THE government is to continue providing £600 million every year to a wood-burning power station in Yorkshire.

Environment campaigners condemned the decision today and said the money should be spent on green energy development, including solar and wind power.

Drax power station near Selby in North Yorkshire was once Europe’s biggest coal-burning power station, but now burns wooden pellets made from trees felled in the US.

The pellets are shipped across the Atlantic to Liverpool and travel by train across northern England to Drax.

Greenpeace UK’s policy director Doug Parr said: “Drax is a juggernaut of deforestation, carbon emissions and extensive land use. 

“And, since the pellet-burning power station is also built on questionable carbon accounting and environmental racism, its lifespan should not be extended.

“Households have been forced to prop up Drax’s destructive activity to the tune of over £600mn a year in subsidies for too long and shouldn’t be expected to pay a penny more, especially when the cost-of-living is still sky-high.

“There should be no extension of this subsidy scheme.

“The government should just get on with delivering genuinely green energy solutions — like wind and solar — that will actually lower bills, not increase them, and help save, not trash, the planet. 

“Some fires are best left to burn out — Drax is one of them.”

Labour MP for Leeds North West Alex Sobel said Drax has not delivered on its promise to roll out a carbon capture system despite “many years of multibillion-pound subsidy.”

“The burning of virgin wood to make electricity is not renewable or sustainable,” he said.

In a consultation document published on Thursday, the government said: “Closure of such large-scale biomass plants would hinder their conversion [and] have implications for the UK’s near-term security of supply.”