Front Burner - How virgin B.C. forests fuel a ‘green’ U.K. power station

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Drax Power Station is Britain's largest power plant, burning wood pellets to create electricity. In 2021, the company received two million pounds a day in subsidies from the U.K. government. But while the industry pitches the pellets as a renewable source of energy, critics say the fuel source is making the climate crisis worse. A new investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate found Drax catapulted a small industry it says is green into an international operation that's dependent on logging in areas that include B.C.'s old growth and primary forests, with the support of B.C.’s NDP government. Today on Front Burner, Lyndsay Duncombe explains what her reporting uncovered.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Today, I want to bring you a story about a company in the UK that's burning wood at a former coal plant and calling it green energy. And how some of this wood is coming from British Columbia's precious, untouched forests, with the support of BC's NDP government. Lindsay Duncombe has been investigating this for the Fifth Estate, and she's here to explain.

Lindsay, hey. Hi there. Lindsay Hay. Hi there. Thanks so much for coming by today. This is such a wild story. So let's start at the Drax Power Station in northern England. What is this place? Well, it used to be a coal power plant. It was built in the 1970s. And the thing to know about the Drax power station is just how huge it is, Jamie.

You can see it from kilometers away as you are approaching the Drax power station. And what it really looks like is that kind of typical 70s era power plant that has that sort of long cone-shaped tower that you might associate with watching an episode of The Simpsons. How does it make power? Like what kind of source? What's the source? Well, the power comes from wood pellets. And it used to burn coal, but it transferred to burning wood when the U.K. vowed to get off coal as a result of meeting its climate targets. What are the environmental effects of burning wood to create energy, particularly compared to coal?

Well, when you burn wood, it actually has more carbon emissions than burning most kinds of coal. Scientists back that up. If you burn wood in the presence of oxygen, it generates more carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated than if you burn almost all types of coal. Duncan Brack, who is an analyst with the think tank Chatham House, was hired to calculate the yearly carbon emissions coming from burning wood pellets in the UK, and most of that happens at Drax. And they estimated that that was the equivalent yearly of between 6 million and 7 million passenger vehicles. So there is still

emissions coming out of the power plant, but you can call it green for a couple of different reasons. And what would those reasons be? Well, the big difference between coal and wood that's made into the form of pellets is that trees, unlike coal or other fossil fuels, grow back. So that means that you can have a forest that you replant and eventually, eventually being the key there, the trees will go back and they'll continue to suck in that carbon, which is, of course, a key thing that our forests do. Now, scientists say the planet does not have that amount of time to allow these seedlings to turn into forests and suck back the carbon, which is lost. which is lost. But certainly this is one of the reasons why this whole industry, which refers to these wood pallets as biomass, woody biomass, is able to call it green. Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time, and Drax has a crucial role in tackling it. When these carbon emission standards were made, the rules are that carbon is counted in British Columbia in this case, in the place where the trees are cut down and harvested, but not counted in the place where

it would be burned in the form of wood pellets. So the United Kingdom does not need to count the emissions coming from Drax as part of its overall carbon targets. So just to be clear, like when the UK tallies up all its carbon emissions for the year and takes them to say like the IPCC or just the British public, they are not including the emissions from burning this wood at this power plant? No. Okay. How has this worked in Drax's favor? Like, I imagine being classified as renewable comes with benefits, right? Oh, it comes with a lot of benefits in the form of government subsidies. The government subsidies from the British government or the government of the United Kingdom to Drax amount to two million pounds a day.

That's more than five billion pounds to date. And that is what has allowed this private corporation to go on and be profitable, making money for its shareholders. shareholders. I know that part of Drax's pitch as this green energy company is that they say the kind of wood that they burn is wood that would be discarded anyways, right? Tell me more about this. This is another selling point for this industry, Jamie, where they say that they are really solving a problem. And that is because the whole wood pellet industry has been built around the idea that they're using sawmill residues,

so the dust that's left over when you make two-by-fours, as well as using what they call harvest residuals. So that is the slash piles that people who live in logging areas might be familiar with. The material, the tops and trees and branches, that is not taken. And the common logging practice is to burn those slash piles on site. So that's one of the reasons why this industry argues it's green. It's better to pelletize the wood, ship it overseas and burn it there instead of on site. This whole industry really began to

take off in British Columbia when there was a pine beetle outbreak and logging ramped way up. Just when it seemed the pine beetle epidemic couldn't get any worse, there are new fears it could eventually spread all the way across the country. Parts of Prince George look like a war zone. In Kamloops, virtually every pine tree is either dead or dying. And that's just some of the fallout from one of the worst disasters in the history of B.C. forestry. The concern was, with all those dead trees, that that might be a risk for wildfires. So you want to get in there, or the province wanted to get in there, clean them out, as they would say.

