The pretence that expensively imported biomass is a climate benefit becomes ever more hollow. No sooner do its ’emissions’ reach the atmosphere than politicians demand yet more expense on carbon capture. All paid for by onerous charges added to people’s power bills of course.
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Drax power station has been crowned the UK’s ‘largest single source of carbon emissions’ yet again, with emissions rising 16% from last year, says E&T.

Located near Selby in North Yorkshire, Drax started life as a coal-fired power station when it was opened in 1974, but started co-firing biomass by 2010 in response to government concerns about the UK’s carbon emissions.

According to a report from think tank Ember, Drax has now been the UK’s top emitter for the last 10 years running. It was found to emit more than the next four largest polluters combined and more than the six most emitting gas power plants combined.

Its emissions are equivalent to over 10% of the UK’s total transport emissions and nearly 3% of the country’s territorial total.

The wood pellets burned by the power plant have an equivalent carbon intensity to coal – which is considered to be the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel – but are burned at higher volumes due to their low energy density, meaning that burning wood emits more CO2 than coal or gas per kWh of electricity.

The two fuels are not directly equivalent, however, as biomass is sometimes considered to be a climate-friendly fuel due to its renewable nature and the fact that the initial tree growth sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. On the downside, it takes up significant amounts of land to grow that could otherwise be used for food crops.

Also, while the crop itself sequesters carbon, this does not negate the emissions associated with their agricultural upkeep, such as fertilisers and chemicals or the carbon cost of harvesting, processing and transporting the fuel.

Despite its year-on-year emissions increase, Ember said that Drax received around £2m per day in subsidies in 2024 – an average of £10 per household. The power station burned 7.6 million tonnes of wood, 99% of which was imported.

Although subsidy cuts are expected to halve support from 2027, Drax is still projected to remain the UK’s biggest emitter until 2030.

“Imported biomass is not clean power – it’s the UK’s biggest single source of climate-damaging carbon emissions,” said Ember analyst Frankie Mayo. “Yet Drax continues to receive millions in public funds and is set to remain the UK’s top emitter through 2030.”
. . .
For the first time in decades, no coal power plant appeared on the list of top 25 largest emitters following the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar last year.

Full article here.
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Image: Drax power station, Yorkshire

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop

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July 19, 2025 at 01:34PM

Higher Than 1981!

An analysis of summer sea ice areas in the West Arctic including the NW Passage by the Canadian government ,shows that ice area levels remain above average.

Hat-tip: Snowfan

 

 

The Canadian Ice Service data show that the sea ice areas in the period from June 25 to July 16, 2025 continue to be above average (far right) and even larger than at the beginning of the measurements in 1981 (far left).

This year, for the period June 25 – July 16, the levels are the third highest in over 20 years. Data source: Canada Ice Service for sea ice areas in the Western Arctic.

via NoTricksZone

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July 19, 2025 at 12:28PM

The prediction that wind and solar assets will become “stranded” is fundamentally different, and fundamentally sounder, than the comparable prediction for fossil fuel assets. That is because wind and solar generators are entirely a creation of taxpayer subsidies. Without the subsidies they are uneconomic, and they will be worthless the minute the subsidies are withdrawn.

via Watts Up With That?

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July 19, 2025 at 12:07PM

H/T Mark Krebs, who commented:  This 5-minute by the great John Stossel packs a punch. Like me, he’s a recovering environmentalist who is still a conservationist but has become sick and tired of the manner in which huge elitist tax-exempt NGOs have used the cause to empower and enrich themselves.

For those who prefer reading, below in italics is the transcript from closed captions with my bolds and added images.

Climate change. We are seeing the impacts more and more each day.
So, what are you doing about it? Our future is on the line.

You can help save the world, say these environmental groups, just donate!The first thing that comes up on their websites is donate. Donate.

Why is it so important to donate to this fundraiser for Greenpeace?
Because it’s too hot, because it’s too cold, because it rains, because it doesn’t.
So, give us money. Money.

Your gift will help NRDC come to the defense of polar bears.
To get more money they lie. They are facing extinction in this century.
They say polar bears are disappearing. They aren’t.

They claim bees are dying off. Greenpeace set itself a challenge to put a stop to the deaths of thousands of bees. But bees are doing fine.

Environmental groups claim nuclear energy is dirty and dangerous, when it’s better than alternatives.

They call climate change an existential threat. It’s a problem, but not existential.  These scares drive donations.

Science writer Jon Entine.
They always feel that the only way they can talk about environmental issues is to frame it with hysteria, crisis. But they’re not trying to trick people. They believe it.

Sometimes they believe it. But they also recognize that hysteria generates donations and the oxygen for these organizations is money donated by people who think they’re doing good.

So, you give billions to these groups. Insufficient attention has been made to following the money.

Physicist Mark Mills.
The environmental industrial complex actually has more money in the PR game, in the lobbying game, than the real industry. The media portray the activists as plucky underdogs, the little guy. But they’re not.
Greenpeace pulls in more than $400 million a year and they want more.

Our fundraisers are doing street or door fundraising. They pay young people to accost you.
Even if it’s only two or three people each day, knowing that they’re gonna be giving to Greenpeace for a hell of a long time.

Some of your millions in donations to the World Wildlife Fund help pay for its 250,000 sq foot headquarters with, as they proudly put it, a “stunning eight-story, sky-lit atrium.” They call this, “wise use of donated funds.”  Support WWF’s global conservation work. That’s just 40 cents a day.

The Natural Resources Defense Council spends some of your millions on galas with fashion brands and celebrities, who also make ads for them. This is our moment!  Give to the Sierra Club and you can attend their lavish ball here.

The so-called environmentalists are now the big guys, rolling in money.  It’s bad enough that they lie to us and get paid. Worse is the damage they do.  They block progress. They have billions of dollars to not build a thing, but just to oppose building things.

There’s a rich sense of irony there. Irony because while they say they’ll save the bees. Ultimately that donation goes to a lawyer suing someone, preventing you from using gasoline.

Some of your money does go to people cleaning parks or rivers, but groups like the NRDC and Sierra Club spend millions more on lawsuits.

In the past year our legal team has stopped thousands of miles of fossil fuel pipelines and dozens of large power plants.

We have the Sierra Club active in every state, actively suing. A natural gas pipeline that was supposed to span 3 states has been cancelled. Environmentalists sued to stop it.

They sue to stop nuclear power. They even oppose solar projects and wind farms.
It’s that apparatus that’s keeping us from building.

It used to be NIMBY, not in my backyard. Now it’s BANANA.
Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.

And unfortunately, what that means is we don’t get the lifestyle that we want.

If you wanted to build a new house, for example, what kind of permits do you have to get?
Who do you have to talk to? Is the Sierra Club gonna sue you for building the wrong thing?

I’m ashamed that I once fell for their scams. Years ago my TV station ran ads promoting my alarmist environmental reporting. Now I realize that what today’s big environmental groups mostly do is stop progress and make lawyers richer.

We invited the groups to come here and explain to me why I’m wrong.  Defend your work.
Not one would agree.

I still want to ask them how they justify making it so hard for people to build anything.
It’s a shame because really when I think about what America could be, what we could be building, we could be so prosperous, so much more prosperous than we are.

See Also:

Time for Billionaires to Fund Climate and Social Realism

Abolishing the Climate Politico-Legal-Media Complex

 

via Science Matters

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July 19, 2025 at 10:14AM