[Technology] UK's last coal fired power station closes...

Cotton Socks · Sep 30, 2024

Sid and the Sharknados said:
Surely this is completely uncontroversial.
Using cleaner fuels/energy sources to generate electricity - good.
Importing steel when we could/should make it here (and should invest in the cleanest way to do that) - bad. I guess in a less buggered up world the idea of relying on imports and investing in something else instead might be more appealing.

Quite how we get from there to an argument about the moral hazard associated with heritage railways is beyond me.

Are you new here?

Cotton Socks · Sep 30, 2024

Mustafa II said:
I appreciate your thoughtful replies here.

We need to make extreme sacrifices in order to save the planet. It's probably too little too late already, but we need to fight this the best we can and we might recover it and save the future of humanity.

ALL harmful high pollution and greenhouse activities need to end immediately... but particularly those that are non-essential.

There are surely solutions for the likes of Bluebell Railway and all the other countless steam train charities all around the world to convert to green alternatives. I am sure electric boilers is an option, if not other innovative solutions. If using environmentally destructive coal is the only option then, yes, it needs to end, sadly. At least for now.

Cars and planes are an unfortunate necessity at the moment, and while they do need to end, it's simply not practical as a political solution right now, but I would argue that the governments of this world should be doing considerably more to reduce, if not end completely, the use of oil in recreational travel... and also commercial activity where possible.

You keep ignoring my question about whether you own a car & although I chucked in the question later about going on a plane, you've ignored that as well.
Steam trains can not convert to electric boilers, we already have electric trains & they are designed to run on electricity.
I assume you don't go to the Amex because you don't know if they purchase their electricity from a 'green' supplier (they may do I don't know). Shouldn't you be boycotting the stadium until the whole thing is powered by solar panels?

Bry Nylon · Sep 30, 2024

beorhthelm said:
the entire point of a steam train is they are running on the original old steam engines. an electric boiler negates this even if it were viable to swap in.

Exactly. Converting old steam trains to electric will leave a lot of heritage rail enthusiasts unchuffed.

Machiavelli · Sep 30, 2024

Deportivo Seagull said:
She said that Britain’s future was the finance sector and with that one statement made manufacturing a dirty word.

She did an awful lot more than making manufacturing a dirty word but if you're point is that she completely re-balanced the economy around finance and, as a consequence, around London and the south-east and that was an UTTER DISASTER for the economy, the country and we'll still continue to feel the effects of that for decades, then I couldn't agree more.

Deportivo Seagull · Sep 30, 2024

Mustafa II said:
I appreciate your thoughtful replies here.

We need to make extreme sacrifices in order to save the planet. It's probably too little too late already, but we need to fight this the best we can and we might recover it and save the future of humanity.

ALL harmful high pollution and greenhouse activities need to end immediately... but particularly those that are non-essential.

There are surely solutions for the likes of Bluebell Railway and all the other countless steam train charities all around the world to convert to green alternatives. I am sure electric boilers is an option, if not other innovative solutions. If using environmentally destructive coal is the only option then, yes, it needs to end, sadly. At least for now.

Cars and planes are an unfortunate necessity at the moment, and while they do need to end, it's simply not practical as a political solution right now, but I would argue that the governments of this world should be doing considerably more to reduce, if not end completely, the use of oil in recreational travel... and also commercial activity where possible.

Considering how many contributers there are to global warming, picking on steam engines at places like the Bluebell railway is nonsensical. It will have as much effect as throwing paint at a Van Gogh. As a percentage of the UK’s carbon footprint, banning steam railways is about as effective as stopping a flood with a sponge. BTW I'm meh about steam railways.

You could in theory run a steam train using an electric boiler but it would need to be run from a live railway and the design would be ‘interesting’.
Interesting fact: the Laws of Thermodynamics were born from the need to make steam engines more efficient.

GT49er · Sep 30, 2024

Deportivo Seagull said:
Considering how many contributers there are to global warming, picking on steam engines at places like the Bluebell railway is nonsensical. It will have as much effect as throwing paint at a Van Gogh. As a percentage of the UK’s carbon footprint, banning steam railways is about as effective as stopping a flood with a sponge.

Spot on! Banning heritage railways to end global warming is a silly idea, like injecting disinfectant to cure covid - and one of those ideas is too stupid even for Donald Trump.

