Burning wood for energy is a 'scandal' that will worsen global warming.
I have written to the Secretary of State, backed by over 50 cross-party colleagues, calling for an urgent meeting to discuss ending subsidies to the Drax power plant in Yorkshire.
The plant supplies about 12 per cent of the UK’s "renewable" electricity and is Europe’s biggest wood-burning power station.
Biomass is currently classed by the Government as a green form of energy. As such, the Drax plant receives over £4 billion of subsidies from electricity bills.
To claim that it is renewable is ignorant at best, fraudulent at worst.
Over 500 scientists have warned that burning wood for energy will make global warming worse for decades to come.
It is basic logic that chopping down trees in the USA, transporting them across the Atlantic by fuel-oil ship and then burning them is going to increase carbon dioxide levels. The data confirms this.
Worse is the belief that a sapling offsets the absorption capability of a fully grown timber tree. Academics estimate that the carbon payback time for burning wood is 190 years.
The Government must act now.
