Power plants that burn wood: Renewable energy or major polluters?
In the north of England, surrounded by villages and farmland, lies a vast complex of concrete cooling towers that dominate the landscape.
These gray and somber structures might give the impression of traditional power generation, feeding on a feast of fossil fuels, but no longer. Instead of consuming copious amounts of coal, most of the boilers at the Drax power station now rely on a different menu: wood pellets, sourced from North American forests and shipped to the United Kingdom to keep the fires burning 24 hours a day.
This is bioenergy, and it’s classed as a clean source of energy by both the U.K. and the European Union, among others – playing a crucial role in their targets of renewable energy generation. Supporters see
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