Power Giant Accused of Burning Ancient Canadian Forests
Britain's largest power station, Drax, has been accused of burning trees up to 250 years old sourced from ecologically valuable Canadian forests, despite receiving billions in green energy subsidies. A damning new investigation suggests the North Yorkshire plant continued sourcing wood from ancient forests as recently as this summer, contradicting the company's sustainability claims.
Hundreds of Truckloads from Protected Areas
The report by Canadian environmental organisation Stand.earth claims that a Drax subsidiary received hundreds of truckloads of whole logs throughout 2024 and into 2025. These shipments allegedly included trees hundreds of years old from British Columbia's most precious wilderness areas.
According to the investigation, Drax received 90 truckloads of logs sourced directly from "old-growth forests" in the Skeena region, home to some of Canada's largest undeveloped wilderness areas. The company received an additional 425 lorry loads from "cutblocks" containing old-growth forests, with 63 loads coming from areas containing more than 90% ancient trees.
"The true volume of old growth sourced by Drax is likely higher than what our research was able to track," the report admitted, citing limitations in spatial data.
Growing Scrutiny of Green Credentials
Drax, Britain's single biggest source of carbon emissions, has received over £2 million per day in green subsidies from UK energy bill payers. The latest findings emerge just days after the company successfully lobbied the government for additional renewable energy support.
The power giant has repeatedly claimed it only uses wood from "well-managed, sustainable forests" and stopped sourcing from government-designated protected old-growth areas in October 2023. However, this commitment covers less than half of British Columbia's total old-growth forest area.
Stand.earth's lead investigator Tegan Hansen told The Guardian: "The region where Drax is operating is an area where we've tracked a disproportionate amount of logging in high-risk forests. With how logging works here in BC, there isn't really a way for Drax to be operating in these areas and not include old-growth forests in their wood supply."
"A Tree Standing Up is Not Waste"
During her investigation, Hansen visited a Drax-owned pellet production site where she witnessed "huge piles of logs" including "large, healthy trees of different ages." She observed trees that had been scorched by fire but were still alive when cut, evident from oozing sap.
Drax maintains it only uses "low-grade" wood typically rejected by commercial sawmills, arguing it's better to use this "waste wood" for renewable electricity than leaving it to fuel wildfires.
However, Hansen challenged this classification: "Even exceptionally old trees can rot in the middle, which makes them important for wildlife, but could mean the tree is called defective by the logging industry. This could mean the tree is dismissed as waste wood. But a tree standing up in a forest is not waste."
The controversy comes as Drax faces ongoing scrutiny from Britain's energy regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority, following a 2022 BBC Panorama documentary that revealed the company had cut down primary Canadian forests for wood pellets.
