Drax disclosures

[MikeNovack]

DRAX burns 14million tonnes of wood a year. You’re really suggesting that is all “tops”?

Not at all what I was saying. A lot of pellet production is from whole small trees. With "small" being relative to the market.

Look, where I am pellets sell for 300-400/ton. A 16" diameter log 16' long might weigh 600# (dry weight, softwood) so that's about $120 made into pellets. Sawed into logs, that's about 144 board feet (using te somewhat out of date "rule" still used around here. So at any price above $1/board foot the logger would be crazy to sell it for pellets. The hardwoods are denser, so a log that size half a ton of pellets. But hardwood lumber is several dollars a board foot. MARKET. The parts of trees that can be sold as lumber for several times the price if made into pellets don't get made into pellets.

Same with firewood. I can buy that for about $200.cord. Now 16 logs, 12" in diameter 8' long would make a cord. If nice straight pieces, about 500 board feet. So if the price/board foot is $1/board foot, worth $500 as boards and $200 as firewood. Which do you think it becomes? What I am calling tops can still be of significant diameter. But curved or bits between major branches less than 8'. Not marketable for lumber. Most any hardwood around here sells for several dollars/board foot << firewood, so we're talking hardwood >>

Typical trees in a BC virgin forest would be things like Douglass Fir, Frazier Fir, Yellow cedar (actually a cypress; super for boats) with trees 3-4' dbh and 120' tall or taller. Price those for yourself. The old rule* I was using board feet/16' log ~ (D-4)² <<D in inches >> For most trees the reduction in diameter as you go up close to parabolic. There are exceptions like Hemlock which is more conical.

( I don't have the now more common "International Rule" in my head)

[Mart]

Hi Mike, I think the issue being missed, is that bio-mass really needs to be both from sustainable, well managed forestry, and crucially, locally sourced.

Sadly, Drax can't source enough local material, so even if the bio-mass (often from US/Canada) was from well managed forestry, we still end up burning huge amounts of FF's in the processing and transportation.

Now, over time, I believe/hope that the type of wood can be well managed, and that much of the processing can be electrified with clean RE providing that power. But the long distance transportation is going to be very tricky to deal with.

In theory, if the bio-mass can be sustainably obtained, and the processing/transportation cleaned up and local, then it, biomass (like other bio-energy) offers an important role as it can have both on-site storage, and demand follow. That would help greatly with RE generation. But for now, Drax appears to fall short in many ways.

[Bio-energy also offers a potential huge benefit further down the time-line, as it will be critical for us to remove CO2 from the environment, to prevent the worst of the temp rises. For now, reducing FF consumption is the far easier and cheaper target, but for 2050-2100, CO2 removal is essential. It appears that DAC (direct air capture) may never be effective/economical, but the high CO2 concentrations in the bio-energy flues may be - assuming some adegaute storage method can be developed and available nearby, such as underground caverns (simply as an example). So there may be an important role for large scale bio-energy generation, but only if all the many tough to tick off boxes can be completed. But at this point in time, bio-mass (particularly) is not scoring well.]