Screenshot
Great news! The UK government has rejected Drax’s AI Growth Zone bid for a tree-burning data centre!
This is huge. And is down to every letter written, every petition signed, all protests held….. Thank you for taking action with us.
Drax Power Station put in a bid with the University of York and York and North Yorkshire Council to become one of the UK’s new AI Growth Zones. The university and mayor said this would build the “world’s first carbon-negative data centre” – despite carbon capture and storage being unproven globally. In reality, this data centre would’ve burned 4.9m tonnes of wood annually, and produced nearly double the emissions of all flights out of Gatwick airport each year.
The government rejected this bid, and limiting Drax’s nearly £1 billion annual subsidies to less than 50% of this from 2027 are amazing beacons of hope in the battle against big bad biomass.
This win is thanks to every person who’s contributed to this campaign. Regarding the data centre proposal we have written to 108 data companies to urge them to say NO to Drax, delivered an Open Letter to the AI Minsters signed by 106 organisations, co-led a huge Write to your MP action encouraging thousands, and produced several webinars. Keep in touch with us here, and on socials to see how things develop.
Yet Drax is still vying for large data centre development to maintain its subsidies, lifespan and profitability. In it’s Annual Report 2025 it purports to be developing options for a a 1.2GW datacentre, with 100MW of this energy coming from the electricity grid and the rest from its own power station.
The battle is won, but the war against tree-burning business continues.
Keep in touch, subscribe, follow for more information and action.