The nonsenses that are Drax - and police priorities

In amongst all the nonsense on the streets, somehow PC Plod managed to muster sufficient force outside Drax power station to arrest 22 protesters and disperse a would-be protest camp.  This was under the terms of a draconian court order obtained by Drax, the terms of which would make you think the Crown Jewels were contained therein.

As it happens, in winter months Drax is a pretty essential part of the UK power fleet, the biomass it burns being a significant source of despatchable power.  And the group organising the protest has in the past pulled off some fairly intrusive coups at power stations.  The reason for the protest is a good one, though: outrageously, Drax – the biggest emitter of CO2 in the UK by a country mile – is subsidised by the billion for being a zero emitter.  This is on the wholly fallacious, indeed laughable basis that somehow the trees it burns magically regrow instantaneously, sucking back all that CO2 from the atmosphere.  It’s so crazy, it makes you blink with astonishment and yet, by an outright perversion of some arcane IPCC carbon accounting principles (which have nothing to do with the matter at hand, and indeed by the IPCC’s own edict shouldn’t be used in this way), Drax – and HMG – are allowed to get away with this fiction for the purposes of recording “decarbonisation”.  And of course for justifying paying out those billions. 

Without this longstanding carbon-accounting trick, the UK would be even further away from “decarbonisation” than it already is.  And the Drax subsidies expire in 2027.  The shameless rent-seekers are of course demanding new subsidies to commence that year, until they are good and ready for their next shameless fraud, BECCS (= “biomass electricity with carbon capture & storage”).  Because, of course, if you emit zero CO2 (on paper) and bury (some of) the actual CO2 you emit, tadah!, you have conjured up “negative emissions” – even more useful for the national CO2 account.

A shame this is all the merest bollocks.  And costly bollocks, too, in terms of both greatly reduced energy efficiency and cash subsidies – all for our electricity bills, naturally.  The decision as to whether this monstrous BECCS proposition will be allowed to fly (and of course the “bridging” subsidies for keeping Drax going between 2027 and, errr, “whenever”) falls to Miliband.  He’s really in a jam because, as every authority reporting on the matter has made clear, his crazy plans absolutely hinge on everyone believing the Drax story in all its blatant falsity.  AND it puts up electricity bills!

Whatever will little Mili do?

ND