Chief Executive Officer, Drax Group
Drax Group CEO Will Gardiner Participates in Japanese Bioenergy Roundtable
Read Will Gardiner's full speech here: @rdiner.
About Will Gardiner
Will Gardiner, CEO of Drax Group, has continued to advocate for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) as a key technology for achieving net-zero emissions. In interviews and presentations from 2019 to 2022, Gardiner stated that Drax aims to become a carbon-negative company by 2030, with the goal of deploying BECCS at scale by 2027. He described Drax's transition from coal to sustainable biomass, noting that the company reduced its CO2 emissions by 84% since 2012 and now produces about 12% of the UK's renewable power. Gardiner said the world needs to remove 5 to 10 gigatons of CO2 per year by 2050 to stay within 1.5 degrees of warming, and argued that BECCS could provide 2 to 4 gigatons of that removal. Gardiner also discussed Drax's role in providing flexible power to complement wind and solar, and its work with partners on carbon capture innovation, including trials with Japanese technology. He urged governments to maintain policy support for carbon removal, stating that "the time to wait before we start removing is gone." Gardiner described Drax's vision as ultimately becoming a "carbon management company" focused on negative emissions. He acknowledged that biomass is a "slightly more difficult story" to explain to the public compared to wind or solar, but maintained that sustainable biomass from managed forests is renewable and supports forest health.
Transcript (29 segments)
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Will Gardiner0:12
Hello everyone, my name is Will Gardiner and I am the CEO of the Drax Group. I'm sorry I could not be with you live, however it's great to have the opportunity to contribute to your discussion.
For those unfamiliar with my company, Drax has been at the heart of the UK's energy system for decades. We own a multi-site, multi-technology portfolio of energy production, generation, and supply businesses which have played a key role in the decarbonization of the UK's power sector.
I'm here today because I believe that our experience at Drax of becoming the world's leading bioenergy generator and supplier of sustainable biomass can help Japan meet its climate goals faster, more sustainably, and at a lower cost to both the consumer and the government.
At the turn of the century, Drax operated Western Europe's largest carbon-emitting power plant. At the same time, governments and society began to wake up to the catastrophic effects of climate change. It was at this point that we recognized coal had no future in the energy mix, and so Drax engineers began research and development work into co-firing sustainably sourced woody biomass with coal. What began as groundbreaking research fast became a bold ambition to eliminate coal from our fuel mix forever.
We fully converted our first full generating unit to run only on sustainably sourced wood pellets in 2013, and have since undergone a world-leading transformation by converting two-thirds of our coal-fired power station to use sustainable biomass. This has made us Europe's largest decarbonization project.
In 2020, 92% of the power produced by Drax power station was renewable, helping us reduce the group's carbon emissions by over 85% and making us the UK's largest renewable energy generator by output.
Last month we ended commercial coal generation at Drax power station, a milestone in the history of our company and one that has helped enable the UK government to announce the world's most ambitious carbon reduction target.
What's more, we have built a new global supply chain in green energy. Every year, Drax produces millions of tons of renewable biomass from the vast sustainably managed forests of the United States and Canada, where we play a small but important role in helping landowners and governments keep forests healthy.
A commitment to emissions reductions across our supply chain means we continue to invest in new technologies and processes like larger ships and more efficient rail infrastructure to make our biomass production cleaner and more cost effective.
Japan has repeatedly demonstrated global leadership on climate change. A commitment in recent weeks to nearly double your emissions reduction target is bold and commendable. The challenge now is to deliver on that ambition. Our experience shows that there is no better place to start than in the power sector, where technologies like biomass already exist to directly replace coal-fired power generation with a renewable source of power.
Biomass is the only renewable technology that is both flexible and a key source of system stability. Crucially, at a time when economic recovery is so important to communities and governments alike, biomass helps retain skilled jobs and transition these into the green economy.
As well as providing a crucial renewable source of power that has replaced fossil fuels, our bold decision to convert to biomass means we support around 6,000 jobs across the north of England at a time when other coal-fired power stations have closed with the consequent loss of thousands of jobs.
But perhaps the biggest prize of all is not what bioenergy can provide today, but what it will provide tomorrow. At Drax we have committed to a world-leading ambition to be carbon negative by 2030. We will achieve this by making a transformational investment in bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, which will enable us to permanently remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere while continuing to supply the renewable electricity that millions of homes and businesses depend on.
