Coal's Two-Year High Prompts U.K. Utilities to Burn Wood

[phantom power]

My faith in the ability of people to burn wood "sustainably" is approximately zero.

The highest-priced coal in two years is making wood pellets a viable fuel alternative for U.K. power producers, heralding a doubling of electricity generation from biomass in the next three years.

Using coal to make a megawatt hour of electricity in the U.K. costs 40.25 euros ($53), compared with 39.35 euros for wood, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Prices have been “approximately the same” since May, it said.

Pledges by Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to step up renewable energy use are stoking investment in U.K. projects to get electricity from biomass such as tree and vegetable matter just as coal prices surge amid rising demand from China. Utilities plan to more than double biomass capacity in Britain to 5,800 megawatts by 2014, enough to supply almost 6 million homes, New Energy Finance said.

“More and more coal-fed power plants need to look at ways to increase renewable-energy production,” said Pasi Laine, president of environmental technology at Metso Oyj, a Helsinki- based maker of equipment that turns biomass into electricity. “Most of the existing coal-fired power boilers could be adapted.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-03/coal-s-surge-coaxes-u-k-utilities-to-burn-wood-energy-markets.html

[Systematic Chaos]

1. But Easter Island is just so open and roomy without all those pesky trees.

Don't you think?

[phantom power]

3. Yes, and the Giant Stone Heads are splendid!

[NickB79]

2. Maybe they could plant millions of acres of monoculture tree crops

Put them all in rows, cultivate between the rows, spray them with herbicides, call them "forests" and claim it's a huge step forward environmentally.

And then clearcut them all to burn, and start over again.

[hatrack]

4. Kind of like Indonesia, right?

Except they would need to get paid for their "environmental efforts, wouldn't't they?