Subscriptions
Read our Monthly Magazine
And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system
Drax, the UK’s biggest carbon emitter, is set to bypass the UK Government climate rules to power a hyperscale AI data centre – drawing opposition from MPs in all three main parties.
Veteran Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale told Byline Times that Drax was engaged in “sleight of hand” by claiming the energy it generates from wood pellets shipped more than 5,000 miles across the Atlantic is clean. Labour MP Alex Sobel called the proposal “ludicrous”. Liberal Democrat MP Pippa Heylings said she would raise the issue directly with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) was unable to explain how it would monitor the sustainability standards it has imposed on the company.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
Sidestepping Sustainability
Drax’s biomass power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, produces about 13.2 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year, more than any other single site in the UK. Earlier this year DESNZ announced plans to reduce the company’s biomass subsidies from £1 billion a year to £460 million – roughly £1.2 million a day – when the new regime starts in 2027.
The reduced subsidies are tied to requirements for lower carbon emissions and a new set of sustainability standards. By imposing a 27% operating limit, the Government hopes to halve onsite carbon emissions to an estimated 6.6 million tonnes of CO₂ a year by shifting Drax away from near-continuous power generation towards a backup role used primarily when wind and solar output is low.
Yet Drax’s proposed 100 MW data centre, which could become operational as early as 2027 with plans to increase capacity to 1 GW by around 2030, not only bypasses the National Grid – but would crank emissions back up to around 11 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. The AI plan also sidesteps sustainability standards entirely.
Under the new rules, Drax’s wood pellets must come from fully sustainable origins, supply-chain emissions must fall by approximately 36%, and no Government subsidies will support biomass sourced from primary or old-growth forests.
Asked how it planned to monitor those targets, a DESNZ spokesperson said only: “Drax must use 100% sustainably sourced biomass, with not a penny of subsidy paid for anything less.”
Don’t miss a story
Cross-Party Opposition
Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale said he had “no objection whatsoever” to Drax expanding into AI or other emerging industries that require significant energy, provided the power being generated is “genuinely clean, not merely presented as such”.
He went on to criticise the firm for “claiming to generate clean power while producing carbon emissions from burning wood pellets that have been shipped around 5,000 miles across the Atlantic.” He added: “That is sleight of hand. It simply is not true. They have no right to make that claim, and we have a duty to ensure they are held accountable for it.”
Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, said the idea that AI data centres could be powered by Drax’s wood power station was “ludicrous”.
“I think that we do need data centres, but they should be powered by proper renewable energy, through solar, wind, or other renewables. Drax is not a renewable power station,” he said.
Liberal Democrat MP Phillippa Heylings told Byline Times she was so concerned about the situation at Drax that she intended to raise the issue with Miliband.
“There is a consultation under way at the moment, but what is really needed is a coherent national strategy for AI and data centres,” she said. “We know we’re going to need them, but we also need to think about where they should be located.”
Heylings argued that, wherever possible, data centres should be co-located next to genuine clean energy generation. “In my view, they should sit alongside renewable power sources but I would not include wood burning energy plants in that category,” she said. “The danger is that projects like this could lock in demand for wood pellet power generation, such as at Drax, way into the future.”
Dr Mary Stevens, experiments programme manager at Friends of the Earth, accused Drax of “attempting to use the boom in AI infrastructure to extend a lifeline to its dirty business”.
“Data centres need to be powered by additional, new renewable energy,” Stevens told Byline Times. “Whatever it might say, Drax is not renewable energy.”
Retreat from Carbon Capture
After decades of ministerial hopes that a technology would emerge to turn biomass into the carbon neutral energy solution it was already being claimed to be, Drax announced in December 2019 proposals for Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) – a technology designed to capture the carbon from burnt wood pellets before it enters the atmosphere and store it under the North Sea. The company declared its intention to become carbon negative by 2030.
By February 2026, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the Government’s independent adviser on climate policy, appeared to have given up waiting. In its Seventh Carbon Budget, the committee stated that if the UK is to meet its net zero targets, all large-scale biomass power plants operating without BECCS should be shut down after 2027.
Yet a few months later, in its Annual Financial Report, Drax revealed it was effectively scrapping all future investment in BECCS in favour of more commercially lucrative ventures: battery energy storage systems and the construction of, and direct supply of energy to, its proposed onsite data centre.
Drax to ‘Begin one of the Most Expensive Energy Projects in the World – And UK Public Will Pay Three Times Over’
Through its expensive and harmful bioenergy with carbon capture scheme (BECCS), Drax will impose a triple cost on taxpayers in the form of public money for subsidies, higher energy bills, and more extreme weather, the CEO of the Environmental Justice Foundation argues
Drax’s chief executive Will Gardiner had signalled the shift in December 2025, when he said the flagship BECCS project at Selby “requires the right support from UK Government, including the development of a business model and, importantly, a regional carbon transport and storage network to connect to”.
Translated: Drax will only build BECCS if the Government pays for it. The power station continues to pump 36,000 tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere every day.
Asked about BECCS no longer being a priority for Drax, despite the UK Government’s commitment to support the technology with up to £21.7 billion over the next 25 years, a DESNZ spokesperson said: “No final decisions around the deployment of large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage projects have been made, and any support would need to provide value for money for taxpayers.”
Energy Security Tension
DESNZ faces a structural bind. The department is committed to a low-carbon future built on genuinely renewable energy, yet the Drax biomass station remains integral to UK energy security.
The Government cannot risk shutting Drax down without first replacing the power it produces with truly renewable alternatives, for fear of shortages, higher prices and greater reliance on gas imports.
But allowing the plant to keep pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere at its current rate damages the UK’s credibility as a climate change world leader and undermines its chances of reaching net zero by 2050.
At the time of writing, Drax had not replied to a request for comment. The Climate Change Committee declined to comment.