Biomass biomass biomass in the UK

Sounds like a slogan. It just might be.

Just returned from an interesting seminar on biomass. In particular wood fired boilers and people’s experience of them in Scotland. Lovely people.

The main thing I took away was that biomass is here to stay however there is a big public health risk to deal with. The fact is, is that biomass boilers are much dirtier than gas boilers.

So dirty that they may go beyond what the Clean Air act imposes. Although living near a motorway does that too……

Mmmmmm will this prevent councils making biomass CHP the way to go. hasn’t stopped Sweden doing this. Years ago.

From a building services point of view its a pain.

Gas boiler - get gas into boiler house. Allow for boilers and maintenance access.

Wood boilers - allow for boilers and maintenance space. Allow for storage for wood. Tell client that fuel quality is really really important knowing he will ignore you. Send multiple emails hoping this will protect you when he sues. Tell architect to sort out access for a full on artic lorry so wood can be delivered. Tell civil engineer that the fuel store needs to be 4 m deep in the basement - hope the store is not flooded. Find space for enormous hot water tank fro fuel boiler as wood boilers do not switch off quickly and you have to put the heat somewhere.

Think about the fact that this is a bit like coal coming back.

lastly hope some green fucker will not blame you for a local rise on birth defects.

OR specify a gas boiler……..

on a tight fee based on lowest cost wins tender. I wonder what services engineers will go for…..

Some links

Lot of specs here

http://www.biomassenergycentre.org.uk

Which i want to read.

As an aside blogging is hard. Much write more.