Drax Group PLC (LON:DRX) has come under fire from a research group for its supposedly eco-friendly wood-burning power plant.
The climate change think tank Ember said Drax’s plant could end up costing the British energy bill payer £31.7bn in subsidies over 25 years, equivalent to £500 a household.
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That might be considered by many to be a price worth paying were it not for Ember’s assertion that Drax’s modelling is flawed and the plant would not lead to the reduction in carbon emissions envisaged.
Drax, which for years was known as one of the last power generators to use coal-fired power plants before it changed tack, hopes to generate “negative carbon emission” by burning wood pellets and then using carbon-capture technology to trap the emissions and store them under the North Sea.
Ember’s report was based on research commissioned by the government and not surprisingly, Drax has challenged the think-tank’s conclusions, saying that the government report was based on the assumption that new plants would need to be built whereas Drax’s own estimates are based on retrofitting its existing plant.
A spokesman for Drax claimed the retrofitting project would save the UK more than £4.5bn over the coming decade, while also removing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
“In addition, it is claimed that Drax will develop carbon capture and storage (CCS) across all four of its biomass units when in fact its current plans include the conversion of only two units,” a Drax spokesperson said in response to the report from Ember.
“Finally, the report assumes any Government support contract, or CfD, would be for a 25-year period, as opposed to the 15-year contract length which is currently being envisaged by Government for CCS projects and would therefore be consistent with its support for other low carbon/renewable technologies such as offshore wind.
‘By 2030, the introduction of BECCS on just two of Drax’s biomass units could capture around eight million tonnes of CO2 each year, equivalent to 40% of the Climate Change Committee’s 2050 net-zero BECCS power target, and it is widely recognised that in order for the UK to reach its legally binding net-zero target, negative emissions technologies like BECCS must be deployed,” the spokesperson added.
Under UK regulations, burning wood is considered to be carbon neutral because while doing so causes carbon emissions, replacing the trees that provided the wood will see more CO2 soaked up.
Many environmentalists have questioned whether burning biomass (wood chip, household waste, rotting vegetables or manure) is as green as is claimed on the basis that the environmental cost of drying the wood, turning it into pellets and then transporting it is not taken into account.
Ed Matthew, the campaigns director at environmental campaign group E3G, was quoted by Sky News as calling the burning of biomass in power plants “the biggest climate-related greenwash scandal in the UK so far”.