Drax: UK power station still burning rare forest wood

bbc.co.uk

25 points·a_w··7 comments

It's a widespread problem throughout Europe,

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/07/world/europe/... ("Europe Is Sacrificing Its Ancient Forests for Energy")

Drax seems like a dinosaur which we should be doing without. It's situated where it is because of the easy access to the huge coal fields that fired it previously. Now the wood it burns is imported from overseas. Surely this is not sustainable or environmentally friendly?

It was completely rebuilt from a coal to wood burner at the same site because the site has good transport links and is at a powerline nexus. ( The picture in the article is way out of date - the cooling towers were demolished years ago ).

In theory burning wood is sustainable, if the forests are replaced at the same rate as burning. Whether that's actually practical/economic I guess is another matter.

> the company still takes whole logs from forests that have been cut down by timber companies.

So this is like complaining about cobalt in iPhones, a weirdly specific complaint.

The forest is being turned into timber, but when some of it that isn't timber quality gets used to displace fossil fuels it's a scandal?

The article says they produced 5% of the UK's electricity... Can't they just shut it down?

If they would hurry up building interconnections to Scotland, there is excess renewable power being produced there.

> Drax: UK power station still burning rare forest wood

So what ? It is _renewable_. /s

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