Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire was once the UK’s largest coal-fired power plant. Starting in 2003, it was gradually converted to run on biomass, and it now burns millions of tonnes of imported wood pellets every year.
This was sold as a green alternative to fossil fuels, and Drax has already pocketed billions in government subsidies on that basis.
But in reality, Drax’s green credentials are based on dodgy accounting – burning biomass for power in this way creates as much carbon pollution as coal or gas.
Now Drax is now pushing for even more public money to fund unproven carbon capture technology. Here’s why the government must refuse.
1. Drax is the UK’s single largest carbon emitter. Burning trees emits more carbon than fossil fuels!
Drax argues that burning wood is carbon neutral because trees grow back, re-absorbing that carbon. But climate change is impacted by carbon levels in the present. The regrowth of trees happens over a period of 44 to 104 years. So even if you could guarantee that every tree taken was replaced (which of course Drax can’t), carbon absorption in the future is no help in dealing with the emergency we are facing in the present.
In the best-case scenario – on a 50-year time frame – electricity from Drax is as carbon intensive as electricity from gas, in the worst case it’s more carbon intensive than coal. Either way it’s a disaster.
The UK has recognised we need to stop burning fossil fuels to tackle the climate emergency. Wood is as bad or worse. We need to stop burning it.
2. Drax wants billions in subsidy guarantees for unproven carbon capture technology (CCS) so it can continue burning forests.
There are 3 fundamental problems with the Drax plan to use carbon capture and storage.
- Billions have been spent across the globe on CCS but no one has succeeded in making the technology work at scale to benefit the climate. Spending billions of pounds betting on a technology that may not work, is not needed for power generation anyway and is not zero carbon makes zero sense.
- Because Drax burns trees and trees come from complicated ecosystems with complicated carbon cycles and regrowth patterns, carbon capture and storage won’t solve Drax’s (our) carbon problem even if it does work as a technology.
- CCS is wildly expensive. Even if it did ‘work’ the expense will be added to people’s bills already the highest in Europe. CCS, such as it is, needs to be used only for essential cases and Drax isn’t one of them
3. Even if it ‘works’ CCS won’t solve the Drax carbon problem.
Drax claims that if it successfully builds carbon capture and storage technology, it will be able to create ‘negative emissions’ helping the UK meet its Net Zero goals. However recent research shows that, “Drax will keep raising the levels of carbon emissions in the atmosphere until the 2050s despite using carbon capture technology.” This is because left to themselves, trees continue to grow, and would capture carbon faster than occurs on that land after harvesting, even if new trees are planted. Drax claims of negative emissions relies on fundamentally flawed carbon accounting loopholes which claim burning trees is already ‘carbon neutral’ – despite it emitting as much carbon as gas or coal. The new study found “that the intensive forest management needed to source 7m tonnes of wood pellets from forests in the US to burn as fuel every year would erode the carbon stored in the ecosystems of these pine forests for at least 25 years”.
We already have proven carbon capture – trees. Cutting them down, shipping them around the world and burning them in the UK destroys vital carbon sinks at the time when we need them most.
4. Drax is a polluting business that is only viable with huge public subsidy.
Yep that’s right. Drax isn’t a viable business without government support because manufacturing wood pellets and sending them around the world to be burnt in Yorkshire turns out to be a very inefficient and expensive operation. Governments have gone along with this because the loophole around carbon emissions from bioenergy allows them to claim they’re doing better on climate than they are.
These subsidies are huge.
Drax currently receives about £2 million in subsidies per day, and by 2027 when its current subsidies expire it will have received a massive £11 billion in green subsidies. A large part of these subsidies come from our energy bills, forcing the public to foot the bill for Drax’s tree burning.
5. New subsidies for tree burning could cost the public up to £2.5bn per year
Drax is currently lobbying the Government for billions more in subsidies.
