THERE is clearly money in going green, if Drax's latest six-month results are anything to go by.

The power station made a healthy £53 million in profits in the six months to the end of June.

On the back of the results, chief executive Dorothy Thompson claimed Drax - once the 'dirty man' of European electricity generation - was leading the field in the development of green power as a result of its transition to biomass instead of coal.

"We are Europe's largest single source of renewable energy," she claimed.

Not all is perfect in the world of green power generation, however.

Earlier this month, Drax itself claimed that Chancellor George Osborne's decision to scrap the climate change levy from August 1- so cutting tax relief for businesses that rely on renewable energy - would result in a £30 million drop in the power station's pre-tax earnings, with a further fall of £60 million next year.

Drax's profits might not look so healthy this time in 2016, therefore.

Meanwhile, comments by Dorothy Thompson reported in yesterday's Daily Telegraph in which she seemed to suggest that wind and solar power were 'costly and unreliable' provoked an angry response from the wind power industry. Drax insists the comments were taken out of context, but there is clearly still far from being universal agreement about the best way to generate green power.

Nevertheless, Drax's latest results are an encouraging indication that if were are really committed to generating the power we need in a way that doesn't ruin the environment, it can be done. Get it right, and our modern, high-energy lifestyles needn't cost the Earth.