U.K. energy company denies cutting `primary forests' for wood pellets

British energy company Drax Group is defending itself following the release of a BBC investigation that alleges the firm is cutting down “primary forests” in British Columbia to turn into wood pellets.

The BBC program — which aired Monday using the title “Green Energy Scandal Exposed” — contends that at least some of Drax's pellets are being manufactured from timber the company has logged through forest harvest licences it has obtained from the province contrary to its own policies and accepted practices that allow pellets to be labelled green energy.

After buying out local manufacturers, Drax is the largest producer of wood pellets in B.C., owning or having a stake in eight plants and accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the province's production.

Drax uses wood pellets from Canada, including from sites in Alberta, to supply 15 per cent of the fuel for a large biomass electricity plant in the U.K., which has received billions of dollars in green subsidies. The investigation focused on an area in north-central B.C., saying that it found logs stored in the yards of pellets plants, including at the Meadowbank plant near Quesnel and another near Burns Lake.

At the Burns Lake plant, logs are seen being fed into a chipper and through to the plant. A BBC reporter also tracked a load of logs harvested near Quesnel straight to the Meadowbank plant.

In a written response to Postmedia, Drax officials said the company does not harvest forests and has not taken any material directly from the two areas the BBC looked at. The company said 80 per cent of the material that is used to make its pellets in Canada is from the leftovers from producing lumber in sawmills, including sawdust, wood chips and bark.

The rest is waste material collected from the forests that would otherwise be burned to reduce the risk of wildfires and disease, stated Drax.

The company did not answer questions on whether it used whole logs to make pellets, or what percentage whole logs contributed to the source material in B.C. to produce pellets.

In a written statement, the B.C. Ministry of Forests said the province is following up with Drax to ensure they are not using quality logs harvested from old-growth forests.