A1X · Sep 30, 2024

It is worth pointing out that the heritage railway sector (which is a billion pound industry in the tourism sector across the UK, nothing to be sniffed at) is working on innovations to solve the coal issue, and has been since the supply of cheap Russian coal dried up in 2022. Currently ovoids formed of reformed coal dust are used by a number of limes, including the Bluebell, and there have been experiments with various other fuels. One of the most promising has been rape-based biomass on the Bure Valley in Norfolk. This isn’t emission free (burning anything isn’t emission free, ultimately) but it’s got potential. The issue is money, as with everything, this research isn’t cheap.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Sep 30, 2024

abc said:
Sorry, genuinely don’t understand that. Please explain

Scargill claimed Thatcher wanted to close the pits. The mines were privatized (sold off), then asset stripped and finally closed. He was right.

( He was also an arse, but so was Thatcher. Horrible times all round).

BN41Albion · Sep 30, 2024

John Byrnes Mullet said:
What a load of codswallop. Making out we are a green country and then importing the stuff from Australia and Asia.

In reality our carbon footprint is shocking. One of the worst Western countries for fast fashion, fast food waste, and buying cheap plastic shit, etc, and our supermarkets are a disgrace in terms of the amount of plastic on fruit and veg etc

Harry Wilson's tackle · Sep 30, 2024

Cotton Socks said:
Now you're just being silly.
After Googling this, as the trainspotter I know is being a selfish git & is too busy to give me 'proper' information I'm going to blag it and say that they use smokeless coal as they don't need the smoke (just heat) and a large percentage that comes out of the funnel is steam. I already called him to ask about boiler conversions.
Think of all those kids who won't get to see Thomas if it's closed down!! Thomas isn't actually there anymore and I'm to scared to mention 'Diesel' from the books!

But these trains are rubbish without smoke.

I'm now convinced. We need to renationalize the coal-powered electricity generating industry to ensure the survival of heritage steam railways. The logic is inescapable.

beorhthelm · Sep 30, 2024

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Scargill claimed Thatcher wanted to close the pits. The mines were privatized (sold off), then asset stripped and finally closed. He was right.

( He was also an arse, but so was Thatcher. Horrible times all round).

overlooking previous 20 years programme of closing pits due to being uneconomic or just plain mined out. what assets are in mines apart from the machinery and undevelopable land?

Cotton Socks · Sep 30, 2024

A1X said:
It is worth pointing out that the heritage railway sector (which is a billion pound industry in the tourism sector across the UK, nothing to be sniffed at) is working on innovations to solve the coal issue, and has been since the supply of cheap Russian coal dried up in 2022. Currently ovoids formed of reformed coal dust are used by a number of limes, including the Bluebell, and there have been experiments with various other fuels. One of the most promising has been rape-based biomass on the Bure Valley in Norfolk. This isn’t emission free (burning anything isn’t emission free, ultimately) but it’s got potential. The issue is money, as with everything, this research isn’t cheap.

Just to add to the tourism sector cash, there are loads of campsites near to the Bluebell railway that add it in their 'things to see' blurb. So there are people staying at an 'eco friendly' campsite with compost loos & not flying abroad for their holiday visiting this environmental catastrophe & taking a trip on a steam train. I only know of one actual 'eco friendly' campsite in the surrounding 12 miles. Most say 'eco friendly' when they actually mean, take your rubbish back home. They also advertise 'campfires welcomed' but charge £9 for 7 logs & £4 for kindling. A lot of them are making a lot of money from pretending to be 'eco'.
Are campfires to be banned as well? That's not a question to you @A1X just a general question to certain others.

Cotton Socks · Sep 30, 2024

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
But these trains are rubbish without smoke.

I'm now convinced. We need to renationalize the coal-powered electricity generating industry to ensure the survival of heritage steam railways. The logic is inescapable.

Stop being so facetious!

Are you really saying that you think the Bluebell railway should stop being a working train museum? I'm still not talking about opening coal mines for it, I'm still on Mustafas idea that heritage railways should be shut down completely due to them using coal.
You didn't answer the question I put to you both about whether you had cars or not either (nor has Mustafa II, it's just been ignored!) I added onto that whether there are any trips abroad on planes as well.
Leave Thomas & friends alone!

