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New Coal Plant in Cumbria

Started by Incandenza, October 03, 2020, 11:20:48 AM

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Dr Trouser

If all those fuckers didn't bang on about electric cars, buses and lorries we wouldn't need to use coal fired power stations. This is all your fault green bell ends.

New page - new energy

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: TheBrownBottle on October 05, 2020, 07:15:32 AM
I know Xi Jinping has said China wants to be carbon neutral by 2060, but then the UK says it wants to be by 2050.  I'm even less inclined to believe the shit that comes out of a murdering dictator's mouth than I am the shithouses currently holding UK office.

To give them their dues they're much better at building infrastructure that benefits society than the UK currently is.

Paul Calf

Quote from: TheBrownBottle on October 05, 2020, 07:15:32 AM
  I'm even less inclined to believe the shit that comes out of a murdering dictator's mouth than I am the shithouses currently holding UK office.

Give it a few years before you start drawing that distinction so sharply. They've already done for at least 200,000 between asuterity and Covid.

MojoJojo

Quote from: Dr Trouser on October 05, 2020, 08:10:41 AM
If all those fuckers didn't bang on about electric cars, buses and lorries we wouldn't need to use coal fired power stations. This is all your fault green bell ends.

New page - new energy
To play a bit of devil's advocate here, the Cumbrian plant is mining coal specifically for use in blast furnaces to make steel. This is a bit more defendable in environmental terms because there is currently no large scale way to make steel without coal.

Buelligan


Dr Trouser

Quote from: MojoJojo on October 05, 2020, 10:07:03 AM
To play a bit of devil's advocate here, the Cumbrian plant is mining coal specifically for use in blast furnaces to make steel. This is a bit more defendable in environmental terms because there is currently no large scale way to make steel without coal.

I'm amazed we still have a steel industry to be honest.

Sebastian Cobb

Didn't the Chinese prop it up after brexit was about to fuck it into a cocked hat?

JaDanketies

Quote from: Buelligan on October 05, 2020, 10:14:55 AM
Coal<Steel>Planet?

Well you need steel to build wind turbines.

I remember being briefly disappointed that Corbyn supported this, until I looked into it a little and realised that the Greens were being disingenuous, which made me briefly disappointed in Caroline Lucas. It's not like it is immoral and wrong to take coal out of the ground, just to burn it (in quantity). A fully renewable future will still need coal mining because of its use in steel.

Buelligan

No.  We're following a path where accepting we need quantities of steel means we need to destroy our planet.  What about all the steel that already exists?  Where is it?  What about not following that path, which ends in death.

MojoJojo

Quote from: Dr Trouser on October 05, 2020, 10:24:05 AM
I'm amazed we still have a steel industry to be honest.

Yes, I did think that too. I'm now wondering if this is linked to Brexit.

JaDanketies

Quote from: Buelligan on October 05, 2020, 10:39:02 AM
No.  We're following a path where accepting we need quantities of steel means we need to destroy our planet.  What about all the steel that already exists?  Where is it?  What about not following that path, which ends in death.

As far as I know, the carbon in this coal isn't going to become carbon in the environment, it's going to become carbon in steel. So it isn't going to destroy the environment, provided that the metallurgy plants do not produce emissions or the energy involved in the metallurgy doesn't produce emissions.

Buelligan

You've obviously never lived near a coal mine or a steel mill.

bgmnts

It's not just the air, it fucks up the ground too.  There is something about the hills around Blaenafon that just don't look quite right to me, for some reason.

JaDanketies

Quote from: bgmnts on October 05, 2020, 10:55:36 AM
It's not just the air, it fucks up the ground too.  There is something about the hills around Blaenafon that just don't look quite right to me, for some reason.

Do they not dig big quarries up and then dump the soil and dirt and rocks they collect into huge artificial piles? Sorry, I am a city slicker

Buelligan

The English government used to dump it on primary schools in Wales.  Sorry, had to.

MojoJojo

Quote from: JaDanketies on October 05, 2020, 10:46:41 AM
As far as I know, the carbon in this coal isn't going to become carbon in the environment, it's going to become carbon in steel. So it isn't going to destroy the environment, provided that the metallurgy plants do not produce emissions or the energy involved in the metallurgy doesn't produce emissions.

No, most of the carbon will be released into the atmosphere.

QuoteToday, around 0.8 tonne of coal is used and 2.1 tonnes of CO2 emitted from the raw materials to produce every tonne of steel (separate from any coal or gas used to generate the electricity also required).

That's from a pro-coal website, so judge how you want. https://www.letstalkaboutcoal.co.nz/future-of-coal/making-steel-without-coal/

buzby

#46
Quote from: Buelligan on October 05, 2020, 10:39:02 AM
No.  We're following a path where accepting we need quantities of steel means we need to destroy our planet.  What about all the steel that already exists?  Where is it?  What about not following that path, which ends in death.
Steel rusts. To recycle rusty steel to need to add more carbon to remove the oxygen from the iron oxide and other impurites such as paint and oils
https://earth911.com/home-garden/rusted-metal-recyclable/
If you don't do this you end up with the problem FIAT had in the 70s where the USSR and Poland part-paid for the Lada and Polski-FIAT/FSO car designs and production equipment with poor quality recycled steel that started rusting again beifore the cars that FIAT and Lancia produced using it had been delivered.

