Drax Datacentre Could Emit Double All Gatwick Flights — SkimNews
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- NRDC analysis based on Drax's 2025 annual report estimated the planned datacentre would burn 4.9m tonnes of wood annually, producing 8.6m tonnes of CO2 per year if running at a constant rate.
- The estimated 8.6m tonnes of annual CO2 is nearly double the 4.79m tonnes emitted by all flights from Gatwick airport in 2024.
- Matt Williams, NRDC senior advocate, said the project would make it "one of the dirtiest datacentres out there"; Global Action Plan's Oliver Hayes called burning trees to power server farms "indefensible."
- Drax is developing options for a 1.2GW datacentre at its Selby biomass power station, drawing 100MW from the electricity grid and the rest from its own on-site generation; it could be operational from 2031 if necessary consents are secured.
- There are 315 datacentres in the UK grid connection queue, representing 73GW of demand — nearly double the country's peak winter energy demand, according to the analysis.
- Scottish MPs voted in September to pause all new datacentre planning applications for up to a year pending a national strategy, while the UK government has ruled out a moratorium, citing investment and jobs.
- Drax rejected the NRDC analysis as "inaccurate" and rooted in "basic errors regarding the international standards for GHG accounting of biomass and bioenergy."
Why it matters: Drax is pitching biomass-powered AI infrastructure as a growth and 'AI sovereignty' play, but the NRDC's figures — and the underlying scientific consensus that biomass systems can take 150 years to reach 'carbon negative' status — put that math in direct conflict with the UK's legally binding net zero targets at a moment when 73GW of datacentre demand is already queued for grid connection.
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