perscientiamlibertas:

Tilbury power station.Image: Alamy

The growth in ‘green’ energy has been a staple in recent UK energy policies, which have traditionally been dominated by a proliferation of gas power stations, large-scale fracking, government support for nuclear power and a bonanza in oil licenses.

The share of electricity classed as renewable reached 9.4% in 2011 and, according to a recent study by Virgin, green energy firms account for 25% of Britain’s top 20 fastest growing private enterprises. Unfortunately, such reports hide the rise of another dangerous, high-carbon and polluting form of energy: large amounts of mainly imported biomass, used to generate electricity.

Biomass, of course, is hardly a new form of energy. Wood has provided heat and fuel for cooking throughout most of human history and some three billion people worldwide still rely on it. Many societies and communities have found ways to meet low energy needs sustainably using local biomass, but industrial demand for wood has contributed significantly to British and European deforestation. What is unprecedented is the widespread use of wood for electricity generation and the creation of a new global trade in wood pellets and woodchips.

The government and large energy companies are eager to see the UK become a global leader in this new biomass electricity sector. They claim that bio-energy could provide as much as 11% of all energy used in the UK – the lion’s share of the 15% renewable energy target.

The British energy company RWE has created the world’s largest biomass power station by converting the Tilbury B power station from coal to biomass. This record may soon be broken by projects at the Drax, Eggborough and Ironbridge power stations, all of which are to be converted to burning 50-100% wood.  Coal-to-biomass conversions which have been authorised already would burn pellets made from 63 million tonnes of wood every year – six times the UK’s total annual wood production. Add to this the tens of million of tonnes which would be burned if proposed biomass power stations were constructed. All of these projects rely on expected government subsidies of more than £3 billion a year with money coming from the “Green Investment Bank”, a new government initiative.

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Further information:

• RWE to convert Tilbury power station into biomass plant

(via wespeakfortheearth)

perscientiamlibertas:

Almost all of the world’s nuclear power plants are uranium reactors. But interest in thorium reactors is strong, particularly in nuclear happy China. Image: World Nuclear Association

A Norwegian company is breaking with convention and switching to an alternative energy it hopes will be safer, cleaner and more efficient. But this isn’t about ditching fossil fuels, but rather about making the switch from uranium to thorium. Oslo based Thor Energy is pairing up with the Norwegian government and US-based (but Japanese/Toshiba owned) Westinghouse to begin a four year test that they hope will dispel doubts and make thorium the rule rather than the exception. The thorium will run at a government reactor in Halden.

Thorium was discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius who named it after the Norse god of thunder, Thor. Found in trace amounts in rocks and soil, thorium is actually about three times more abundant than uranium.

The attractiveness of thorium has led others in the past to build their own thorium reactors. A reactor operated in Germany between 1983 and 1989, and three operated in the US between the late sixties and early eighties. These plants were abandoned, some think, because the plutonium produced at uranium reactors was deemed indispensable to many in a Cold War world.

Thorium is ‘fertile,’ unlike ‘fissile’ uranium, which means it can’t be used as is but must first be converted to uranium-233. A good deal of research has been conducted to determine if fuel production, processing and waste management for thorium is safe and cost effective. For decades many have argued that thorium is superior to the uranium in nearly all of the world’s nuclear reactors, providing 14 percent of the world’s electricity. Proponents argue that thorium reacts more efficiently than uranium does, that the waste thorium produces is shorter lived than waste from uranium, and that, because of its much higher melting point, is meltdown proof. An added plus is the fact that thorium reactors do not produce plutonium and thus reduce the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

Some experts maintain that the benefits of thorium would be maximized in molten salt reactors or pebble bed reactors. The reactor at Halden is not ideal for thorium as it is a ‘heavy water’ reactor, built for running uranium. But it is also a reactor that has already received regulatory approval. Many thorium supporters argue that, rather than wait for ideal molten salt or pebble bed reactors tests should be performed in approved reactors so that their benefits can be more quickly demonstrated to the world.

But is thorium really cheaper, cleaner and more efficient than uranium? And if so, do the added benefits really warrant the cost and effort to make the switch? Data is still pretty scarce, but at least one report is urging us to not believe the hype.

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Further information:

• Video: Kirk Sorensen discusses Thorium at TEDxYYC 2011.

Andersen ticked off his health problems: “Headaches, loss of balance, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, memory loss, unable to focus, unable to concentrate.”

“When the turbines are operating, it’s sheer hell for me,” added neighbor John Ford. “I don’t sleep like I used to sleep. I’ll wake up at night and my chest is pounding and I’m breathing heavily.”

Ford said his cholesterol has “gone wild” since Wind I started operating, and he was prescribed blood pressure medication for the first time.