Quote from: bgmnts on October 05, 2020, 10:55:36 AM
It's not just the air, it fucks up the ground too.  There is something about the hills around Blaenafon that just don't look quite right to me, for some reason.
It's because most of the hills are old slag heaps.

bgmnts

Yeah probably, sad times. Although that could be due to the Ironworks, not the coal mine.


Anyway, read Rape of the Fair County people.

Buelligan

Quote from: buzby on October 05, 2020, 12:15:25 PM
Steel rusts. To recycle rusty steel to need to add more carbon to remove the oxygen from the iron oxide and other impurites such as paint and oils
https://earth911.com/home-garden/rusted-metal-recyclable/
If you don't do this you end up with the problem FIAT had in the 70s where the USSR and Poland part-paid for the Lada and Polski-FIAT/FSO car designs and production equipment with poor quality recycled steel that started rusting again beifore the cars that FIAT and Lancia produced using it had been delivered.

Sorry, I wasn't advocating recycling steel.  I was asking why we need to keep producing something that destroys the planet and doesn't recycle in any helpful way.  That path is an idiot's path to skip down and leads to a giant deathly hole with huge gnashing teeth at the bottom.

Quote from: Incandenza on October 03, 2020, 11:20:48 AM

One of the councillors who passed it apparently heard to say "I wasn't elected to do global issues, I was elected to do Cumbria issues"

What is it with councillors nearly always being arseholes? 

The Culture Bunker

Does remind me of the Copeland Mayor elections not too long ago - the winner stood as an Independent under a "people before politics" platform. Not too long after he got the gig, he joined the Conservatives. 

touchingcloth

Quote from: Buelligan on October 05, 2020, 06:40:10 PM
Sorry, I wasn't advocating recycling steel.  I was asking why we need to keep producing something that destroys the planet and doesn't recycle in any helpful way.  That path is an idiot's path to skip down and leads to a giant deathly hole with huge gnashing teeth at the bottom.

I don't know if steel is always the answer, but I think we don't so much need steel or plastic per se but rather we need materials which are strong, heat resistant, easy to form, etc., and steel and plastics are quite easy and cheap to produce materials which fit the bill.

I do agree with the thrust of your point that we shouldn't fuck the planet or people when making those materials. A question to the room, but is it possible to produce steel in an ethically and ecologically sound way?

Sebastian Cobb

By the looks of it steel accounts for 5% of CO2 and is used in lots of engineering that can displace CO2 elsewhere e.g. windmills, public transport infrastructure etc.

Displacement is probably more important here. For instance if you've got a million quid and can buy one electric bus or several diesel buses and each bus takes many cars off the road, you may be better off with the diesel buses.

Buelligan

Quote from: touchingcloth on October 05, 2020, 07:09:11 PM
I don't know if steel is always the answer, but I think we don't so much need steel or plastic per se but rather we need materials which are strong, heat resistant, easy to form, etc., and steel and plastics are quite easy and cheap to produce materials which fit the bill.

I do agree with the thrust of your point that we shouldn't fuck the planet or people when making those materials. A question to the room, but is it possible to produce steel in an ethically and ecologically sound way?

I think the problem with all the problems is we think but we need steel/plastic/cars/whatevs, therefore, we have to accept fracking/pollution/the death of the planet[nb]after all, the planet can't really die, can it, because that's unimaginably bad.  But it can, have a quick look at what's happening to the ocean in Kamchatka, it's happening everywhere, all of the time[/nb], end of thoughts on that, start looking at Farting on Ice.  We have to stop thinking like this because it's killing us all.

touchingcloth

Yeah, it's the same with things like opting for supermarket deliveries rather than driving yourself often being the option which results in fewer emissions. It'd be nice to have a non-steel option for use in turbines, but given that we know steel works is the greater good achieved by not producing steel, or by making turbines? And with capitalism being what it is, until there's a profit incentive to not rely on steel I can't say my hopes are very high.

Buelligan

It's so linear though, isn't it, that kind of problem-solving?  Why do we need to produce more and more electricity?  If we do, why are solar panels so fucking expensive?  How many people could be self-sufficient in energy in my part of the world if they could get free or subsidised panels?  How about the third world?

touchingcloth


Sebastian Cobb

Could it be because of the way France is already generating electricity? It looks to be ~70% nuclear ~20% renewables and about 7% fossil. It doesn't seem like a subsidy programme would result in much lower co2 emissions because there's very little to begin with. In places that do use fossil fuels (like the UK) they are a good idea though and it's shit they cut subsidies for things like schools (but not private ones).

Buelligan

It's not just about emissions though, is it?  People producing their own gives them control over it.  It stops the need for nuclear plants - imagine that.  It removes the requirement for probably billions of pylons and all that fucking wire and maintaining it. 

And I'm not even advocating it, I'm just saying that we always say simples, we need steel to build turbines, turbines are good, end of.  Rather than thinking about it all, in the round, and finding ourselves some solutions whose primary goal is to save the planet and aid all the people.

Sebastian Cobb

Focused solar arrays are making their way to developing countries as well I think. They're big communal things rather than individual PPV's people put on their roof though.

Things like this:
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16012018/csp-concentrated-solar-molten-salt-storage-24-hour-renewable-energy-crescent-dunes-nevada