Welcome to our latest newsletter full of updates about campaigns that we – and you – have been supporting, and policy developments.
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1. Effectively influence your MP to demand an end to biomass subsidies
2. The Big One and Drax AGM action
3. Katherine & Krystal visit
4. Drax violates air pollutants limits, again.
5. Vattenfall Day of action
6. New Report: The impacts of the pulp and paper industry’s domination of the biomass electricity market in Portugal
7. Webinar and Report on EPH – one of Europe’s biggest carbon polluters
8. Dutch Parliament Roundtable on Biomass
9. Update from California
1. Effectively influence your MP to demand an end to biomass subsidies
Thank you to everyone who has already sent an email to your MP by completing our e-action. If you have not done so already please follow the link below to find out how to email your MP:
If you have emailed your MP and received a reply please share it with us by sending it to biofuelwatch@gmail.com we can help you respond further. Alternatively you can register your response here.
Emailing your MP is very important, but an even more effective way to influence your MP is to meet with them. We are at an extremely critical point, with Drax lobbying the government to secure more subsidies to fund unproven Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) technology. This is likely to cost the UK tax payer an estimated £31.7 billion, on top of the millions in subsidies Drax already receives annually from the government to burn wood – £606.8 last year – which enabled them to make record profits during a cost of living crisis. Drax was dealt a big blow recently, when it failed to be selected for Track 1 funding for its carbon capture and storage plans, but the company is continuing to lobby the government hard for this funding – we can not allow this to happen: Drax’s tree burning for electricity is having a devastating impact on forests, wildlife, communities and the climate. We are asking you to meet your MP, as this will have the biggest impact on this campaign. We have pulled together a briefing with resources to help you, please get in touch with us at biofuelwatch@gmail.com if you would like more information.
Please share this with others – we have added a sample tweet below which you can share:
Drax is lobbying the government to secure more subsides to fund unproven BECCS technology, click here to email your MP and find out how else you can effectively influence your MP to demand an end to subsidies for tree burning:… Click To TweetComing soon: We are planning an online workshop to help guide you through meeting with your MP, please look out for further information on this soon.
2. The Big One and Drax AGM action
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the host of events at the Big One and outside the Drax AGM. We have added a selection of photos and videos of this which you can see by clicking here. In the build up we also hosted a webinar on ‘how we can stop Drax’s tree burning’. If you missed it you can watch it again below:
3. Katherine & Krystal visit
We were delighted to help play host to two activists from the Southern US in April. Katherine Egland from Gulfport, Mississippi is a human, civil, environmental and climate rights activist and Chair of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Environmental and Climate Justice Committee. Dr Krystal Martin is from Gloster, Amite County, Mississippi where she has intimate knowledge of the politics in Gloster and the community’s needs. Both made the trip to share the impacts of Drax on frontline communities living near the pellet mills Drax sources from in the US. Kathy and Krystal attended the Drax AGM where they spoke, and had a one-on-one meeting with Drax CEO, Will Gardiner and Hillary Berger, Drax General Counsel. They met with MPs, took part in media interviews, recorded a podcast with Surviving Society, and also visited Drax itself and met activists from the region. Many thanks to others in The Cut Carbon Not Forests and Stop Burning Trees Coalitions for helping organise this trip and most of all thanks to Kathy and Krystal from making the journey over here.
4. Drax violates air pollutants limits, again.
As reported in The Guardian and in direct contradiction to assurances made to Kathy and Krystal during their meeting with Drax CEO Will Gardner, Drax-owned Amite BioEnergy has subsequently been found to have violated air pollution limits in Mississippi, which Drax was well aware of at the time of the meeting. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has written to Amite BioEnergy to notify the company that it had violated emissions rules. The notice said a review of Amite’s monitoring reports had shown the factory had been a “major” source of hazardous air pollutants from January 2021 until late last year, in violation of its permit which allows it to “operate as a minor source for hazardous air pollutants” The plant, sited near low income communities with predominantly black populations, processes pellets which are then shipped to the UK to be burnt at Drax in Selby. In 2021, Amite was fined $2.5m (£2m) after breaching air pollution rules. That Drax has breached its permit yet again shows its complete indifference to the accusations of environmental racism that have been levelled against it over these violations.