BECCS is a vital technology in the fight against climate change. Expert bodies such as the Climate Change Committee in the UK and the IPCC at a global level are clear that we need negative emissions technologies including BECCS to reach net zero. As the largest and most experienced generator and supplier of sustainable bioenergy, we are proud to pioneer BECCS and are ready to share our expertise with partners around the world. The economic, social, and environmental benefits are enormous.
At Drax, BECCS will permanently remove millions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere and help heavy industry in the UK's largest emitting area decarbonize quickly and cost effectively. It will enable the creation of tens of thousands of green jobs, supporting an economic transition from the terrible effects of the COVID crisis to the healing effects of a green recovery.
We know that BECCS works and that the technology is available now. Looking at cost projections from independent bodies, we also know that it is the best value negative emissions technology both now and into the future. We have already successfully run two BECCS pilots at the power station. In 2019, we demonstrated that we can capture CO2 from a 100% biomass feedstock, and in 2020 we began a second pilot working with Japanese technology to further enhance the potential for delivering negative emissions. We aim to deploy BECCS at scale by 2027.
To that end, last month we kickstarted the planning process for our proposals to build our first BECCS unit, marking a major milestone in the project and putting us in a position to commence building BECCS as soon as 2024. And we've created a coalition for negative emissions, a group of companies that aim to build momentum, shape policy, and develop the market for negative emissions globally.
We'd love for you to join our coalition and be part of this exciting journey. We know that bioenergy and BECCS can only make a meaningful contribution to tackling climate change if the bioenergy is sustainably sourced.
This has been fundamental to Drax's transition from coal to biomass, and it remains fundamental as we progress our plans for BECCS. Biomass is one of our most valuable tools for reaching net zero emissions, so we need the right framework to ensure it is sourced sustainably. As the world's largest bioenergy producer and generator, we recognize our responsibility to be the world leaders in sustainable biomass too.
At Drax we have invested in world-leading policies, tools, and expertise to ensure that our biomass is sustainably sourced. We go beyond regulatory compliance and have set up an independent advisory board chaired by the UK government's former chief scientific advisor to help us and challenge us on sustainable biomass and its role in Drax's transition to net zero.
Thanks to our independent catchment area analyses, we know more about the forests we source from than ever before. We know and can demonstrate how demand for biomass can support healthy forests. For example, in the southeast of the U.S., there is more than double the carbon stored in forest than there was 50 years ago, and in Canada, the vast majority of the raw material used for producing biomass is residual in nature, meaning it is a waste stream to the saw milling industry there.
Our evidence-led approach gives us a clear picture of forest health and allows us to ensure that the forests we source from are replanted, continue to store carbon, and remain biodiverse and healthy.
Drax power station has a proud history of transformation. Throughout our journey we have gained a wealth of expertise and capabilities across the entire biomass value chain, from forest harvesting and production to transport, shipping, and storage. We have invested to build a sustainable pellet supply chain.
Drax operates 17 plants in locations across western Canada and the U.S. South, trading biomass from North America to Europe and Asia. Our recent acquisition of Canadian biomass pellet producer Pinnacle Renewable Energy built on what we have already achieved and reduces our biomass production costs. It also ensures the long-term future of biomass power generation and brings Drax closer than ever to our partners in Japan.
I believe that sustainable bioenergy will play a crucial role in delivering Japan's new nationally determined contributions. As the world's leading sustainable biomass generation and supply business, we are keen to share our expertise. Our experience converting and operating the largest biomass power station, paired with supply and material handling capabilities, will allow us to support Japan as it phases out or retrofits its remaining coal-fired power stations.
From co-firing to full conversions and BECCS, as well as the policy frameworks needed to achieve them, Drax has gained an unrivaled and very in-depth knowledge of the entire biomass value chain.
Our aim is clear: to enable a successful energy transition in the UK and abroad. At Drax we stand ready to build new partnerships and share our expertise to support the global fight against climate change by delivering negative emissions and to help create tens of thousands of green jobs.
In November, the world will gather in Glasgow to agree the next steps in meeting our Paris Agreement obligations. I would like to take that opportunity to extend an invitation to all of you to visit us at Drax and to see for yourselves the transformation we have made and our progress towards making BECCS a reality.
In the meantime, I want to thank you very much for listening and to wish you a good and constructive session.