The previous Government consulted on new ‘transitional’ subsidies, which could cost the public up to £2.5 billion per year. These subsidies would be for business-as-usual tree burning, with no clear end date in sight. Drax has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot be trusted. Drax is also lobbying the Government for billions in subsidies to install unproven carbon capture technology. It’s estimated by Ember that building BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) will cost the public £43 billion: £1500 per household. This is despite the fact that BECCS won’t solve Drax’s carbon emissions and will encourage continued harm to forests, biodiversity, communities and the climate.
6. Importing millions of tonnes of wood pellets undermines UK energy security.
Labour makes a persuasive argument that importing oil and gas reduces the UK’s energy security. The same argument can and should be made for Drax which imports around 99% of the wood pellets it burns. Drax mainly imports from countries allied to the UK but these imports still leave the country exposed to political change and shifts in the energy consumption, land use and climate patterns of other countries. This leaves the UK vulnerable to price shocks and sky high energy bills.
Rather than relying on imported energy, an electricity grid built on UK renewables and storage massively increases the UK’s energy security.
7. There’s not enough land.
The world is experiencing a climate and biodiversity crisis. Each one a threat to the integrity and liveability of the earth system. To stop the devastating decline in biodiversity we have to stop encroaching on wild nature. To solve climate change we have to increase not decrease natural carbon sinks like forests. Given the UK already imports around 40% of its food its international land footprint is already huge.
Renewables like solar and wind require little or no forest or agricultural land and can be constructed in places where they have no or minimal impact on biodiversity. Even solar pv on farmland produces over 40 times more power than the same land growing biomass for electricity. Using lots of land for bioenergy squeezes scarce agricultural and forestry land, pushing up the price of food and reducing the critical function of natural carbon sinks.
8. Drax is sourcing from vital primary and old-growth forests and biodiversity hotspots abroad.
The demand for biomass energy in the UK is causing significant harm to forests globally, impacting regions such as the US, Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Portugal. Biomass energy production relies on the harvesting of wood from biodiverse forests, threatening vulnerable wildlife and ecosystems.
Multiple investigations, and Drax’s own emails, have shown that Drax has repeatedly sourced from Primary and Old-Growth forests in British Columbia. These forests are known for their rich biodiversity and complex ecosystems. Logging for biomass is putting additional strain on imperilled species like the Woodland Caribou, Canada Lynx and American marten.
Drax is burning the equivalent of 580 million xmas trees every year, or 20 Christmas trees per household in the UK!
9. Drax cannot be trusted.
Drax has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot be trusted by the public, bill payers or the government.
In 2024 Drax paid £25 million to Ofgem over misreporting of its sustainability data.
Drax’s own climate advisors have called on Drax to stop describing burning woody biomass as ‘carbon neutral’ – disputing the whole claim that Drax’s business model rests upon.
Following multiple investigations by BBC Panorama exposing Drax’s sourcing from Primary and Old-Growth forests in British Columbia, it was exposed in Drax’s own internal emails that they acknowledge it was ‘highly likely’ they had burnt wood sourced from old forest areas in Canada deemed to be environmentally important.
Earlier this year, Drax handed £300 million to shareholders from their half-year profits, whilst receiving £393m in public subsidies: our energy bills are funding Drax’s shareholders.
10. Drax has been repeatedly accused of driving environmental racism in the Southern US.
A recent investigation found that Drax has broken environmental regulations over 11,000 times in the US. Making wood pellets emits huge amounts of VOCs and hazardous air pollutants (the worst quantified level in the US); including PM2.5, PM10 and formaldehyde. These pollutants are linked to respiratory and pulmonary issues, and many of them are cancer causing. These pellet production sites are twice as likely to be located in low-income communities of colour, putting the health of those already marginalised at greater risk.
Surveys of community members living locally to pellet production sites find that the majority of people living close to pellet mills experience dust every day and that air pollution and dust concerns prevent them from regularly doing things outdoors. The majority (86%) of surveyed households reported at least one family member diagnosed with one or more diseases associated with wood pellet mill pollution. Forest degradation also destroys natural barriers that mitigate the most severe consequences of weather events; with the loss of forests leaving communities more vulnerable to severe floods.