Burning wood is a terrible way of producing electricity. Chopping down trees destroys habitats for wildlife, and growing new trees cannot replace the biodiversity of old-growth forests. There is also a decades-long time lag between the carbon dioxide released from the burning, which fuels the climate crisis now, and the uptake of equivalent carbon from the air by replacement trees.
So when the government announced on Monday that it would continue billpayer subsidies for biomass burning at the Drax power station, beyond 2027 when the current payments end, the news appeared a blow to green campaigners.
