Drax: US biomass opportunity could be a significant net zero milestone
If we have learned anything about the road to net zero in recent days and weeks, it is that it is going to be a long and winding one, fraught with potholes, speed bumps, chicanes and, in some cases, cul-de-sacs.
It would be laughable were it not so critical to national security, that this Labour Government finds itself on the brink of owning a steel blast furnace in Scunthorpe – one that was teetering close to being of use for nothing but spares or repairs as the fires threatened to go out –salvaged from the Chinese and then fuelled with foreign coking coal, shipped in, in a race against time to prevent the furnaces going cold. Ex-miners from Doncaster to Durham will have been chortling into their snuff tins.
Just as the ability to forge our own steel is a matter of national security, so too is maintaining a constant, reliable supply of electricity into homes, hospitals, business and more.
Which is why the conversation between the country’s largest power station, Drax, and the United States could be a significant milestone on our journey to net zero, for without question we must get there.
Various credible investigations into the authenticity of Drax’s sustainable biomass wood pellets claims have cast doubt on whether or not Drax’s operations are genuinely sustainable. Brooke Rollins, Donald Trump’s agriculture envoy, even went as far as to suggest that ‘other countries are not meeting the UK’s sustainability criteria.’
For good reason, this is an emotive subject, but hysteria and protest cannot be allowed to usurp pragmatism proffered in the national interest.