Major UK power station, Drax makes an environmantal pledge to replace 10 per cent of the coal it burns with biomass by 2009
March 16, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Drax PLC, the FTSE 100 listed company which operates a coal power station in Selby which is the largest of its kind in Europe, has announced its intentions to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions it produces by 10%. Last year, the station produced 22.7 million tones of carbon dioxide, more than any other single output in the country. This made the North Yorkshire power plant the target of a protest by environmentalists last summer. The campaigners aimed to close the plant (the most efficient in the country) down, but unsurprisingly this ambition went unfulfilled. It did, however, make the company examine whether it could make its practices more in line with the current belief in popular science and politics that carbon emissions are responsible for global warming.
As part of her annual results announcement (which incidentally also included a healthy profit on the back of higher energy costs) Dorothy Thompson, CEO of Drax, unveiled the company’s new (slightly more) environmentally friendly direction. By 2009, 10% of the fuel used at Drax would be biomass. This could be a variety of crops, including oil palms, willow and poplar, the miscanthus grass or olive mush. These fuels are ‘carbon-neutral’ in that the carbon dioxide they produce when burnt is equal to the carbon dioxide they absorb from the atmosphere while growing.
However, this carbon neutrality may be called into question when you consider that in order to achieve the 10% target Thompson and the other executives have set Drax, they will have to burn 1.5 million tones of biofuel. If all of this was to be produced in Britain, we would have very little of our already dwindling woodland left after the first year. Olive mush can be imported from oil producing countries such as Italy or Spain, but in limited quantities. It is more likely that oil palms will be imported from as far afield as South East Asia. Once you factor in the carbon cost of transporting such massive quantities of fuel across the world, it is hard to see exactly what the saving will be in terms of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere.
What is clear, however, is that environmental issues are increasingly on the board room agendas of the biggest companies in the country. This year has already seen announcements by retail giants Marks and Spencer and Tesco, who are trying to persuade the public they share our concerns about the impact that our actions might be having on the environment. These are companies who rely on their customers, the general public, having a good opinion of them, and to some extent, identifying with the brand and sharing the company’s values. Drax, however, like the rest of the energy industry, has historically remained out of the public arena, despite the fact that it provides 7% of the nation’s electricity. This recent foray may indicate the company is serious about improving its image with an increasingly environmentally conscious public. It may also mean it is shrewdly pre-empting the ‘green taxes’ that are coming up in politician’s speeches. With green issues increasingly a political weapon, woe betide the company that finds itself in line of sight.
