Representation by Derby/South Derbyshire Unfriends the Burning Earth (Derby/South Derbyshire Unfriends the Burning Earth)
- Date submitted
- 12 February 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
We object to the compulsory acquisition of additional land for the incorrectly named, totally experimental high-carbon and polluting 'Drax power station bioenergy with carbon capture, and storage extension order' -Drax BECCS- on planning and environmental grounds. The objection includes the associated 'National Grid Yorkshire Green Energy Enablement Project' also misnamed, as biomass and hydrogen are not 'green energy'. See previous submitted objections to those, for background. Post combustion carbon capture technology, to capture carbon dioxide from the existing biomass units at Drax, does not work and examples of this are exposed in the Biofuelwatch report 'Carbon capture from biomass and waste incineration; hype versus reality' viewed here- [redacted] None of the other biomass/waste burning plants remove 'approximately 95% of carbon dioxide from flue gases..resulting in overall negative emissions of greenhouse gases' and serve merely as 'greenwash' or greenhush, for companies involved, in order to obtain grossly misused subsidies. The plans do not provide total mass balance of energy use, pollution or total carbon dioxide emissions. There is no full life cycle assessment. As 'anchor emitters' Drax, the biomass burners and the associated hydrogen production plants excessive energy use, CO2 and water vapour greenhouse gas emissions do nothing to help meet the UK Governments Carbon Budget or energy efficiency targets. The waste of resources is in breach of the Brundtland Declaration that youth, children and future generations be left with the same resources we have recourse to. DRAX CARBON CAPTURE/BIOMASS GREENWASH Drax themselves have admitted that they lack data on carbon capture. [redacted] The burning of biomass is high-carbon [redacted] The Drax BECCS proposals enable Drax to destroy more forests, worldwide. [redacted] and falsely claim this process as 'low-carbon or carbon neutral'. In 2019, campaign group Sandbag warned that Europe’s BECCS plans would accelerate the climate crisis by destroying forests quicker than they can grow back, due to the massive amount of tree cutting needed to fuel BECCS plants. The group warned that the amount of biomass pellets needed to fire Europe’s BECCS plants would equate to half the size of Germany’s Black Forest each year. Similarly, the Daily Telegraph reported earlier this year that the UK government’s BECCS targets would require burning the equivalent of the New Forest National Park every five months. In this context, Drax reveal themselves to be climate crisis deniers and biodiversity destroyers. Health risk to workers and communities from the burning of Drax biomass wood pellets are considerable [redacted] The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are investigating Drax, for violation of guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct [redacted] In 2021 the UK Competition and Markets Authority published new guidance to support global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and the regulator is to launch a review of misleading green claims, we look forward to Drax's inclusion. Derby/South Derbyshire Unfriends the Burning Earth