Activists held a rally at The University of Sheffield calling on it to end its partnership with energy company Drax – which is accused areas of burning areas of ancient forest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of the People & Planet society and Extinction Rebellion joined forces for a demonstration on Tuesday outside the Students\u2019 Union and delivered a letter to the President and Vice-Chancellor of the university calling on them to end their partnership with the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drax’s Yorkshire plant runs on biomass, using endangered trees imported from North America and the Baltic. The company’s sustainable source of energy has been contested by climate activists and scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drax has become the latest founder member of the University of Sheffield newly launched Energy Innovation Centre to further research carbon capture. The partnership was announced in February last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On its website the university said it would: \u201cSee Drax use Sheffield\u2019s world-class research facilities to carry out research and development into next generation carbon capture and utilisation technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
British energy regulator Ofgem said on Wednesday that it had not found evidence of a breach of sustainability obligations by power company Drax, in the watchdog’s review of reports prepared by auditor KPMG.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, many environmental groups, including Extinction Rebellion, argue that the reports overlook the long-term ecological damage caused by Drax\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, is a hugely controversial practice that many climate scientists see as an unproven solution to the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Graham Wroe, a representative of Extinction Rebellion, said: \u201cThe aim is to get the university to stop its partnership with DRAX because DRAX is the biggest tree burner in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIts green washing, its lying to us, its saying that they can make the process of growing trees green because trees can grow again – but that takes a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the partnership promises to advance carbon capture solutions, critics\u2014such as People & Planet\u2014contend that this research might be more harmful than beneficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protesters argue that burning wood pellets contributes to massive environmental harm, including habitat destruction and higher carbon output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Critics have said DRAX’s use of biomass – wood pellets from trees – has long-term environmental effects. \u00a0Due to the sourcing of wood, which causes deforestation concerns, and the carbon emissions used in transportation of the wood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government\u00a0last month\u00a0agreed to extend a scheme for DRAXs Biomass plants, which would provide around 6% of Britain’s electricity, from 2027-2031 but said they should only run when the power is really needed. DRAX did not breach suitability rules. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Activists held a rally at The University of Sheffield calling on it to end its partnership with energy company Drax – which is accused areas of burning areas of ancient forest. Members of the People & Planet society and Extinction Rebellion joined forces for a demonstration on Tuesday outside the Students\u2019 Union and delivered a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":54273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[154,5,10,132],"tags":[811],"class_list":["post-53835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment-2","category-news","category-politics","category-top-stories","tag-climatechange-sheffieldnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53835"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54310,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53835\/revisions\/54310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}