And that allowed logging to ramp way up. As a result, there was way more waste or what the industry calls waste in the forest and on site. So the pellet industry had a solution to that problem, especially because when you look at the common logging practices, the common practice is to burn those slash piles. So the idea was, okay, this is a solution. We can go in, take that, turn it into pellets and use it for energy. But we talked to Bob Simpson, who's the mayor of Quesnel, and he said this supply is gone. I could see down the road that wood waste that you're building this industry on

is not going to be there. So how are you going to feed that industry? And the industry started to grow fairly exponentially. The logging since that time has gone way down. The supply of that fiber, as the industry calls it, simply isn't there anymore from his perspective. And that leads us to, that led to our inquiries, well, where is Drax getting all of this wood from? And you found evidence that they're taking more than just waste or byproduct now, right?

And what did you find? Well, you know, we did a pretty extensive investigation, but the real evidence of this is like right along the highway. If you drive by the pellet plant just outside Prince George Meadow Bank, what you see is not just a big pile of sawdust. It's row upon row upon row, thousands and thousands of logs that look like whole trees that have been chopped down. And now Drax will say that these are just low quality logs, bio logs, as they call them, that have no other purpose, couldn't be used for paper or any kind of other furniture or particle board or anything like that. But we also found that there is evidence that pellet

companies are actually obtaining logging licenses. So we worked, we interviewed Ben Parfit, who's with the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. And he went through the harvest billing system and discovered that Pinnacle Resources, which has now been purchased by Drax, obtained several licenses to actually log in primary forest. So, you know, you can't get any more direct evidence than this. Quite frankly, I thought I'd hit gold. I mean, you know, here's proof that the pellet industry, which is claiming to have no interest in taking wood from trees and only wants to work with junk. Well, how do you explain this?

So this really shows the connection, right? They're obtaining licenses to clear cut. And they say they're only using the lowest quality trees, that the higher value wood would go to sawmills. higher value wood would go to sawmills. But clearly, the pellet industry relies on continued logging in a province where a lot of people say it has been logged too much. One of the most telling things about working on this story was just flying from Vancouver to Prince George, because you see all of the evidence of logging in those clear cuts, you know, the lighter green patches show just how much wood has been taken. And then in the story, we relied upon some high definition satellites over time. And you can see over the past couple of decades, you know,

the clear cuts are just pile up one after the other and the landscape is changed. just pile up one after the other and the landscape is changed. You've mentioned primary forests and just what is that? Primary forest is a forest that is untouched, that has never been logged before. Human beings have not gone in there and take anything out. There may have been other disruptions by nature. And a lot of it is really old. You know, when we look at the trees in the interior,

they don't look like the trees that you would see on the coast that are just absolutely huge, what we associate with those old BC forests. But a lot of these trees that are left in the inland rainforest are indeed hundreds of years old. And that's why many people are so concerned about protecting them. The greenwashing of the pellet industry needs to stop. We need to see it for what it is. It's a money-making machine for a few people based on subsidies in the UK at the expense of British Columbia. You've mentioned that Drack says that this wood couldn't or wouldn't be used for other things like, I don't know, this desk that I'm sitting at. But just to push back on the idea that these logs would have no other purpose, I mean, I imagine people would say that their purpose would be being part of like a forest, right? Absolutely. And being part of a forest has a couple of benefits. It has the benefit of sucking in that carbon, which is something the planet needs.

And also there's a real concern for biodiversity and what is happening to the habitat for animals in the inland rainforest. We interviewed Trapper, who also happens to be an MLA, and he said he doesn't see the marten or the fisher or the moose or the bears that he did when he was a younger man. This would be a sterile environment for many, many years and decades before the habitat would support any marten or fisher or a lot of the other wildlife habitat that we have. It's heartbreaking. You know, this is province-wide.

And he doesn't believe that, you know, it'll be his great-great-grandchildren. He hopes the animals can come back by then. It's going to take us, I think that this province is in for probably a 30 to 50 year period of time where very little logging is going to take place because we have simply logged too much. What did Drax say to you directly in response to what you found? Joe Aquino, who is the director of sustainability for Drax, took us on this tour through their Meadowbank facility. Why is burning pellets that comes from wood taken from the forest good for the environment? So if you think about where our raw material originates from,

this is material that's sitting in the forest that really would have no other outcome other than to be burnt. And again, he stressed that those wood, the wood that we saw there, the logs that we saw there, which he called bio-logs, would have no other purpose. And he did break it down, saying that 80% of the plant's pellets come from sawmill waste. Sawmill residuals being what you see here. And then about 20% of the feedstock is forest-based feedstock. Some in the form of roundwood and then some in the form of in-woods chipping. The other 20% comes from the forest materials, which he calls roundwood or what he calls biologs,

which is kind of like the sophisticated messaging that this industry is putting forward. Like when you look at their videos, you see them chipping trees in the forest, you see the slash piles that they're trying to solve. They're called biomass or biologs, but they don't necessarily go out and advertise that we have these pellet plants that are stacked with thousands of trees. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about

money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to talk a little bit now about the government's role in this.

