Saving Mother Earth By Deforesting North Carolina To Run Power Plants in Britain

The March 15, 2014 Daily Mail has one of those really insane news stories that shows what happens when the government subsidizes something to make the greenies happy.  The British government has directed their largest coal-fired power plant to use pellets made by clear-cutting North Carolina forests, then shipping the pellets across the ocean, with ratepayers in Britain paying the bills:

In the longer term, the Government has decreed that customers will pay £105 per MW/hr for Drax’s biomass electricity – £10 more than for onshore wind energy, and £15 more than for power from the controversial new nuclear plant to be built at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

The current ‘normal’ market electricity price is just £50 per MW/hr.

Mr Burdett admitted: ‘Our whole business case is built on subsidy, like the rest of the renewable energy industry. We are simply responding to Government policy.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2581887/The-bonfire-insanity-Woodland-shipped-3-800-miles-burned-Drax-power-station-It-belches-CO2-coal-huge-cost-YOU-pay-cleaner-greener-Britain.html#ixzz2wF1vTygy Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Of course, there is more than just the absurd costs involved; clear-cutting of forests is among the more destructive methods of harvesting trees, and American environmentalists are hopping mad at a policy that British environmentalists are requiring.