Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has been accused by US activists of being complicit in the pollution of a town in Mississippi by handing billions in taxpayer cash to a UK power firm that they claim is harming the health of residents.
Drax Group operates a power plant in Selby, North Yorkshire, that generates electricity by burning wood pellets. Many of these are sourced from forests in the US and shipped to the UK.
Activists from Gloster in Mississippi, where Drax runs a wood pellet factory, say pollution from its plant has caused health issues for people nearby, including heart disease, cancer and respiratory problems.
Drax burns millions of tons of wood pellets each year. It claims this is carbon neutral, because the planting of new trees can compensate for the carbon dioxide produced. Environmental groups dispute these assertions.
Nonetheless, the company has received billions in green energy subsidies from the Government. In February, Miliband agreed to hand the group another £2 billion in taxpayer cash over four years.
The complaints, which activists will raise at the Drax annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, threaten to embarrass Miliband, who prides himself on his green credentials.
‘Carbon neutral’: Drax Group operates a power plant in Selby, North Yorkshire, that generates electricity by burning wood pellets
Even more awkward for the ‘woke’ former Labour Party leader is the fact that Gloster’s population is more than 70 per cent black with a third living below the poverty line.
Campaigner Katherine Egland said: ‘Poor, mostly communities of colour – as the descendants of slaves – in the south-eastern US, are being subjected to toxic levels of emissions in the Drax manufacturing of wood pellets.’
Egland chairs the Environmental and Climate Justice Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, which is among those representing Gloster residents at the annual meeting. The association worked with Dr Martin Luther King in the 1960s for civil rights in the US.
Egland said Miliband and the Government were ‘guilty of aiding and abetting’ the pollution caused by Drax, adding: ‘Miliband and the UK Government gave Drax a £2 billion incentive to continue robbing poor people of the right to breathe clean air and drink clean water.’
Drax’s activities have come under heavy scrutiny from local US officials. Earlier this month, Mississippi authorities turned down an application from the company to increase the amount of pollution it is legally allowed to emit from the Gloster plant.
Last year, the firm was slapped with a $225,000 penalty by the state for emitting 50 per cent more hazardous air pollutants than it was permitted to do. This followed a $2.5 million fine issued in 2020, one of the largest such penalties in Mississippi history, for underestimating the amount of pollutants emitted since 2016.
Under fire: Ed Miliband
And the firm was fined £25 million last year by regulator Ofgem over its sourcing practices.
There are mounting concerns from MPs about the level of taxpayer money being paid to the company to provide electricity.
In a report published on Friday, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee said that there was a risk that energy bill payers are not receiving ‘value for money’ from the subsidies given to Drax by the taxpayer.
A Drax spokesman said: ‘The safety of our people and the communities in which we operate is our priority, and we have created a community advisory panel made up of local leaders and citizens to help us better understand and respond to their concerns. All Drax facilities in the United States have been below the permitted air emissions requirements since December 2023.’
A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: ‘Investing in clean power is the route to ending the UK’s energy insecurity and tackling the climate crisis. We are halving the amount of support for Drax, saving money on people’s energy bills and contributing to our energy security.
‘Under a clean power system Drax will operate for less of the time and will need to use 100 per cent sustainably sourced biomass, with not a penny of subsidy paid for anything less.’
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