{"id":9078,"date":"2026-04-08T05:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/9078\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T05:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:19:15","slug":"energy-giant-drax-pulls-out-of-uk-climate-plan-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/9078\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy giant Drax pulls out of UK climate plan \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Biomass is considered\u00a0climate-friendly\u00a0by the government because the emissions\u00a0it generates\u00a0from burning wood pellets are offset by the planting of new trees over decades.<\/p>\n<p>British politicians of all stripes have backed Drax\u2019s biomass over the past decade,\u00a0arguing that the reliable energy it provides is essential to meeting the country\u2019s needs.\u00a0\u201cDrax power station plays a critical role in the U.K.\u2019s energy security,\u201d a\u00a0company\u00a0spokesperson\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0October last year,\u00a0Energy Secretary Ed Miliband received advice on government subsidies\u00a0for biomass from one of his closest allies \u2014 with a clear message.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2240579531-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8231762\"  \/>Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband leaves Downing Street after attending the weekly Cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, October 14 2025. | Rasid Necati Aslim\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Alan Whitehead, for years\u00a0a\u00a0shadow energy minister\u00a0under Miliband, and\u00a0by December\u00a0a minister in\u00a0Miliband\u2019s\u00a0department, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/greenhouse-gas-removals-ggrs-independent-review\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">published a report<\/a>\u00a0saying that\u00a0continued\u00a0government backing for\u00a0biomass\u00a0was \u201conly sensible\u201d\u00a0if\u00a0firms\u00a0upgrade\u00a0their\u00a0terminals with carbon capture installations, given the greenhouse emissions associated with the industry. Drax was the only firm piloting the tech \u201cat a large scale,\u201d his paper said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Whitehead\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0the only expert pushing to get BECCS up and running.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Jeremy Pocklington, then the top official at Miliband\u2019s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero,\u00a0told MPs\u00a0BECCS was\u00a0\u201cthe opportunity to provide the \u2018net\u2019 in \u2018net zero\u2019 at scale, alongside other greenhouse gas removal technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Biomass is considered\u00a0climate-friendly\u00a0by the government because the emissions\u00a0it generates\u00a0from burning wood pellets are offset by the planting of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4479,4480,1538,4481,1354,2095,4482,4483,4484,4485,141,710,3795,586,234,456,4486,528,502,375,371,94,2532,162,396,4487,1254,460,1426,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-9078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-alan-whitehead","9":"tag-alex-sobel","10":"tag-americas","11":"tag-biomass","12":"tag-budget","13":"tag-carbon","14":"tag-carbon-capture","15":"tag-carbon-removal","16":"tag-carbon-removals","17":"tag-claire-coutinho","18":"tag-courts","19":"tag-development","20":"tag-ed-miliband","21":"tag-emissions","22":"tag-energy","23":"tag-energy-security","24":"tag-energy-storage","25":"tag-environment","26":"tag-industry","27":"tag-infrastructure","28":"tag-investment","29":"tag-keir-starmer","30":"tag-michael-shanks","31":"tag-negotiations","32":"tag-net-zero","33":"tag-regulatory","34":"tag-rishi-sunak","35":"tag-security","36":"tag-technology","37":"tag-uk","38":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116367403446502432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}