Drax Powerplant and protesters?

Question

The power plant that is in the press as being the largest polluter in the U.K. How much power does it supply us. When it is dicommissioned, would it be worth building a wind power alternative. If one wind turbine cost £2million, would it be feasible to build turbines instead of a brand new power station and would the power output be the same, pound for pound?

Answer 1

Drax might be the largest, but it also the most efficient of its type and supplies about 7% of electricity. You'd need a hell of a lot of wind turbines to replace it - and what happens when the wind doesn't blow? Seems to me that nuclear is the only way forward with any feasible chance of supplying our needs and at the same time reducing our carbon output.

Answer 2

I wonder how many of these Drax protestors use refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, etc back at their homes?

* Disclaimer... estimates given below are ROUGH approximations.

Anyway, the UK uses about 337,444 GW-hr of energy per year (see link #1 under "Elec Usage in UK"). If that figure is correct and the 7% figure is correct for the Drax plant, then Drax produces about 23,621 GW-hr of energy per year for the UK.

Now, let's look at some typical energy output statistics for a wind turbine (check out the graph at link #2). Say we want to use these typical 600kW turbines and the wind is averaging at 9 or 10 m/s all year long (a VERY generous estimate). That is something like 2.5 GW-hr per year of energy output for each turbine.

We divide 23,621 GW-hr of energy produced by Drax by 2.5 GW-hr for each of the proposed turbines and we have a roughly estimated 59,053 wind turbines that are needed to fully replace Drax power plant. By your estimate of 2million per turbine we have 118.1 billion pounds. Fortunately your estimate is high (check chart on third link) and each turbine should cost on the order of 200,000 pounds which equates to roughly 11.8 billion pounds to fully replace Drax with 600kW sized wind turbines.

Remember, I was being very generous in estimating that the wind would average 9 m/s (although I hear it gets pretty windy over there). Regardless, the power output on a pound for pound basis depends on how the building and operating/maintenance costs of Drax compares with those of the wind turbines. It also depends on the average wind speeds which obviously can vary.

And like an answer above me says, there are resources used to initially build these brand new turbines. How the CO2 emissions compare between using existing infrastructure (such as Drax) and building new turbines is beyond the scope of my electrical engineering expertise.

Wind power can be profitable, but it requires carefully choosing the site to place them. There are ideas in the works that will make use of turbines in the ocean currents. Some countries are starting to use wave generators. Wind turbine designs still have room for improvement. And, I know that here in the United States our Energy Dept is investigating means to filter CO2 from the atmosphere or power plant emissions and then sequester it safely underground. Then you could use coal-fired plants that produce little in the way of greenhouse gases. Also, some states over here are heavily supporting "distributed generation" where homeowners can get credits for installing solar panels and extra power generated actually makes money for the home. This helps reduce the "payback period" for solar panels substantially. Distributed generation also eases stress on the grid since power is consumed and generated at the same spot, reducing the amount of current on transmission lines.

These kinds of solutions are a GROUP of ideas that can help reduce greenhouse gases and help our fossil fuel resources last a long time. Just windpower isn't going to cut it since viable windpower land area is limited, among other limitations. In conclusion, the protestors have better things to do than trying to disrupt people's work. They could actually do something useful like studying science/engineering and solving the problems, rather than whining about them. Either that, or they can all disconnect their houses from the grid... haha.

Answer 3

I've heard that it provides 7% of the country's electricity. The other questions I can't answer, but I will say that I agree with what the protestors are trying to say. We can't put a price on the future of the planet, and unless people make a point of it things aren't going to change.
It is easier and cheaper for the government to keep things as they are, but what are they going to do in a few years time when global warming becomes irreversible?
These matters should have been addressed decades ago, and the governments plans to cut coal emissions by 2050 is NOT enough!
If it was in the governments interests to cut them, I bet things would happen a lot faster (they could do it if they wanted to) so we need to make it a proper issue, and make sure they do want to do something about it.

Answer 4

You would need acres apon acres of wind farms at enormous cost to replace drax, its not an option. Wind power is not cost effective but very clean. Only nuclear can replace it with the technology we have but the environmentalists dont like that either and would prefer us all to live in caves.

Thats what I hate about environmentalists, they talk about saving the enviromnent and protest about power stations but dont come up with any practical solutions.

Answer 5

I think when answering the second question you need to check that the cost of decommisioning is included into the equation.
When nuclear power was originally proposed, scientists promised they'd have an answer to the problem of nuclear waste by the turn of the century. That was 6 years ago and they are still melting it into glass and burying it. They are fast running out of space after 50 years. What do we do in 100 years time?
Even if we have to cover the country and our rooftops with solar panels and wind turbines, and cut down on what we use, and use offshore wave and wind farms; at least they don't melt down and don't pollute.

Answer 6

I'd just like to point out that wind farms are NOT pollution free. Running them may be, but you have to build them, and that takes energy. They use huge amounts of steel, concrete and roadstone. In one case I know of, a million cubic metres of peat has had to be excavated; that will oxidise in time to carbon dioxide. They then have to quarry a million cubic metres of rock to make crushed stone to replace the peat they dug up. That all takes energy and machinery.

Wind farms also take up a lot of area for each kilowatt generated, usually in the few relatively unspoilt parts of our crowded island.

There is probalby some case to be argued for some wind farms, but it the idea that they are a solution to our energy and pollution problems is mainly promoted by the people who build wind farms.

Answer 7

Wake up they say that CO2 is the big polluter ,well where is it .Measure it and u will find only 1 to 2 parts per million,where did all this BAD CO2 go. The green plants ate it. so if u don't have the CO2 u don't have global warming.

Answer 8

As a lead on from your question, has anyone noticed that all these protestors seem to be the down and outs, the unemployed and unemployable, in fact no one of any consequence, who, as far as I am concerned, destroy their credibility by lighting big smoking camp fires. They can't have it both ways.

Answer 9

I can answer the first question.
It produces 7% of the power (so the bbc news said) I guess in the UK.