A power company that has received £6bn in UK green subsidies has kept burning wood from some of the world’s most precious forests, the BBC has found.
Papers obtained by Panorama show Drax took timber from rare forests in Canada it had claimed were “no go areas”.
It comes as the government decides whether to give the firm’s Yorkshire site billions more in environmental subsidies funded by energy bill payers.
We really need to reconsider the place for biomass. It may be “renewable” in that we can produce it. But the production and consumption of biomass is often anything but environmentally friendly.
I was once on a convention in Switzerland like 15 years ago where they showed off wood pellets. They had a little wooden cube there that was like 15x15x15cm and it said: this is how much reneweble wood regrows every second in our country. It was supposed to be reassuring and nice. But i thought it’s pretty much the opposite.
I wonder how long it takes to consume the electricity that it produces.