What’s Drax?
Drax is the world’s latest biomass power station in Yorkshire. It burned over 7,000,000 tonnes of wood in 2025, which only supplies 5% of UK power. This is subsidised annually up to £999,000,000 of tax payers money as a “renewable” source of energy – but here’s the reality
- Carbon accounting errors: Current UN greenhouse gas accounting counts burning wood pellets as zero-carbon, or balanced – because harvested trees should regrow. This is a catastrophic false calculation as ancient trees take centuries to recapture the carbon released instantly during combustion, and forests may never fully recover.
- Higher emissions than coal: Per unit of electricity generated, burning wood actually releases more harmful, climate-changing CO2 into the air – and provides less energy. Drax is the UK’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, releasing 14,000,000 tonnes of CO2.
- Massive resource demands: For the millions of tonnes of wood pellets Drax burns, vast expanses of land are needed – producing meagre energy relative to the destruction of forests and land they cause.
- Ancient forest destruction: Drax claims the wood is residual. Biofuelwatch and BBC Panorama repeatedly expose the company logging ancient forests in the US, and Europe.
- Dangerous health impacts: Drax has 5 pellet plants in USA and 9 in Canada where it’s toxic pollutants are severely impacting the health of local, marginalised communities.
Check out our AxeDrax Campaign for more information.
What are data centres?
Data centres are basically large warehouses filled with hardware and cooling systems which store and process data. There is a global race for more and more data centers as more people engage with AI – which is great for healthcare and scientific breakthroughs, but the rate of power necessary to run them is growing exponentially.
They require massive amounts of energy, with the majority using backup diesel generators to ensure uninterrupted power. The electricity consumption has grown by 15% to 30% annually and the International Energy Agency expects this to double by 2030. The Institute for Public Policy Research has warned that increased use of AI could threaten up to 8 million jobs.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology exposed vast discrepancies in separate, absurdly mismatched forecasts for data requirements with The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Basically, no one yet knows how much energy will be needed.
How is Drax involved?
Drax is pursuing deals with partners and tech companies to build a data centre, and extend its subsidies by providing power for this rapidly growing industry. Drax submitted a joint bid to the government with York University, North Yorkshire and the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority. The UK government considers data centres “Critical Infrastructure” and the AI Growth Zone plans will catalyse local authorities to build new data centres.
We’ve opposed Drax as a false renewable energy solution, yet disappointingly new subsidies were announced for 2027-2031. The silver lining was a reduction to 27% maximum operating load, to save the country money, and because the Minister of Energy said the previous subsidy arrangement allowed Drax to make “unacceptably large profits”. Drax is looking for a way to burn more trees and make money. They’ve pinned their hopes on getting to partner with a company willing to build a big new data centre that would be powered by woody biomass located on their site.
What are we doing?
We’ve been working towards a biomass phase-out, ending subsidies and opposing the heavy costs and pollution from Drax since 2006 – and now we’re focused on avoiding any come-back from a data centre partnership. Our work centres on research, advocacy, and grassroots campaigning including:
- Working with our coalitions to expose and oppose planning applications.
- Partnering with legal advisors working on legal oppositions.
- Working with locals and local groups to learn and support on the ground.
- Supporting and sharing news from locals overseas experiencing directly the negative impacts on towns, jobs and severe health implications in US and Canada.
- Supporting moratoriums on new data centres to consider progress rationally.