15th August 2026
Britain is spending billions supporting a power station that burns enormous quantities of wood to produce electricity. Now Drax wants to add carbon capture to the process, potentially turning one of Britain's most controversial power stations into a giant carbon-removal project.
It sounds ingenious.
Burn wood, generate electricity, capture the carbon dioxide and permanently store it.
But there is a rather obvious question.
Why are we cutting down millions of trees in the first place?
That question is becoming increasingly important as the Environment Agency considers allowing Drax to modify its environmental permit to incorporate carbon capture at its North Yorkshire biomass plant. The agency opened a consultation on its draft decision in May 2026 and is currently minded to grant the permit variation.
The Drax debate has therefore entered a new phase. It is no longer simply about whether burning wood should qualify as renewable energy. It is about whether Britain should build a major part of its future electricity and carbon-removal strategy around burning huge quantities of biomass.
And that deserves much closer scrutiny.
Drax is not burning a few branches and bits of waste wood
The phrase "biomass" can make the process sound rather harmless.
It conjures up images of forestry waste, sawdust and branches that would otherwise go to waste.
Some of Drax's fuel does come from residues and by-products of the forestry industry. Drax says its biomass is responsibly sourced and that its supply chains must meet sustainability requirements, including requirements relating to forests, biodiversity and lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions.
But the scale of the operation is enormous.
Drax has become one of the world's largest users of wood pellets, sourcing millions of tonnes of biomass every year.
That means the debate cannot simply be dismissed as an argument about what happens to a few waste branches.
We are talking about an industrial supply chain involving forests, logging, pellet mills, railways, ports, ships and ultimately a huge power station in Yorkshire.
And that raises the first uncomfortable question:
How much wood can the world sustainably remove from forests before "renewable" becomes a rather misleading description?
The carbon argument is more complicated than it first appears
The central defence of biomass is straightforward.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.
Wood contains that carbon.
When the wood is burned, the carbon is released.
New trees can then grow and absorb carbon again.
In theory, therefore, the carbon is part of a renewable cycle rather than a one-way release of fossil carbon that has been locked underground for millions of years.
That is the basis on which biomass can qualify as renewable.
But there is a major complication.
Time.
If Britain burns a mature tree today, the carbon dioxide is released today.
If another tree is planted to replace it, that tree may take decades to absorb an equivalent amount of carbon.
Climate change does not wait for the replacement forest to mature.
This is why the question of carbon debt matters.
The debate isn't simply about whether a replacement tree eventually absorbs the carbon. It is about what happens to atmospheric carbon during the decades between the tree being burned and its replacement absorbing the same amount.
Then there is the question of what is actually being cut down
This is where the Drax controversy becomes particularly uncomfortable.
Drax has faced criticism over its sourcing of wood from Canada, including British Columbia. In February 2026 it said it would stop burning wood pellets from British Columbia and switch its UK plant away from Canadian supplies. Critics have alleged that some of the material came from environmentally important forests.
Campaigners have gone further, alleging that some of the biomass supply chain involves old-growth and primary forests.
Those allegations should not automatically be treated as proof that all Drax biomass is unsustainable. Drax strongly disputes the broader criticism and says its sourcing meets applicable sustainability standards.
But the issue exposes a fundamental weakness in the public debate.
There is a huge difference between:
sawdust that would otherwise be discarded;
genuine forestry residues;
small trees removed during forest management;
trees grown specifically for energy;
and mature trees that have been growing for decades or even centuries.
Calling all of these simply "biomass" can hide some very important differences.
Britain is importing wood to make electricity
There is another oddity.
Britain is a country with enormous wind resources.
Scotland in particular has become one of Europe's major renewable-energy regions.
We have offshore wind farms, onshore wind farms, solar generation, hydroelectricity and rapidly expanding electricity infrastructure.
Yet we are also importing huge quantities of wood pellets from North America to burn in Yorkshire.
The pellets have to be:
grown → harvested → processed → dried → compressed → transported → shipped across the Atlantic → transported again → burned in Britain.
Every stage consumes energy and creates emissions.
Drax argues that its lifecycle analysis demonstrates greenhouse-gas savings compared with fossil generation and that its supply chains meet sustainability requirements.
But the question remains whether this is the most efficient way of producing Britain's electricity in the long term.
And then comes the extraordinary carbon-capture proposition
The latest chapter makes the story even more interesting.
Drax wants to install carbon capture at the power station.
The concept is known as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage — BECCS.
