Resources and Information

SOURCE MATERIAL  AND  ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

A Google search of "Drax" will get you a  boatload of  reporting on its  egregious flaunting of  environmental regulations.  Here are the articles  shown in the video:

• Drax "hoodwinked" the town of Smithers Canada where it promised to use slash piles to make pellets, but instead created even more slash piles and logged whole trees for its pellet factory.

• It broke environmental regulations over 11,000 times.

• Lied to UK regulators about the source of its wood pellets.  

• Clear cut Canadian old growth.

• Pollution in Mississippi from wood pellet manufacturing facility.

• More pollution.

• Emissions from Drax UK power plant 4x coal. 

• Drax scamming UK tax payers.

• Opposition to UK subsidies for wood pellets.
  
  

Golden State Natural Resources web page regarding the so-called "forestry resilience demonstration project" is here. 

The Draft Environmental Impact Report prepared by the Golden State Finance Authority is here. Tuolumne County residents may be interested in a few key pages regarding air quality that you can find here. 

The Golden State Natural Resources and Drax "Memorandum of Understanding" is here.  Note, GSNR and Drax have also signed a non-disclosure agreement, so we don't know specifics about their collaboration, though sources suggest Drax may invest in the project. 

Here's the GSNR's 2023 tax return showing the salaries of RCRC's top paid executives.

Information about the undemocratic nature of Joint Power Authorities can be found here. Note, we have requested a copy of the RCRC Joint Powers Agreement, which would shed light on member counties' potential liability, but have yet to receive a copy. 

Criticisms of the RCRC-GSNR-Drax project can be found in the following articles:

• The British Are Coming! The Invasion of California’s Forests?

• California biofuel project aims to cut wildfire risk, but at what cost?

• Golden State Natural Resources’ Biomass Boondoggle
  
  

More general information about Drax's record, the global wood pellet industry, the carbon accounting loophole, and the role of subsidies can be found in the following articles:

• The Economy of Bioenergy Production

• The Dirty Business of Clean Energy: The U.K. Power Company Polluting Small Towns Across the U.S

• Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error

• British energy giant reports violating toxic pollutant limits at Louisiana wood pellet facilities (Note Drax's answer to its pollution problem is to ask regulators to increase the allowable limits on pollutants - including probable carcinogens acetaldehyde and formaldehyde - not to lower its emissions.)