EDITOR - I feel compelled to respond to Mr Davis' attempts to "enlighten the thermodynamically illiterate and environmentally naive" regarding the proposed straw fired power station at Brigg.
On face value the points he raises against the building of this power station seem to be backed by a technical understanding of the processes involved in generating electricity and seem fairly convincing.
However his statement on Government polic
y is misleading. If he reads the 2007 Government white paper on energy, he may find it is based around cutting CO2 emissions and maintaining supply rather than just increasing energy capacity as he partly states.
In making his point on the advantages of coal over straw as a primary energy source, he fails to explain the net gain of CO2 emitted upon burning coal over straw.
The carbon contained in a piece coal was absorbed from the atmosphere in very different climatic conditions some 300 million years ago. Therefore when coal is burnt, the carbon locked away for millions of years is all of a sudden released into our atmosphere in the form of CO2 .
However when a straw plant grows, it absorbs CO2 from the present atmosphere, stores it as carbon and upon burning releases that carbon back into the atmosphere; therefore the net gain of CO2 into the present atmosphere is zero, which technically deems straw as a Carbon Neutral energy source.
I know straw production requires a certain amount of energy derived from fossil based fuels for cultivating, harvesting and transporting, but as a by product of wheat it will be growing anyway.
This being so, it is fairly logical that a power station to produce say 1 mega watt of electricity will emit less CO2 overall if it burns straw than Mr Davis' proposed Brigg coal fired power station and adjoining colliery.
I am neither in favour nor against the building of this power station, as I am not in possession of all the facts to base an informed opinion. I also believe a straw fired power station is not going to entirely solve our present energy problems.
However I do believe the threat of human induced climate change is very real, and to coin Mr Davis'phrase we need to stop the profligacy of energy sources.
This means we all need to make significant changes in how we live our lives for the benefit of future generations, and unfortunately for some people it may mean having the inconvenience of a modern, clean energy producing plant on the door step.
Scott Herrett,
Elizabeth Gardens, Market Rasen.
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