In simple terms:
Trees absorb CO₂ → trees become biomass → biomass is transported to Drax → biomass is burned → electricity is generated → CO₂ is captured → CO₂ is transported and permanently stored.
If everything works as intended, the theory is that Drax could actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
That is because the carbon in the wood originally came from the atmosphere. If the carbon is subsequently captured and permanently stored rather than returned to the atmosphere, the process can theoretically produce a negative emission.
This is why Drax argues that BECCS could become an important technology for Britain's net-zero ambitions.
It is an ingenious idea.
But it also produces an extraordinary paradox.
We would be cutting down trees to generate electricity so that we could capture the carbon released by burning the trees.
What if we simply didn't burn the tree?
That sounds like a deliberately awkward question, but it is actually central to the argument.
Imagine a tree standing in a forest.
It is absorbing carbon dioxide.
Birds, insects and animals use the forest.
The tree contributes to soil health and the wider ecosystem.
Then the tree is harvested.
The timber becomes a pellet.
The pellet travels thousands of miles.
It is burned at Drax.
The CO₂ is captured.
Some of the carbon is then permanently stored.
Is that better for the climate than simply leaving the tree standing?
The answer depends on the entire lifecycle calculation — including what would have happened to the forest if it had not been harvested, how quickly it regrows and whether the captured carbon really remains permanently stored.
That is why the argument cannot be reduced to the phrase "carbon neutral."
The money is another part of the story
Drax is also controversial because taxpayers and electricity consumers have supported its biomass operation through subsidies.
The plant received around £999 million in subsidies in 2025, according to analysis reported in April 2026.
The Government has nevertheless agreed a new support mechanism for Drax covering April 2027 to March 2031.
The new arrangement is designed to reduce the level of subsidy and make Drax operate more as a source of low-carbon dispatchable electricity — electricity that can be produced when it is needed rather than only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Drax says the contract covers all four biomass units.
And this is where Drax has a legitimate argument.
Britain cannot run an electricity system entirely on intermittent generation without dealing with the periods when wind and solar output are low.
You need something that can respond when demand is high and renewable generation is insufficient.
Drax provides a large source of dispatchable generation.
The question is therefore not simply:
"Is burning wood good or bad?"
It is:
"Is burning wood the most cost-effective way of providing that backup electricity?"
The subsidy debate could become even bigger
The really significant financial question may not concern the existing biomass operation at all.
It could concern BECCS.
Critics have warned that a large-scale Drax carbon-capture project could require very substantial public support. One analysis by Ember has estimated the potential future subsidy exposure at tens of billions of pounds, although this is a modelling estimate rather than money already committed by the Government.
That creates a fascinating policy dilemma.
Britain could spend billions developing a technology that potentially provides both electricity and negative emissions.
Or it could spend that money on alternatives such as:
nuclear power;
offshore wind;
electricity storage;
grid reinforcement;
pumped hydro;
batteries;
interconnectors;
demand management;
energy efficiency;
and other forms of low-carbon dispatchable generation.
The question is therefore not whether BECCS is technologically interesting.
It clearly is.
The question is what Britain's scarce investment money should be spent on.
The regulators have a difficult job
The Environment Agency's role is also worth understanding.
Its permit decision is primarily about whether Drax can operate the proposed activity without significant risk to human health or the environment under the environmental permitting regime.
It is not a referendum on Britain's entire energy policy.
The Agency's consultation specifically considers issues surrounding the proposed permit variation and whether the operation can meet environmental requirements.
That distinction matters.
A permit saying that a plant can legally operate does not automatically mean that burning millions of tonnes of biomass is Britain's best energy policy.
Those are two separate questions.
What about the forests?
This may ultimately become the most important issue of all.
If Britain decides to rely on biomass, there needs to be absolute confidence about where the material comes from.
That means much more than simply asking whether a supplier has a certificate.
Britain should be able to answer:
Which forest did the wood come from?
What species were harvested?
How old were the trees?
Would the trees have been harvested anyway?
What happens to the land afterwards?
How quickly does it regenerate?
What happens to biodiversity?
How much carbon was stored in the forest?
How much carbon is released during harvesting and processing?
How much energy is consumed producing and transporting the pellets?
And how much of the carbon released at Drax is actually captured and permanently stored?
Drax has responded to demands for greater transparency by launching a biomass tracker showing information about its supply chain.
That is welcome.
But given the scale of public money involved, transparency should not be optional.
