End subsidies for Drax power station in the UK!

Drax power station in Yorkshire, England, burns more coal than any other power station in the UK, and more wood than any power station in the world. During 2015, Drax burned more wood than was produced in the whole of the UK that year.

Most of the wood Drax burns comes from North America, and much of that is sourced from clearcut wetland hardwood forests in the southern US. These are North America’s most biodiverse forests and amongst the world’s most diverse aquatic ecosystems, home to the greatest concentration of salamander and carnivorous plant species. Most wetland hardwood forests in the US have already been destroyed, mainly for paper. Now the remaining fragments are being clearcut to burn in European power stations, primarily at Drax.

Drax’s wood burning is also disastrous for the climate. Studies show that burning wood pellets for electricity can put more carbon into the atmosphere than burning coal, over a timescale of several decades. Alongside wood pellets, Drax still burns millions of tonnes of coal every year. A recent report showed that Drax is sourcing coal from Colombia and Russia, where indigenous communities have been forcefully evicted from their lands for coal mine expansion, to feed UK power stations.

Burning wood pellets is allowing Drax to continue burning coal long into the future. The generous renewable energy subsidies it receives are a de-facto support for coal burning, was well as wood burning, as the power station can only stay open because of them. Last year, Drax’s subsidies amounted to £451.8 million – over £1.3 million every single day.

Please call on the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Minister of State for Energy to withdraw Drax's renewable energy subsidies, and make a commitment that no more shall be awarded to the power station in future. Clean energy subsidies must be spent on genuinely renewable, low-carbon energy.