Getty ImagesBy Joe CrowleyBBC PanoramaA 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. Drax says its wood pellets are “sustainable and legally harvested”.The Drax Power Station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, is a converted coal plant which burns wood pellets. In 2023, it produced about 5% of the UK’s electricity. The site has become a key part of the government’s drive to meet its climate targets.Its owner, Drax, receives money from energy bill payers because the electricity produced from burning pellets is classified as renewable and treated as emission-free.Renewable energy company cuts down primary forestThe row over the UK’s largest renewable power plantWhere does the UK get its energy from?Is the UK on track to meet its climate targets?In fact, the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon a year, but under international rules the UK doesn’t have to count these emissions.All of the 6.5 million tonnes of wood pellets burned by Drax each year are produced overseas. Many come from Drax’s 17 pellet plants in the US and Canada.In 2022, Panorama revealed the company had obtained logging licences in the Canadian province of British Columbia and filmed logs being taken from what the programme said was primary forest to a pellet plant owned by Drax.Primary forests are natural forests that have not been significantly disturbed by human activity. Conservation North/Bulkley Valley Stewardship CoFollowing the BBC investigation, Drax denied taking wood from primary forests but said it would not apply for further logging licences in the province.However, the company still takes whole logs from forests that have been cut down by timber companies.Panorama has obtained documents from British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests that show the company took more than 40,000 tonnes of wood from so-called “old-growth” forests in 2023.Old-growth is some of the oldest forest which the provincial government says provides “unique habitats, structures and ecological functions”. PLANET LABS PBCOne example is an 87-hectare “cut block” called EM807M – located 180 miles west of the logging city of Prince George – which was all classified as old growth. Although a timber company held the licence to cut down the site, logging records show that Drax took 26% of all the harvested wood.In total, Drax received 130 lorry-loads of whole logs from the site last winter. The wood was turned into pellets and some were burned at its Yorkshire power plant.Ninety per cent of the cut block had the even higher classification of “priority deferral area”. This category is for old-growth forests that are “rare, at risk and irreplaceable”, according to an independent panel of experts in British Columbia.The experts recommended that logging should be paused in priority deferral areas, but it’s still legal to cut them down. British Colu …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn Getty ImagesBy Joe CrowleyBBC PanoramaA 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. Drax says its wood pellets are “sustainable and legally harvested”.The Drax Power Station, near Selby in North Yorkshire, is a converted coal plant which burns wood pellets. In 2023, it produced about 5% of the UK’s electricity. The site has become a key part of the government’s drive to meet its climate targets.Its owner, Drax, receives money from energy bill payers because the electricity produced from burning pellets is classified as renewable and treated as emission-free.Renewable energy company cuts down primary forestThe row over the UK’s largest renewable power plantWhere does the UK get its energy from?Is the UK on track to meet its climate targets?In fact, the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon a year, but under international rules the UK doesn’t have to count these emissions.All of the 6.5 million tonnes of wood pellets burned by Drax each year are produced overseas. Many come from Drax’s 17 pellet plants in the US and Canada.In 2022, Panorama revealed the company had obtained logging licences in the Canadian province of British Columbia and filmed logs being taken from what the programme said was primary forest to a pellet plant owned by Drax.Primary forests are natural forests that have not been significantly disturbed by human activity. Conservation North/Bulkley Valley Stewardship CoFollowing the BBC investigation, Drax denied taking wood from primary forests but said it would not apply for further logging licences in the province.However, the company still takes whole logs from forests that have been cut down by timber companies.Panorama has obtained documents from British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests that show the company took more than 40,000 tonnes of wood from so-called “old-growth” forests in 2023.Old-growth is some of the oldest forest which the provincial government says provides “unique habitats, structures and ecological functions”. PLANET LABS PBCOne example is an 87-hectare “cut block” called EM807M – located 180 miles west of the logging city of Prince George – which was all classified as old growth. Although a timber company held the licence to cut down the site, logging records show that Drax took 26% of all the harvested wood.In total, Drax received 130 lorry-loads of whole logs from the site last winter. The wood was turned into pellets and some were burned at its Yorkshire power plant.Ninety per cent of the cut block had the even higher classification of “priority deferral area”. This category is for old-growth forests that are “rare, at risk and irreplaceable”, according to an independent panel of experts in British Columbia.The experts recommended that logging should be paused in priority deferral areas, but it’s still legal to cut them down. British Colu …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
