Drax is an ongoing horrible scandal. The theory was that you could burn replaceable trees and wood waste and replant it and then at the very least it was a cycle, all be it a cycle that had a massive lag of many years before the CO2 was once again captured by new tree growth and the old coal power stations could continue on with this new fuel. In practice its repeatedly been caught cutting down ancient trees that wont be replaced from Canada and the USA. It should not be receiving green subsides its just accelerating the climate crisis and despite its relatively low energy output its the biggest contribution to CO2e production in the UK power system because burning wood is so inefficient.
The iamkate and gridwatch sites (https://grid.iamkate.com/ and https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/) don’t seem to know quite how to classify it with the iamkate putting it into blue alongside nuclear and templar just noting in its description a link to the scandal but also including “bio” in its renewable graphs.
Drax is an ongoing horrible scandal. The theory was that you could burn replaceable trees and wood waste and replant it and then at the very least it was a cycle, all be it a cycle that had a massive lag of many years before the CO2 was once again captured by new tree growth and the old coal power stations could continue on with this new fuel. In practice its repeatedly been caught cutting down ancient trees that wont be replaced from Canada and the USA. It should not be receiving green subsides its just accelerating the climate crisis and despite its relatively low energy output its the biggest contribution to CO2e production in the UK power system because burning wood is so inefficient.
The iamkate and gridwatch sites (https://grid.iamkate.com/ and https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/) don’t seem to know quite how to classify it with the iamkate putting it into blue alongside nuclear and templar just noting in its description a link to the scandal but also including “bio” in its renewable graphs.