason a pipeline has to be built, to pump carbon dioxide into the sea bed.
CLIMATE, OCEAN,BIODIVERSITY, CARBON CROWN
The coast and sea bed stretching for ten miles out to sea, belongs to the Crown; such a wasteful and destructive scheme would reveal the Crown as complicit, in making the ocean a dumping ground.
Such dumping schemes are supported by the fossilfuel industry as it allows them to continue drilling for fossilfuels, with the claim that their drilling is necessary, for carbon capture and that fossilfuels are thus manageable, despite that fact that climate science and indeed the International Energy Agency, have called for a permanent halt to fossilfuel exploration/drilling.
The Uk Governments Biodiversity Action Plan is also at risk; the Government having admitted that biodiversiity is in “unprecedented decline”. It estimated that 75% of the world’s land surface and 66% of the ocean has been “significantly altered and degraded by human activity” and that “one million species are threatened with extinction”. Yet these plans enable that unprecedented decline to continue.
HYDROGEN
An intensely wasteful and high-energy production process, hydrogen is also highly explosive. The experimental Rolls-Royce hydrogen aero-engines testbed had to be situated outside, at their Derby site, on 28/11/22 (East Midlands Today 28/11/2022)
The International Energy Agency has estimated that the production of hydrogen from fossilfuel gas emits 835 MILLION tonnes of carbon dioxide yearly. United States Environment Protection Agency equates this to 10 tons of CO2 emitted, for every 1 ton of hydrogen. As the hydrogen plants are the ‘anchor emitters’, the Project cannot thus be termed ‘Low carbon’.
Water vapour, produced when hydrogen is burned, is a greenhouse gas and the United States Environment Protection Agency is seeking to classify it as a pollutant https://climate.nasa.gov/ask-nasa-climate/3143/steamy-relationships-how-atmospheric-water-vapor-amplifies-earths-greenhouse-effect/
When such pipelines are sabotaged, the environmental consequences are considerable. The Royal Navy has acknowledged that the North Sea is at particular risk. https://www.navylookout.com/protecting-seabed-infrastructure-uk-multi-role-ocean-surveillance-ship-to-be-in-service-by-2023/
EAST RIDING
The entire area is already under threat of erosion, due to climate breakdown. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/flooding-eroding-coastline-heatwaves-become-7854680
The unsustainable Project aids coastal and sea bed erosion, and breaches UK Sustainability Objectives.
The National Grids considerable expertise would be better applied to lobbying the fossilfuel industries on worsening methane pollution from their processes and addressing the losses of power across the electricity system, – at approximately 20% – instead of supporting fossilfuel industries, in the wasting of more energy.
A blackout planned by National Grid, has been called off, at the last minute, at time of writing (28/11/2022). That householders should be asked to save energy, when the National Grid supports plans to waste so much more, is extreme climate emergency denial.
Derby/South Derbyshire Unfriends the Burning Earth
Derby, S Derbyshire + Swadlincote Unfriends the Burning Earth 