Alice Palmer

In October, the BBC documentary program Panorama released “The Green Energy Scandal Exposed,” a 30-minute exposé of UK power generator Drax’s BC wood pellet operations. Reporters travelled from the UK to a Drax-owned pellet mill near Quesnel, BC. After tracking a load of logs from large clearcut to the mill, they concluded Drax was decimating old growth forests in BC to feed a power plant in the UK. The shallowness and inaccuracy of the reporters’ claims were shocking, but even more surprising was the fact that the BBC bothered to cover the topic in the first place. …The debate over whether wood biomass is carbon neutral is worthy of discussion, as is the eco-friendliness of BC’s wood pellet industry. However, I suspect neither issue would have attracted the interest of the UK media had Drax not been receiving substantial subsidies for renewable energy production.