The Drax farce has dragged on for a very long time (several threads here), but there are signs that it might be reaching a crisis point. Not before time.
Last week, the FT put out a rather tame story that internal Drax emails exist proving Drax knew it was at fault in essentially the ways alleged (some would say 'proved') by the Beeb's Panorama back in 2022. You can bet that's only the tip of the scandalous iceberg, that has only remained hidden, more or less, because successive governments have become hooked on the (purely notional) boost Drax gives to the "renewables" and "net zero" numbers. Their addiction is an expensive one, measured in billions of subsidies. It causes them to parrot the Drax lies in official pronouncements.
Following Panorama, Ofgem was set on to check where Drax was getting its fuel. They did a crap job, ending with a derisory £25m fine for Drax not having proper records. The NAO have also found that HMG itself can do no better in justifying the Drax claims of sustainability (on which their entitlement to all those billions rests). Until now, this seemed to be water off the two ducks' backs.
The FT was Wednesday. On Friday the Times joined the bandwagon, hosting a belated confession by Claire Coutinho (the last Tory energy secretary) that time should have been called on the whole farce ages ago. Is a bandwagon about to hit the road? I know for a fact there are several very strategic short positions in Drax: and you don't have to go very far in energy sector gatherings to meet lobbyists who've clearly been hired to badmouth the company (alongside all those with the exact opposite brief!) OK, some of the 'anti' is from US environmental NGOs, appalled at the impact Drax's ravenous appetite for their forests is having; but some of it is from altogether more hard-nosed quarters. Incidentally, we don't do investment advice here.
The timing of all this is critical because Drax has two big asks on Li'l Miliband's desk right now. (1) It wants approval (and a heap of public money) for the ridiculous 'BECCS' scheme; and because it isn't ready to go ahead with this for a while yet, it wants (2) a heap more public money to keep it in luxury until BECCS money comes rolling in. I won't bore you with how this all works in their warped minds, and how utterly ludicrous it all is on every rational score: suffice to say there are civil servants who support it, and also politicians.
Miliband? Actually, I detect no enthusiasm on his part - most people with half a brain-cell see through the Drax nonsense - but he has his own "notional net zero" agenda (see those earlier Drax threads), and Labour as a whole has its "growth / investment at any cost" agenda, too.
So let's see. More popcorn, please, for this particular sideshow. If we now see a serious anti-Drax bandwagon forming, it'll make his decision(s) quite awks. As the young people say.
ND
12 comments:
About time too"!! What about our coal mine!!
Bacon butty boy is a bird-brained bozo.
d - Poetry now, eh?
According to the FT Starmer is set to 'interrogate' Miliband on green energy in a programme of 'stocktaking' meetings.
All very difficult because any honest answer will give the game away. But even Starmer and Reeves must be getting the picture of lots of money being p&*sed up the wall even if no one dare admit it.
The other side of the coin is there is no easy PPE graduate answer to finding 'Green' energy. Not that such is not a worthy aim but feasibility and cost are a problem. A 'reset' toward realism might be wise.
"A 'reset' toward realism might be wise."
I think they actually believe this sh*t. In their world what they are doing is realism. They can no more decide to cancel the whole thing than you or I could decide that 2+2=5 now. It would be the repudiation of their entire mindset.
I fear 'they' believe this sh*t because it is probably true. The politicians know it, but have no feasible way to wean themselves and us off fossil fuels. DRAX was built for coal and woodchips are a cheap conversion so long as you don't kid yourself about the green bit. But finding a spare 14 terawatt-hours of electricity is a bit tricky. So find an excuse to continue.
Indeed XR and Just Stop Oil are right, they have a good point - but no feasible alternative to offer. The nasty implication is that CO2 is a side effect of that other pollutant - too many rich humans.
A tricky problem, not as simple as good honest slaughter. Politicians tend to see rich humans as a source of votes and funding.
On X, aur greatest ever rent seeker, Dale Vince, has only just realised Drax burns wood.
Hey, Elby, can you give the link to that tweet?
https://x.com/DaleVince/status/1846938174104162414
Possibly this?
M.
jim - "XR and Just Stop Oil are right, they have a good point"
But ... we are down to zero coal, while coal burning in India and China is at record levels. Coal India are looking at a billion tons this year. So what we do makes damn-all difference.
We would be better off burning coal and Russian gas, scrapping the Navy and building a real Border Force whose job is actually to enforce the border.
We're coming up to two generations now for whom consumer goods come on a container from the Far East, not the result of a shift in a Midlands factory. And fewer and fewer Brits have done a shift in a factory anywhere.
Next to go will be the UK car industry, as well as the makers of gas and oil boilers. We are governed by Oxbridge imbeciles.
I hope ND and Co take a look at the car industry before Vauxhall close their plants.
I'd get the popcorn - were it not for the fact that I'm bit part actor is this horror flick.
Drax is amusing, because it's necessary to keep the lights on, and simultaneously an obvious greenwashing scam.
The obvious environmental fix would be to put it back onto burning coal (way less environmental damage than logging virgin forest to burn in it - also far cheaper to run), but having just closed our "last coal power station" politically it's very difficult. So doubtless we will continue pretending it's green and pay it massive subsidy to sit there burning wood for baseload for years to come.
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