c/world · by MicroWave@lemmy.world · 286d

UK power plant still burning 250-year-old trees sourced from forests in Canada, experts say

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/09/drax-still-burning-250-year-old-trees-sourced-from-forests-in-canada-experts-say

Exclusive: report by Stand.earth says subsidiary of power plant received truckloads of whole logs at biomass pellet sites

Drax power plant has continued to burn 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada’s oldest forests despite growing scrutiny of its sustainability claims, forestry experts say.

A new report suggests it is “highly likely” that Britain’s biggest power plant sourced some wood from ecologically valuable forests as recently as this summer. Drax, Britain’s single biggest source of carbon emissions, has received billions of pounds in subsidies from burning biomass derived largely from wood.

The report, by Stand.earth, a Canadian environmental non-profit, claims that a subsidiary of Drax Group received hundreds of truckloads of whole logs at its biomass pellet sites throughout 2024 and into 2025, which were likely to have included trees that were hundreds of years old.

254 points · 9 comments · view on lemmy.world

9 Comments

nulluser@lemmy.world · 95 pts · 286d (5 replies)

My first thought was, why is Canada allowing these trees to get cut down in the first place. Answer is at the very end of the article.

Drax said the “low-grade” wood used to make biomass pellets had typically been rejected by commercial sawmills and either sold to the biomass industry as waste wood or burned to prevent wildfires. A spokesperson said it was “far better to use [waste wood] to generate renewable electricity rather than leaving it to burn”.

The rules that allow companies in the forestry industry to disregard old growth as commercial waste are part of the problem, Hansen said.

“Even exceptionally old trees can rot in the middle, which is one of their features that makes them so important for wildlife, but could mean the tree is called defective by the logging industry. This could mean that the tree is dismissed as waste wood. But a tree standing up in a forest is not waste,” she said.

So, the law has a gaping loophole that allows the logging industry to cut pretty much everything down.

kandykarter@lemmy.ca · 27 pts · 286d (3 replies)

This is what Canada's all about. We're just 3 corporations in a trench coat, pretending to be a country.

ODGreen@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 286d (2 replies)

Canada should be renamed Tar Sands and Financing Horrible Mining Ventures brought to you by Loblaws, Bell, and Rogers.

adespoton@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 285d (1 reply)

That would ignore the fishery though.

ODGreen@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 285d

Ignoring the fisheries is extremely on character for the Canadian government tho

AnyOldName3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 285d

Drax often bids more for waste wood than the lumber industry would get for selling timber, so there's already an incentive to declare any wood they can unsuitable. As long as there's a way to get wood to Drax, the industry will find and exploit it.

aeronmelon@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 286d

Why?

BestBouclettes@jlai.lu · 11 pts · 286d

Fuck biomass, its practical uses are so few and there are so many better alternatives, it's green washing to the max, on par with methane capture

ReverendIrreverence@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 286d

And unironically named after a James Bond villain.

Certamen@feddit.org · 5 pts · 286d

[ removed ]