Drax has received billions in government subsidies since it began switching from coal to biomass in 2012, yet it was responsible for 11.5m tonnes of CO2 last year, or nearly 3% of the UK’s total carbon emissions. Accorting to a report from the climate thinktank Ember t his makes it Britain’s single most polluting electricity plant.
Drax claims that its generation is carbon neutral and plans to fit carbon-capture technology using more subsidies, to create a ‘bioenergy with carbon capture and storage’ (BECCS) project and become the first carbon-negative power plant in the world by the end of the decade.
A spokesperson for the company dismissed the thinktank’s findings as flawed and accused its authors of ignoring its widely accepted and internationally recognised approach to carbon accounting.
Read the full article online at The Guardian.
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