Drax to stop burning controversial Canadian wood within next year
The owner of Drax power plant has started reducing the amount of Canadian wood pellets it burns, and will stop burning trees from British Columbia entirely within the next year.The FTSE 250 company Drax Group said its Canadian wood pellet plants, which once supplied millions of tonnes of biomass to be burnt in its North Yorkshire power plant, had cost the company almost £200m in financial impairments last year.The company said the pellet production plants, which have come under criticism from environmentalists, faced a “challenging outlook” after a decision in the second half of last year that, from 2027, the Drax power plant would burn pellets sourced only from the US.Despite the writedown, Drax shares soared to 20-year highs to give the company a market value of about £3bn after it reported better than expected full-year earnings of £947m for 2025 and raised shareholder dividends by 11.5%.
The decision to end its imports of Canadian biomass to the UK was linked to Ottawa’s decision to impose tariffs on its biomass exports, the company said.It set out the plans amid growing scrutiny of the sustainability credentials of its Canadian supply chain after claims it was using wood sourced from some of British Columbia’s most environmentally important forests.The Guardian revealed late last year that forestry experts believe Drax may have continued to burn 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada’s oldest forests as recently as last summer despite increasing concerns over its historical sustainability claims, which first emerged in 2022.At the time, a spokesperson for Drax said its sourcing policy meant it did “not source biomass from designated areas of old growth” – which amounts to less than half of the total old-growth forest areas in British Columbia – and only sourced woody biomass “from well-managed, sustainable forests”.Britain’s biggest power plant has received more than £7bn in subsidies levied on household energy bills on the condition that the biomass pellets are made from waste or low-value wood from sustainable forests.
Claims about its sustainability credentials were first called into question by a 2022 documentary from the BBC, which Drax dismissed as “inaccurate” and “ill-informed”.The company’s former top lobbyist later claimed in an employment tribunal that she was sacked after telling the Drax boss, Will Gardiner, in the weeks following the broadcast that the company’s denials were “misleading the public, government and its regulator” about the sustainability of the imported pellets.The company may still continue to produce pellets in Canada, but these will be exported to third-party buyers, primarily in Asia.The UK government has moved to curtail the company’s subsidies by offering a new contract covering the period of 2027 to 2031 that will support a limited amount of biomass generation at a set price.Drax has proposed plans to generate extra electricity for AI datacentres built on its North Yorkshire site.
The subsidy extension was originally proposed as a “bridging mechanism” before Drax began earning subsidies from its plan to fit carbon capture technology to the plant.Drax said it would pause plans to develop the project in the near to medium term owing to a lack of government certainty.It reported a £48m impairment from the decision.
Table for one: is eating lunch at work on your own a bad thing?
Name: The lonely lunch.Age: Recent, but growing.Appearance: Très misérable.Why are you talking French to me? Have you gone all pretentious? I am talking French to you because this is a French problem.It is? Oui
How to use on-the-turn milk to make an Italian classic – recipe
According to the Sustainable Food Trust, “the milk from 40,000 cows (300,000 tonnes) is tipped down the kitchen sink each year – a real slap in the face for the farmer”. Even though some supermarkets have now swapped use-by for best-before dates on their milk, those dates can still be confusing, so always do the sniff test before binning it: even if it’s a little sour, you can still cook with it.The Food Standards Agency advises that food with a best-before date can usually be tested using sensory cues such as the sniff test. And what better way to use up spent or sour milk than maiale al latte, or milk-braised pork, for which pork is slowly braised in milk and flavoured with a few aromatics until tender. The milk splits and forms large curds that thicken and caramelise the sauce, so creating a creamy rich dressing for the meat
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Should you sanitise your strawberries? Experts on the right way to wash fruit and vegetables
You know the cost-of-living crisis is biting when videos of influencers unpacking their grocery “hauls” are viral on TikTok. Chewing through millions of views, fruit and vegetables are aesthetically plopped into a sink filled with water, piece by piece. “Sanitising” products are then added, ranging from the fizz of baking soda and vinegar to specialised vegetable soaps (“Amazon link in my bio!”). There are even expensive electronic purifiers, which shake, shimmy and bubble away in the basin, supposedly removing any nasties.But is ASMR deep-cleaning your fresh produce really necessary? And is it all too late for those of us who can barely remember to rinse our pears?For Queensland’s Rebecca Scurr, who shares what it’s like to “sell fruit for a living” to her 26,000 TikTok followers, fruit-washing videos make her “cringe so much”
Do you really need to chill cookie dough? | Kitchen Aide
Does chilling cookie dough really make for a better result?Emily, by email “It all depends on what kind of cookie it is,” says Guardian baker Helen Goh. “Let’s say it’s a cookie that you need to stamp out – the dough needs to be firm enough to roll it, but not so firm that you can’t.” That said, the question of whether to fridge or not to fridge is probably most prevalent in the chocolate chip cookie sphere. “There’s a perceived wisdom that chilling helps the dough develop the flavour and caramelisation,” Goh says, “but, to be honest, it also makes the dough a little easier to roll and ensures it bakes evenly, which is worth far more than that slight improvement in flavour.”Recommended chilling times vary from 30 minutes to overnight, although Goh finds the latter results in a “cakey” cookie: “I’m a real Goldilocks, so I like crisp at the edges with a chewy centre
José Pizarro’s recipe for roast carrot, saffron and chickpea stew with spinach
This is everyday cooking, the kind that comes naturally in winter. Carrots are always around and often forgotten, but they give a lot when you treat them properly. The saffron brings warmth and colour, and always makes me think of home. February can feel quiet and grey, and this stew suits that mood. It is comforting without being heavy, made for evenings when you want something ready on the stove and bread on the table, eaten calmly and enjoyed without any fuss
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