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The Drax Station has been given the power plant, which took control of the northern Yorkshire countryside near Silby for more than half a century, has been given, Another rental contract for life this week. The biomedical generation factory with 12 water cooling tower will continue to produce electricity until 2031, thanks to the renewed support of the government.

Drax was built as a coal plant in 1974 and was later converted into burned wood carcass. It has exceeded many others, but the longevity is not equal. From the Green Activists to the Conservative Party, who suddenly withdrew his support for Drax after leaving the office last year, he mocks his being, says Greenpece, a burning “fraud”.

This explains the defensive tone for this week about the new support for Drax and the fact that Ed Miliband, the Minister of Energy, did not make it personally. Energy Minister Michael Shanks has left to relieve the energy inheritance than conservatives and clarify the “more limited” role of Drax from 2027 onwards, with the criticism of the half of public benefits.

This is a painful compromise, but it is also necessary. It only helps Meliband’s ambition to convert Britain to clean the generation of electricity by 2030 if you think that carbon emissions by burning wood cells are completely different from doing this by burning gas. But Drax has a clear advantage over the new nuclear power plants that are the government Support For energy transmission: it already exists.

The shares in Drax Group, the company that owns the power plant, has risen on news about relief, and because the market does not believe Miliband. It should not. Many complex and expensive investments are needed without delaying to make the electricity network work better and reduce the generation of fossil fuels to low levels. It is safe to assume that Drax will be with us for some time.

Drax benefits from a strange organizational pleading that leads to the generation of biomass energy as a zero classification under carbon standards in the United Kingdom and European. The predominant pellets from North America are calculated as a source of renewable energy, although its emissions are higher than any other power plant in the United Kingdom, according to the Ember Research Group. It was also A fine of 25 million pounds Last year, not to maintain adequate sources.

This environmental trick is no longer convincing. Drax says that its emissions are balanced by the fact that carbon absorption trees are rested to the making of the pellets. Perhaps this is so, but ignoring them is ridiculous. The biomass should be located somewhere between wind energy and fossil fuel in the green professor’s book.

But Drax’s environmental deficiency is a bad argument to close it by ending all support, as some wanted. This would have risked about 5 percent of the future generation capacity in the UK and increased network dependence on gas power plants and nuclear energy (along with European interfaces) for energy when the weather is bad in generating solar energy and generating wind.

The winds made up 30 percent of the resulting electricity in the United Kingdom last year. But its expansion does not eliminate the need for gas factories or biomass that can be operated when needed. In fact, the greater the number of carbon in the system, the more fragile it becomes, the plants may lose their business for cheaper surrender devices.

The carbon removal study last year by the National Center for Engineering Policy concluded that the UK may need to build more gas -powered plants to maintain future generation capacity. Supporting the official national energy system operator, which warned of the pace of change “within the limits of what is possible”, Drax retention based on energy security.

The government implicitly approved this point. Instead of dealing with Drax as a source of renewable energy in a traditional financial way, the deal is similar to the capacity contract with a gas operator. Drax will remain in the service, but it will not work at more than half of the day and the “extra profits” will be repeated.

It is not clear what is happening after March 2031, when the deal aims to run out. Drax wants to install and store carbon capture equipment so that it is no longer emitted from greenhouse gases and can circulate in emissions. This technology has not been tested and very expensive, although Drax has a record to maintain a single step on the statute of limitations.

I bet on more delay, not only to capture carbon but to the clean energy schedule in Miliband. This is the message of this week’s deal with Drax. The presence of an impressive thing, but the risk of lights that come out by closing an unpopular power plant will be reckless.

john.gapper@ft.com