Although the Daily Mail does the Tibury power plant fire big, the one thing it does not mention is spontaneous combustion.

Opened in 1969, Tilbury previously operated as a coal-fired power station but has been converted to generate power from 100 percent sustainable biomass until its scheduled closure at the end of 2015. Now on fire, the seat was reported to be 4-6,000 tons of biomass in a wood pellet hopper high up in the power station building.

View full article here

Reminds me of when we were kids and we used to play in the piles of cut grass in our garden. I remember being fascinated by how hot the centre of the piles got when they were decomposing.

A plausible explanation.

According to this lengthy pdf: TILBURY POWER STATION BIOMASS CONVERSION SCHEME

The original idea was to have 60,000 tonnes worth of storage silos on the site. But then... [indicated as page 21]



RWE/Npower instead opted to use the existing coal bunkers. The subsequent reduction in external changes handily meant the planning authority decided no Environmental Impact Assessment was needed.

There seems to me to be a major difference between having 60,000 tonnes of appropriate storage versus the few thousand tonnes of existing internal storage.


EDIT: To correct the page number

On a positive note, if the fire is indeed wood pellets, our local rednecks would break out the briskets and ribs and have them a barbecue! Might as well have SOME good to come from the misfortune...

By the way, I wonder what the CO2 output is from one of them wood-burning plants? I seem to recall wood burning stoves and such are extremely unpopular with the green monsters over here...

So, we've had auto-combusting windmills and now biomass - is there anything combustible in solar panels? - he says hopefully.

Summer = sunshine >> a prize to the first frazzled rooftop subsidy collector.

A bonfire of "The Renewables"? ... bring it on.

GIYF



http://www.smithtownradio.com/2012/01/0 ... n-commack/

A long time ago (about 10 years!) I had occasion to compose a Creed for the Global Warming religion, as it then was.

In times of trouble and grief this may be a very present help. They appear to be suffering quite badly, so I offer it again:

The AGW Creed

appointed to be read at all environmental conferences


I believe in Global Warming,
which will destroy heaven and earth unless we change our ways.
I believe in Al Gore,
Who conceived the Internet
and the hockey-stick graph, born of Professor Mann.
It suffered under McIntyre and McKitrick,
was crucified, disproven, and was buried.
It was cast on the reject pile.
On the third day It rose again.
It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science,
and is displayed in a prominent position in all IPCC literature.
It will apply again as soon as global temperatures start rising.
I believe in the CO2 tipping point,
the IPCC Assessment Reports,
a CO2 sensitivity figure of about 3 W/sq M,
the accuracy of GCMS,
an anthropic cause for all climate variation after 1970,
and grants everlasting.

AMEN.

I'm waiting for the greenies to call for biomass power to be banned.

After all, two tiny earth tremors (about as much vibration as someone shutting a door) were more than enough for them to call for shale gas to be outlawed.

I have had two experiences of spontaneous combustion fires in animal feed products. In both cases, it was the moisture content which was the problem. It warmed up like a garden compost heap and, having a high oil content, burst into flames easily. I spent one Christmas holiday, tracing mill managers at home and warning them to pull the product out of their buildings as we had noticed it beginning to warm up.

In another case, bagged product came into the old fashioned part of a mill building which had wooden beams and caught fire. The fire became quite intense between the top of the product stack and the beams. Being wood, they just charred to the depth of an inch or so. If they had been steel, they would have buckled with expansion and the whole building would have become unusable.

Back in the Fifties we had a farmer neighbour who always had to be first with everything. He built his haystacks when the hay had not dried and - sure enough - it heated up. He had to pull hay out of the middle of the stack to allow the air to circulate and cool it down. Not wanting the neighbours to know, he did this after dusk but was still spotted. Little is secret in the countryside. When he came to check the stack in the morning, somebody had put a couple of hedge stakes across the top of the hole and balanced a frying pan with an egg and a rasher of bacon on top.

Moisture testing is fairly easy and quick. One would have thought that it was routine at a plant as large as a power station.

Drax operators look to have made the correct call.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/selby_t ... ass_plant/

For reasons other than fire risk, but they have been spared that!

Tilbury used to burn coal to produce power, so too Drax - which now burns owt [biomass whatever] and coal.

What perplexes me and call me a stick-in-the-mud, a pragmatist if you like. I mean, I'm maybe not as green as the next bod but in the recent cold days of February just passed, upwards of 50% of our power was provided by............YES you've guessed it = COAL!
What with the EU credits [carbon subsidy] being cut in the near term [which will add an enormous financial burden on Drax] and eventual closure imminent under the LCPD - there is going to be a considerable [fekkin great big black hole] in our ability to produce enough electricity to warm homes - let alone fire the engines of industry.



So said Doc North in 2011, I reckon he is about right - 2013 will be the year of the cuts - black-outs, I mean.

CB on the case too, Dave's case that is......

What is it going to take for these nutters to see sense? Or, do they really want mass protest, it comes down to either telling the EU to go forth and multiply and also to "stuff the green energy agenda" or it will mean Dave's premature end - what's it gonna be DAVE?

Show us who you really care about Dave, us or the EU?

Imagine the outcry if the power stations were nuclear.

Heh!

An embarrassment of choice
for when the grow-ups get back in charge.