Drax Wanted To Shred Sierra N. Forests For Wood Chips, Then Ship Them To Yorkshire, Because They're "Sustainable"

Drax’s plans to source wood pellets from Californian forests have been shelved in what campaigners are hailing as an “historic victory”. The Yorkshire-based biomass company, which operates the UK’s biggest wood-fired power station, set the project in motion to build two industrial plants in rural California, in partnership with Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR) last year. Once built, the factories were set to produce a total of one million tonnes of pellets annually, which would be shipped to Europe and Asia and burnt to create “renewable” electricity. But at a Wednesday board meeting in Sacramento last week, GSNR announced that it was changing course. Citing “input” from thousands of public submissions, and “a shift in biomass market conditions”, the government-linked non profit said it would proceed with a “reduced scale project”, which would produce wood chips for the domestic market.

Drax’s plan to source wood from areas that encompass eight protected national forests had prompted a host of environmental concerns. Thousands of residents and experts from a cross-border coalition of 185 organisations had challenged the logic of burning high-carbon wood pellets for energy, as well as raising fears over air pollution for marginalised communities living close to the plants, and the impacts of wood-harvesting on the biodiversity and resilience of California’s wildfire-prone forests, which are home to endangered gray wolves.

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In 2024, the Yorkshire power station received over £2 million in subsidies a day from the UK government to burn biomass classified as “renewable” under international accounting rules, based on the assumption, disputed by scientists and campaigners, that growing new trees can replace the wood lost through burning. Earlier this year, the UK government announced it was halving its subsidies for Drax from 2027, and tightening sustainability rules around sourcing. Drax – which generates five percent of the UK’s electricity – maintains that its pellets are made from “sustainable biomass” generated from low-grade roundwood, or “residues” from sawmills and forests. BBC investigations have repeatedly shown Drax to be burning rare forest wood sourced from “no-go areas” in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

The company, which is the largest single source of carbon emissions in the UK, is looking to expand its global operations further. Its future rests on being able to bring down its carbon footprint using a controversial technology known as bioenergy, carbon capture and storage (BECCS), which aims to remove carbon dioxide produced by burning biomass, by capturing and storing the carbon underground. “We spelled out the writing on the wall: GSNR’s biomass boondoggle is not welcome in California communities,” said Rita Vaughan Frost, forest advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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https://www.desmog.com/2025/07/03/drax-wood-pellet-plans-axed-in-california/