Campaigners urge Labour not to grant funding for mega-polluter Drax’s AI data centres

Over 60 organisations have called on the Labour Party government to refuse funding for mega-polluter Drax’s AI data centres.

Drax’s AI data centres: mega-polluter eyes up more funding

On Tuesday 14 July, Friends of the Earth EWNI and Greenpeace, alongside local Yorkshire based groups and numerous international environmental organisations have written to Secretary of State Peter Kyle. The letter urges the government to not fund the UK’s single largest carbon emitter, Drax, to power AI data centres.

Drax, in partnership with North Yorkshire Combined Authority, North Yorkshire Council, and the University of York, have applied to the Department for Science Innovation and Technology to become an ‘Artificial Intelligence Growth Zone’. DSIT opened this for applications in May.

Last month, MPs voted in favour of government legislation to use UK energy bills to extend Drax’s subsidies. When these subsidies were first announced Michael Shanks stated that they:

will ensure Drax plays a much more limited role in the system, providing low carbon dispatchable power only when it is really needed.

He also added that:

Drax will be supported to operate at a maximum load factor of just 27% – operating less than half as much as it currently does.

Drax is claiming that it will use CCS to be an “AI and clean energy campus”. Yet neither Drax nor anyone else has the technical know-how to capture carbon from woody biomass burning at scale and scientists from across the globe have raised the alarm on BECCS. What’s more, Drax-backed company C-Capture has recently initiated mass redundancies. There is nothing clean or green about this proposal.

Katy Brown from Biofuelwatch said:

It’s bad enough that the government has agreed to extend subsidies to Drax, the UK’s largest carbon emitter and the world’s biggest tree burner, now we face the prospect of Drax gaining even more money to burn even more trees through this ill thought out AI data centre bid. There will be nothing clean or green about this venture, it will be another income stream for Drax to continue harming forests, wildlife, communities and forests and a distraction from the transition to genuinely renewable, non-emissive energy sources.

Deforestation Drax: logging in primary forests and wrecking the planet

If this bid was to be successful, the energy minister’s assurances to parliament would effectively be overturned. Drax would continue to operate at far greater than a 27% load factor. In other words, it would burn significantly more wood than foreseen by Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).

Last year, Drax emitted over 13 million tonnes of CO₂, 3.5% of the UK’s total emissions, and burned 7.3 million tonnes of wood, much of it from the clear-felling of biodiverse forests in the Southern USA, Canada, and Europe. BBC Panorama investigations have found that Drax is continuing to log primary, previously untouched forests in British Columbia in Canada. Moreover, the company has failed more than once to report that it is sourcing wood to burn from Canadian primary forests.

Merry Dickinson from the Stop Burning Trees Coalition said:

The Government has already taken the disastrous decision to extend Drax’s tree burning past its 2027 cut off date until 2031; based on the promise Drax would be burning half as many trees. Using Drax to power a data centre would be another broken promise and spell disaster for forests, communities and our planet. Our future will not be built on burning trees, we need real green jobs for Yorkshire and across the UK that put workers and communities first.

Claire James from the Campaign Against Climate Change stated:

This summer’s heatwaves are just a small foretaste of what we can expect if we don’t reduce global emissions urgently. Meanwhile, Labour is gambling on AI as an economic fix – but they are also gambling with the climate because of AI’s high energy demand. The government is well aware that burning wood for power is highly polluting, and they should also know that Drax’s carbon capture promises are vague and implausible. Burning trees as fuel cannot be the future, it should be firmly put in the past.”

Ellen Robottom from the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Justice Coalition added:

Using bioenergy from Drax to power a data centre would result in a devastating combination of long-term lock-in of a power source known to be highly polluting, and a massive increase in the requirement for power, making it impossible to meet the government’s stated aim to decarbonise the power system.

Featured image via the Canary