5. Vattenfall Day of action
As it did last year, Vattenfall’s AGM fell on the same day as Drax’s AGM. Environmental campaigners held protests in each of the countries where Vattenfall operates biomass plants. In addition organisations also wrote an open letter to Vattenfall which was delivered by Fern to Vattenfall’s office. You can see some of the pictures and videos from the day here.
6. New Report: The impacts of the pulp and paper industry’s domination of the biomass electricity market in Portugal
On the international day of forests (21st May 2023) we were pleased to be part of a new report which was released with partners exposing the impacts of burning huge quantities of wood in power plants attached to Portugal’s pulp mills each year. The report showed how the pulp and paper sector is now burning more wood to produce energy than any other sector in Portugal. In 2021, it generated 80% of the electricity produced in Portugal through burning biomass in combined heat and power (CHP) and electricity-only biomass power stations, and owned over half of the dedicated biomass electricity generating capacity. Put together, the sector burned nearly 3 million tonnes of wood in 2021, almost 60% of which was sourced directly from forestry operations, most of it from Portugal’s extensive monoculture eucalyptus plantations. You can read the full findings by clicking below:
7. Webinar and Report on EPH – one of Europe’s biggest carbon polluters
In May we published a briefing on the EPH-owned Lynemouth Power Station in Northumberland, which is the UK’s second biggest biomass power station after Drax. Lynemouth, like Drax Power Station, burns wood pellets imported from the southeastern USA, many of them made from clearcuts of highly biodiverse and carbon-rich forests. You can read the full report below:
To coincide with this we also held a webinar highlighting the negative impacts on forests, the climate and democracy of Lynemouth’s parent company EPH. We were joined by Radek Kubala, a journalist and campaigner with the Czech NGO Re-set, author of the report “Fossil Hyena: How Daniel Křetínský’s EPH Destroys Climate, Profits from Energy Poverty and Threatens Democracy” as well as Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch, and Karen Vermeer who is the Coordinator of the Environmental Paper Network’s Biomass Finance Group. If you missed the webinar and would like to catch up we have added it below:
We also staged a protest to spotlight the role being played by Lynemouth power station in the destruction of transAtlantic forests. Environmental campaign group Climate Action Newcastle (CAN) joined us for the protest outside the power station which is a few miles northeast of Ashington in Northumberland. We are calling on investors and banks to stop funding Lynemouth’s parent company, EPH – a Czech energy corporation owned by billionaire Daniel Křetínský (who also owns a stake in Premier League football club West Ham). if you would like to find out more please find the article below:
8. Dutch Parliament Roundtable on Biomass
On 15th June, the Dutch Parliament held a Roundtable on Biomass, looking specifically at wood pellets imported from Estonia. Ahead of the event, we wrote a letter setting out why subsidies must be stopped early and why we believe this can be done by withdrawing SPB accreditation for certifying compliance with Dutch sustainability standards. The letter was co-signed by NRDC, Dogwood Alliance and Save Estonia’s Forests which you can read here, In addition to this we also helped Estonian Fund for Nature put together their written submission to the Biomass Roundtable.
9. Update from California
We are also pleased to share the latest blog from our colleague in California, Gary Hughes, which focuses on the advance by the California State Senate of bill SB-308, The Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act, which would require large stationary polluters like refineries to purchase ‘negative emissions credits’ from California Air Resources Board certified ‘carbon dioxide removal’ (CDR) projects. The mechanisms proposed have no direct emissions reductions requirements, and are entirely built around the dubious science that claims it is possible to ‘undo’ climate pollution after it occurs. The bill includes unspoken but strong support for Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), and tries to make a gesture to providing environmental guard rails with an obtuse reference to concern about ‘deforestation’ remaining in the bill, but the absence of any real protections for forests or the climate make these aspects of the bill more cosmetic than anything. You can read Gary’s full blog below:
