Moderator: RichardW
The initial launch is unbelievably vicious. I think the car in the other lane just gave up through sheer humiliation!! 
When Drax opened for business in 1974, Britain got 80 percent of its electricity from burning coal. As recently as five years ago, the figure was 40 percent. But last year, it was 9 percent, and this summer coal supplied less than 2 percent of Britain’s electricity. On April 21, 2017, for the first time since its inception, the British power grid went 24 hours without coal.
The zing in the power lines now comes almost entirely from natural gas, nuclear, and growing networks of giant wind turbines and solar farms. The government says all of the U.K.’s remaining coal plants will be shut by 2025 – maybe sooner. Drax will live on, but only by burning biomass – mostly wood chips imported from the southern United States.
Eight giants of the coal age, including Drax, still stand ready to deliver power. But, as carbon taxes rise and the cost of renewables falls, these plants are slipping down the pecking order of grid suppliers. Coal only provides occasional back-up energy now, mostly on sunless and wind-free winter days, when demand is high and the supply from renewables low.
I don't think that fact is very well-known in the UK sadly...
Regards NeilTransportation and loading can be as much as 40 percent of the total delivered pellet cost, according to Brent Mahana of Cooper/Consolidated, the largest independent barge operator in the U.S. Of that cost, roughly 30 percent is fuel. Shipping by barge is by far the cheapest method, followed by rail. But much of the North American supply is too far from an inland waterway or rail loading yard to make it economical. With diesel at $4 a gallon, just 50 miles' worth of trucking costs to get feedstock to mills and finished pellets to oceanic ports can make or break an entire supply chain.
I have an idea - instead of using Diesel powered trucks they should be using more efficient Battery Electric trucks to ship the wood pellets to the port more economically so they can send them to the UK to burn to generate electricity to run Battery Electric Vehicles!NewcastleFalcon wrote: ↑20 Sep 2017, 18:10Transportation and loading can be as much as 40 percent of the total delivered pellet cost, according to Brent Mahana of Cooper/Consolidated, the largest independent barge operator in the U.S. Of that cost, roughly 30 percent is fuel. Shipping by barge is by far the cheapest method, followed by rail. But much of the North American supply is too far from an inland waterway or rail loading yard to make it economical. With diesel at $4 a gallon, just 50 miles' worth of trucking costs to get feedstock to mills and finished pellets to oceanic ports can make or break an entire supply chain.
My mental energy must be good today!!! 