Bodian · Sep 30, 2024

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
You can buy coal on Amazon. And it makes genuine smoke. The Bluebell line is safe!

View attachment 189614

How do Amazon get away with this? It's illegal to sell traditional house coal for domestic use in the UK (unless it's from the Forest of Dean and for local use).

GT49er · Sep 30, 2024

BN41Albion said:
In reality our carbon footprint is shocking. One of the worst Western countries for fast fashion, fast food waste, and buying cheap plastic shit, etc, and our supermarkets are a disgrace in terms of the amount of plastic on fruit and veg etc

Well, if we bin heritage railways , that'll all be OK....right?

GT49er · Sep 30, 2024

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
But these trains are rubbish without smoke.

I'm now convinced. We need to renationalize the coal-powered electricity generating industry to ensure the survival of heritage steam railways. The logic is inescapable.

Sarcasm at its finest. Not your best moment.

Guy Fawkes · Sep 30, 2024

Mustafa II said:
Hopefully soon it'll be near impossible to get hold of. These things need to stay in the past while the climate is in crisis.

So is it better that they are chopping down forests and shipping it in pellet form from Canada so it can be burned to generate power over here?

Drax: UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in Canada

The owner of the UK's biggest power station, Drax, is cutting down key forests in Canada.

www.bbc.co.uk

A company that has received billions of pounds in green energy subsidies from UK taxpayers is cutting down environmentally-important forests, a BBC Panorama investigation has found.

Click to expand...

Drax runs Britain's biggest power station, which burns millions of tonnes of imported wood pellets - which is classed as renewable energy.

The BBC has discovered some of the wood comes from primary forests in Canada.

The company says it only uses sawdust and waste wood.

Panorama analysed satellite images, traced logging licences and used drone filming to prove its findings. Reporter Joe Crowley also followed a truck from a Drax mill to verify it was picking up whole logs from an area of precious forest.

Ecologist Michelle Connolly told Panorama the company was destroying forests that had taken thousands of years to develop.

"It's really a shame that British taxpayers are funding this destruction with their money. Logging natural forests and converting them into pellets to be burned for electricity, that is absolutely insane," she said.

Cotton Socks · Sep 30, 2024

GT49er said:
Well, if we bin heritage railways , that'll all be OK....right?

You're being a bit harsh to @BN41Albion there! They've not taken a side, just pointed out that we're all a bit shit!

Guy Fawkes · Sep 30, 2024

There is so much smoke and mirrors in place over the whole environmental / green approach, than means it's not what it seems and can be doing as much, if not more damage than the old fashioned alternatives.

For example: the move to electric vehicles is fueling the need for batteries, which rely on obtaining raw materials that may cause a lot of serious damage to the environments they get extracted from (such as deep sea mining for cobalt, which would throw up a lot of sediment and seriously affect the marine life in the area)

The future of electric cars may depend on mining critically important metals on the ocean floor. That's the view of the engineer leading a major European investigation into new sources of key elements. Demand is soaring for the metal cobalt - an essential ingredient in batteries and abundant in rocks on the seabed.

Telling someone something is green because they have offset the carbon emissions by selling their carbon credits doesn't mean it really has happened

The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle

Offsetting has been hailed as a fix for runaway emissions and climate change—but the market’s largest firm sold millions of credits for carbon reductions that weren’t real.

www.newyorker.com

Buying things like steel from India is seen as carbon neutral, despite the energy costs and emissions that are still produced when manufacturing it, but as it wasn't done in this country, it means it doesn't count towards our green house emissions

Even the weekly household recycling is misleading, most believe it will be transformed into a new product, but a lot of what is collected can't be recycled (mainly due to a lack of demand for the materials collected, or they have degraded and are no longer suitable for recycling) and they get burned to generate power, which still counts as being green somehow, despite the emissions generated

[British recycling being dumped and burned in Turkey]
Many wealthy countries send recyclable waste overseas as it is financially cheap, reduces domestic landfill and can help areas achieve recycling targets.

UK plastic waste being dumped and burned in Turkey, says Greenpeace

Greenpeace says it found plastic waste from UK supermarkets dumped and burned at numerous sites.

www.bbc.co.uk

Harry Wilson's tackle · Oct 1, 2024

GT49er said:
Sarcasm at its finest. Not your best moment.

Unlike your post immediately above.

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[Technology] UK's last coal fired power station closes...

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