Granby, 14th February, 2016

Janet led twenty five of us on this 7½ mile walk from All Saints Church in Granby to Barnstone, Plungar and back to Granby.  Here are some photos from Steve.

Lunch on the canal

On the way we passed the new biodigester at Barnstone.  Planning permission for this seems to have been granted with little publicity - the one at Orston was refused.  More details on this and the one at Cropwell Bishop can be found in this Rushcliffe document here where other local renewable opportunities are also discussed.

My understanding of the Barnstone plant is that it will use energy crops grown locally.  The (endlessly debated) pros and cons of this can be found on the internet but the main drawback is that a plant with a capacity of one megawatt requires over 20 thousand tonnes [of e.g. maize] a year accounting for  a massive 450 to 500 hectares of land.  This is a fundamental problem arising from the less than 1% energy conversion efficiency of photosythesis and the 30% efficiency of converting methane energy to electricity.  Other opinions are available.