Fiddlers Ferry - one station closes could another open?

[mwmbwls]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/31/fiddlers-ferry-sse-coal-power-station-warrington

The Power Hall and eight cooling towers of Fiddlers Ferry Power Station - Widnes by Mwmbwls, on Flickr

The end of coal at Fiddlers Ferry will herald a further change in the landscape after the cooling towers are brought down. With so few power stations now burning coal I wonder if there will be a significant amount of coal to be removed from the site and if so how it would be done. Many of the rolling hills you can see from the Southport train passing through Atherton are finely moulded coal tips. The waste concrete from the Towers is a recyclable material but again is it a rail amenable traffic. What happened in the case of Didcot?

And then there is the question of the rail alignment - a topic IIRC we have discussed before.

Monks Crossing Warrington- The former L&NWR route from Warrington Bank Quay to Ditton Junction - latterly a freight route supplying merry go round coal trains to Fiddlers Ferry Power Station. by Mwmbwls, on Flickr -

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

The line is being kept in case it is ever used for HS3 (or NPR as it is known as)

 

[HSTEd]

I would imagine any bunkered coal will have been burned before the station was shut down.

 

[gazthomas]

I wonder why they can't convert to biomass to avoid transporting the stuff east to Drax. I guess these assets are life expired

 

[Whistler40145]

Will the line from Ditton Junction to Latchford be bereft of regular traffic?

 

[mwmbwls]

I wonder why they can't convert to biomass to avoid transporting the stuff east to Drax. I guess these assets are life expired

The Electricity Generation Industry is privatised and the Drax and Fiddlers Ferry Power Stations are/were owned by different companies - so they were competitors not collaborators. The nature of electricity generation has also changed as on and offshore wing capability has come on line. Drax's biomass operation is almost an one off - in that Drax have been built an integrated supply chain owned timber plantations based close to the Mississippi-Missouri Rivers using quick growing timber. They also own the pelleting mills where the wood is ground into sawdust and then pelletised. After this point humidity and the need for physical handling have to be minimised. Somebody once said every piece of steel has the ambition to grow up and be rust - well for wood pellets it's saw dust. The wood pellets are shipped to Liverpool and then on to Drax. Fiddlers Ferry was always to provide base load power and to be truly economic it needed to generate power 24 hours per day. The facilities become life expired and Fiddlers Ferry is just one of a chain of coal fired power stations to close. Gas fired generation and Wind generation have filled the gap.

 

[Bald Rick]

The Electricity Generation Industry is privatised and the Drax and Fiddlers Ferry Power Stations are/were owned by different companies - so they were competitors not collaborators. The nature of electricity generation has also changed as on and offshore wing capability has come on line. Drax's biomass operation is almost an one off - in that Drax have been built an integrated supply chain owned timber plantations based close to the Mississippi-Missouri Rivers using quick growing timber. They also own the pelleting mills where the wood is ground into sawdust and then pelletised. After this point humidity and the need for physical handling have to be minimised. Somebody once said every piece of steel has the ambition to grow up and be rust - well for wood pellets it's saw dust. The wood pellets are shipped to Liverpool and then on to Drax. Fiddlers Ferry was always to provide base load power and to be truly economic it needed to generate power 24 hours per day. The facilities become life expired and Fiddlers Ferry is just one of a chain of coal fired power stations to close. Gas fired generation and Wind generation have filled the gap.

Some biomass also lands at Immingham, IIRC.

Nevertheless, you are right. There’s a significant economy of scale at Drax, and they adapted quickly. Fiddlers Ferry - or any other coal power station - would need expensive alterations; Drax cost £700m to convert half of its units around 5 years ago. With more offshore wind coming on line every week, the need for new power stations that burn stuff is consigned to history.

 

[Greybeard33]

With so few power stations now burning coal I wonder if there will be a significant amount of coal to be removed from the site and if so how it would be done.

I doubt that there are large coal stocks remaining at Fiddlers Ferry. After Ferrybridge closed in 2016, SSE shipped its remaining coal to Fiddlers Ferry, and for a while laden westbound coal hoppers (and eastbound empties) were a regular sight on the Mid Cheshire line. However, this traffic ceased over a year ago.

 

[mwmbwls]

Some biomass also lands at Immingham, IIRC.

Nevertheless, you are right. There’s a significant economy of scale at Drax, and they adapted quickly. Fiddlers Ferry - or any other coal power station - would need expensive alterations; Drax cost £700m to convert half of its units around 5 years ago. With more offshore wind coming on line every week, the need for new power stations that burn stuff is consigned to history.

When the Biomass scheme was developed in order not to be reliant on one particular port - Drax selected Immingham, Newcastle and Liverpool as preferred ports.Drax have extensive interests in forests in Southern United States together with pellet mills. The original Drax plan envisaged converting four out of six power frames but I am not sure whether the last frame is going ahead.. This choice of multiple ports eliminated down side risks such as seasonal flooding/hurricanes in the Deep South and Labour disputes. The shorter shelf life of pellets also played a part. Competition also keeps port operators competitive.
https://www.drax.com/press_release/...at-the-uks-biggest-biomass-handling-facility/
Wood pellets are also produced in Scandinavia as a bi-product of their timber industries. Newcastle subsequently secured the wood pellet traffic to Lynemouth Power Station which until 2012 had been the dedicated power station for the Alcan Aluminium Smelter. GRBF operate that service.https://www.railwaygazette.com/freight/gbrf-orders-wagons-for-biomass-contract/43707.article The original Drax plan envisaged converting four out of six power frames but I am not sure about the current status of the last unit.

 

[Bald Rick]

Yes the 4th one was converted a couple of years back.

 

[bellalistair]

Yes the 4th one was converted a couple of years back.

Yup one to gas and the last one is due to finish burning coal after Winter 20/21 (not certain of plans for it then)

 

[HSTEd]

Drax was also a considerably more modern station than Fiddlers Ferry.
Drax is the ultimate expresion of the CEGB standardised coal generating plant.

 

[Greybeard33]

When the Biomass scheme was developed in order not to be reliant on one particular port - Drax selected Immingham, Newcastle and Liverpool as preferred ports.Drax have extensive interests in forests in Southern United States together with pellet mills. The original Drax plan envisaged converting four out of six power frames but I am not sure whether the last frame is going ahead.. This choice of multiple ports eliminated down side risks such as seasonal flooding/hurricanes in the Deep South and Labour disputes. The shorter shelf life of pellets also played a part. Competition also keeps port operators competitive.
https://www.drax.com/press_release/...at-the-uks-biggest-biomass-handling-facility/
Wood pellets are also produced in Scandinavia as a bi-product of their timber industries. Newcastle subsequently secured the wood pellet traffic to Lynemouth Power Station which until 2012 had been the dedicated power station for the Alcan Aluminium Smelter. GRBF operate that service.https://www.railwaygazette.com/freight/gbrf-orders-wagons-for-biomass-contract/43707.article The original Drax plan envisaged converting four out of six power frames but I am not sure about the current status of the last unit.

I see from RTT that DB Cargo ran no less than 10 trains from Immingham to Drax on Monday 21 March, no doubt transhipped from the bulk carrier that arrived on the 20th as reported in the press release you linked. But there have been no trains from Immingham since, while GBRf trains from Liverpool ramped up to 7 yesterday, with another 6 scheduled to arrive today. This illustrates the peaky nature of these "just in time" biomass flows - the wood pellets have to be kept dry in transit and during storage.

In contrast coal stations like Fiddlers Ferry could keep large buffer stocks of coal in open air heaps, to smooth out fluctuations in demand and disruptions to the supply chain.