Drax’s planned datacentre could produce nearly double the emissions of all flights out of Gatwick airport each year by burning 4.9m tonnes of wood annually, an analysis has shown.
Campaigners say this would make it “one of the dirtiest datacentres out there”.
Last year, the energy company Drax unveiled plans to convert part of its biomass power plant in North Yorkshire into a datacentre in response to the increase in demand for AI capability.
Drax has been fuelled by biomass for some years now. Biomass is usually wood.
As with other energy hungry works - aluminium smelting, bitcoin mining etc - it makes sense to avoid transmission losses by building them immediately next to power stations. If run from the same source, they will be using the same fuel type.
They cut down trees (harming the environment), turn them into pulp (harming the environment), turn that into pellets (harming the environment), ship them half way round the world (harming the environment), burn them to generate power (harming the environment) and do it all to exploit a loophole in the green energy credit scheme and make extra money, taking it away from legitimate green energy operators (harming the environment).