There is a wider lesson for Britain
The Drax story illustrates something that is often missing from Britain's energy debate.
There is no single magic source of cheap, clean electricity.
Every technology has trade-offs.
Wind needs backup and grid connections.
Solar is intermittent.
Nuclear is expensive and takes years to build.
Batteries are excellent for short-duration storage but cannot necessarily replace weeks of low renewable generation.
Hydrogen has potential but requires enormous infrastructure.
Carbon capture remains expensive and technically challenging.
And biomass requires a sustainable supply of biological material.
Drax is therefore neither the environmental villain its critics sometimes portray nor the uncomplicated green solution its supporters might suggest.
It is a huge experiment in using biological carbon to produce electricity and potentially remove carbon from the atmosphere.
That experiment deserves rigorous scrutiny.
So, is Drax really the green solution?
Perhaps.
But only if some very demanding conditions are satisfied.
The biomass must genuinely be sustainable.
The forests must be properly protected.
The entire supply chain must be independently verified.
The carbon accounting must reflect reality rather than simply accounting conventions.
The carbon capture system must actually work.
The captured carbon must remain permanently stored.
And the cost to taxpayers and electricity consumers must be justified against the alternatives.
If those conditions are met, Drax could eventually become an important part of Britain's low-carbon electricity system.
If they aren't, Britain could find itself doing something that sounds increasingly bizarre:
cutting down forests, turning trees into pellets, shipping them across an ocean, burning them to generate electricity and then paying billions to capture the carbon.
That is why the question raised by Drax is much bigger than one Yorkshire power station.
It goes to the heart of Britain's energy strategy.
When does a renewable resource stop being renewable — and start becoming an industrial resource that we are consuming faster than nature can replace it?
For a country struggling with high electricity prices, that is a question British consumers deserve a very clear answer to.
14 August 2026
Environmental permit variation granted to Drax Power Limited
The Environment Agency has granted an environmental permit variation to Drax Power Limited in Yorkshire.
It follows a public consultation on the Agency’s draft decision, which took place earlier in the summer.
The decision is based on Drax demonstrating that it has met and will continue to meet expected mandatory conditions as outlined in the permit.
The company applied to vary its environmental permit to incorporate carbon capture at its bioenergy plant near Selby.
The Environment Agency only issues permits or permit variations if it’s satisfied the operator can comply with the permit conditions and has appropriate systems in place to operate without causing harm to the environment, human health or wildlife.
Ian Foster, Area Environment Manager at the Environment Agency, said:
We have reviewed the comments and evidence from the consultation into our draft decision and are satisfied that robust levels of environmental protection are met.
Environmental law sets out these conditions, and as a regulator we will issue the permit if we can find no reason that the operator would not be able to comply.
Decision document available
There is a decision document which explains in more detail how the Environment Agency reached this decision.
It also outlines the concerns raised during the consultation and how the Environment Agency has addressed these.
You can find out more about this here.
The operator first applied for the variation in May 2023. At the time, the Environment Agency held a public consultation to offer people the opportunity to comment on the application.
During the Environment Agency’s review of this 2023 application, it considered the applicant had not included sufficient information, so it requested a more detailed assessment.
Drax provided a revised air emissions risk assessment, including the potential substances that could be formed in the carbon capture plant. A second consultation was held in February 2025, before a third and final consultation into the Environment Agency’s draft decision earlier this summer.
Carbon capture is the removal of carbon dioxide from waste gases (usually by absorbing the carbon dioxide in a special solvent) and either using it or storing it underground, reducing the amount of emissions into the atmosphere.
Drax Power Ltd wants to capture the carbon dioxide emitted during electricity generation, to prevent the majority of it from entering the atmosphere.
The carbon dioxide captured will be transported for permanent storage under the North Sea.
The Environment Agency may only refuse a permit application if it does not meet one or more of the legal requirements under environmental legislation, including if it will have an unacceptable impact on the environment or harm human health.
If all the requirements are met, it is legally obliged to issue a permit.
Environmental Permits
Environmental permits set out strict legal conditions by which an operator must comply in order to protect people and the environment. Should an environmental permit be issued, the Environment Agency has responsibility for enforcing its conditions.
Our powers include enforcement notices, suspension and revocation of permits, fines and ultimately criminal sanctions, including prosecution.
We may only refuse a permit if it does not meet one or more of the legal requirements under environmental legislation, including if it will have a significant impact on the environment or harm human health. If all the requirements are met, we are legally required to issue a permit.