So why would the B.C. government give permits to log old growth or primary forests to a wood pellet manufacturer? Well, the wood pellet industry has been fully endorsed by the NDP Horgan government. Innovative B.C. firms need access to more fibre than they've had in the past. When Pinnacle, which is now owned by Drax, expanded to move to sell pellets to Japan, John Horgan called it a win-win, both for the economy and for the environment. It will be your grandchildren's forest industry if we manage it correctly. Although there has been criticism that these pellet companies don't actually provide that many jobs, that support continues to this day with government officials, because in the reports to shareholders, you see them say that they're worried, they warn of a risk that detractors or environmentalists

might influence politicians, leading to reduced support for the industry. So to mitigate the risk of that growing opposition, Drax said it is, quote, maintaining strong relationships. And there is another connection here, and that is that the chief forester of British Columbia, the person who makes decisions about, you know, what can be cut and when, who sets the annual allowable cut, huge job in the province. Well, back in April of this year, Drax put out a press release saying they were delighted to announce

that Diane Nichols, the chief forester of British Columbia, was joining Drax as vice president for sustainability in North America. Wow. Okay. So the chief forester of NBC left her position to go join this this company. Yeah, she did. I mean, not breaking any rules. She took a new job. But certainly there is a sense from people who are critical of the forestry industry that this is an example of how close the forestry industry is to the Horgan government. And Bob Simpson said that he thinks that there should be an investigation into this. Again, whenever a bureaucrat jumps ship lockstep to an industry that that bureaucrat has made decisions about supporting, I think a polite term is messy in that case.

What's an impolite term? I think scandalous. I think it begs an investigation. We spoke to Teresa Ryan, who is a researcher with the Mother Tree Project at the University of British Columbia, and she called it, you know, a violation of public trust. Stunned, shocked, disappointed. It's a violation of public trust. What does it tell you about the relationship between government and industry in this province? It certainly shows how close they are. It shows you that the priorities are upside down. What does the BC government say about this? Well, we asked the forest minister about Diane Nichols and this departure, and she's fully supportive of Diane Nichols saying she would be a hard person to replace and praising her forest management strategy. Okay.

Lindsay, we started this conversation by talking about how the energy Drax produces in the UK is counted as renewable, as green, despite all the carbon emissions. And I wonder if you see any signs here that the tides are turning because there's loud opposition really on both sides of the pond here in Canada and in the UK? Yeah, in British Columbia, we're seeing a collection of environmentalists and activists trying to really flag what is happening in the forest. You know, it's because of their digging and analysis that this is receiving a lot of attention. And that is also happening at the same time as what's happening in the United Kingdom. There, we've seen more than 50 members of parliament in the United Kingdom signed a letter in December 2021 demanding an end to those

billions of dollars in subsidies from the UK government going to Drax. They called the burning of trees for energy a scandal. We've just got to say we got it wrong. Don't be fooled by sustainable biomass. It's not sustainable. In any sense of the word that means anything, it is not sustainable. And, you know, really, that's a message that politicians such as Barry Gardner, who is a member of parliament in northern England, is trying to share with the Canadian elected officials, including John Horgan, too.

If this man, John, is the top guy in British Columbia, he needs to think, what is he doing to the biodiversity? I mean, you're such an amazing place in British Columbia. And what are you doing to all the wildlife? It's disaster. Stop it. Stop this clear felling. Stop the biomass industry in its tracks. And there are scientists and economists who are saying this doesn't make sense either. 500 of them wrote a letter demanding an end to those subsidies as well, calling it a false solution to the climate crisis. There is some momentum against Drax. It was recently dropped from the S&P's Green Energy Index. But this is all happening, of course, in the context of an energy crisis in Europe. I was just going to ask you about that, yeah.

Yeah, and at the same time, as these countries are trying to meet those carbon targets that are coming up quickly. So this will continue to be debated on both sides of the Atlantic. Okay. Lindsay Duncombe, thank you. Thank you so much for this. You're welcome. All right, you can watch

the Fifth Estate's documentary about this story on CBC Gem or on their YouTube channel. It's called The Big Burn. That's all for this week. Front Burner was produced by Imogen Burchard, Derek Vanderwyk, Ali Jaynes, Shannon Higgins, and Lauren Donnelly. Our sound design was by Matt Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Chavison.

Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.