Drax power station

Drax power station stands beside the River Ouse between Selby and Goole in North Yorkshire. Built in stages from 1967, it was the country’s largest power station when opened in 1974. The plant’s six 660 MW units gave it a total capacity of nearly 4,000 MW, enough to supply about six per cent of the United Kingdom’s electricity. Its eight towering chimneys and concrete cooling towers dominate the flat landscape for miles around. The station was originally designed to burn coal from the nearby Selby coalfield, which was discovered in 1967. Architectural critics described the building as a concrete bunker rather than a cathedral, noting its bold, ribbed surfaces. The site is worth the journey for its scale and engineering history. The first three units were built by the Central Electricity Generating Board and completed by 1974. The second phase added three more units by 1986, making it the newest coal-fired station in England until its closure in 2021. Between 1988 and 1995 flue-gas desulphurisation equipment was fitted to cut emissions. In the 2010s the station switched to burning biomass imported from North America, converting four of its units by 2018. The company planned further conversions but shut the remaining coal units in 2021. The government has now extended its operation to 2031 using only biomass. Visitors find a vast industrial complex of steel and concrete framed against the sky. The eight chimneys rise above a grid of roads and ancillary buildings laid out by contractors such as Costain and Sir Robert McAlpine. The cooling towers stand like giant funnels beside the riverbank, their curved concrete shells catching the light. Inside, the turbine halls house massive generators and boilers that once burned coal but now process wood pellets. Outside, the flat fields stretch away to the river, where barges once delivered coal and now bring biomass. The sheer size of the place shows how a single station can shape a region’s energy supply and landscape.