By Professor John Robertson OBA
From BBC North Yorkshire, today:
A UK power station that has received billions of pounds in government subsidies has failed more than once to report it burned wood from primary forests, BBC News has found. Drax Power Station, which burns wood pellets, is required to report where it sources its wood and whether it is from natural, previously untouched forests.
BBC Panorama and BBC News has previously reported that Drax held logging licences in British Columbia, Canada, and used wood, including whole trees, from primary and old-growth forests for its pellets. These are natural forests that have never been industrially logged and lock up and store significant amounts of carbon as well providing key wildlife habitats.
What’s the connection with Scottish Labour?
Scottish Labour deputy leader wins award for serial killer analogy and endorses UK’s biggest CO2 emitter and one of most dangerous polluters in Europe
Dame Jackie Baillie wins an award sponsored by Drax in November 2023. Anas Sarwar won it in 2024.
Drax! Even the name triggers fear. Drax the Destroyer?
I don’t know why energy giant Drax is sponsoring the Herald’s Scottish Politician of the Year award but it’s a bad, bad image. See this:
A U.K. biomass power plant which received more than £800 million (C$1.36 billion) in government subsidies for renewable energy production last year has been pegged as the country’s largest source of CO2 in the country in a new analysis by the climate think tank, Ember.
The Drax plant, which generates electricity by burning wood pellets, is also one of the biggest sources of dangerous particulate (PM10) pollution in the entire EU, writes Skye News.https://www.theenergymix.com/2021/10/24/report-tags-heavily-subsidized-drax-biomass-plant-as-u-ks-biggest-co2-emitter/
Maybe Drax is good to its workers? Nope. See this:
This fight at Drax is about the fact there’s been a 14 percent pay cut in two years in comparison with the cost of living. Where I work, we got offered a pay rise and it was an insult. The conditions are horrendous. You’re talking 60 degrees when you’re working in the boiler room. With the hot weather recently, it was so hot people were almost collapsing and we have to stay there and work through it. We get treated like dogs.https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/08/23/drax-a23.html
So, why are Labour so relaxed with Drax? This in September 2022:
Climate campaigner ejected from Labour event sponsored by Drax power plant firm
What does really sustainable biofuel look like?
LandEnergy in Girvan, Ayrshire, make the following claims:
The cornerstone of Land Energy’s supply chain is our wood pellet production plant situated on the South West coast of Scotland in the South Ayrshire town of Girvan. The plant was developed and built by Land Energy and is and located within the Galloway and Southern Ayrshire UNESCO Biosphere, the largest forested area in the UK – that’s why we are here.
All of our timber comes from sustainable, and responsibly-managed forest sources which adhere to UK standards and comes from the local area around the plant.
The average distance our feedstock to reach the plant is 56km, a fraction of the distance travelled by conventional coal or oil energy resources. We are on the Biomass Supplier List and comfortably surpass their requirements, ensuring that you will meet all your RHI obligations.
More at: https://www.land-energy.com/uk-production/
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brow
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Whichever way you cut! it , it takes a lot longer to grow a tree than to burn it. Wood pellets produce more co2 per kilowatt than coal.
All wood pellet burning including Girvan’s is a scam. I
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Soft pine takes 20 years to grow to 1000 kg. 1000kg of tree will produce 5500 kwhrs of heat. About 1 year’s worth of heating of 1 house.
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deepseek tells me 1 uk house uses 20000 kwh a year. I guess that’s 80 years worth of tree not 20 as I wrote above.
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I’d go further and suggest the UK’s average energy use deliberately misses the point – Energy use is almost directly related to heating which in turn relates to heat loss which is directly related to external temperature – Turn to the average and the population numbers slew the results heavily toward that of southern England, probably the warmest place in the UK.
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Drax has long been an obscenity to all common decency, so has Damn Baillie, the connection is obvious…
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