Hydrogen Energy
Baroness Northover Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
There was a lot in that question. I agree that there are great potential uses of hydrogen in long-term energy storage, as the noble Viscount just mentioned, and in the decarbonisation of some aspects of rail transport and heavy goods vehicles—particularly for non-road mobile machinery, where there are no real electrification options, and we have a number of successful manufacturers in this country. The original premise of the noble Lord’s question is what the best method of home heating is. All the evidence and reports show that, even if it were technically possible to pipe hydrogen into domestic homes, electrification is a much more efficient option.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, the Minister is being very clear, perhaps clearer than his department has been. However, the fact that there is an assessment in 2026 still rather muddles things. His message—which is surely right—that a national hydrogen network is simply not the answer instead of gas boilers and that we need to encourage the take-up of heat pumps, on which we are massively behind most countries in Europe, needs to be clearly put over. At the same time, as the noble Viscount, the Royal Society and others have said, the Government should also be taking action on long-duration energy storage, but they seem not to be.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I am sorry to disagree with the noble Baroness, but we are taking action. We let the first 11 hydrogen electrolytic allocation contracts in what is called the HAR1 round last year. The HAR2 round for further electrolytic allocation is happening this year. We have produced business models for the transmission and storage of hydrogen. I disagree with her that there is no place for a hydrogen distribution network in the UK. There absolutely is a case for that —not for home heating but for industrial uses and some of the uses that the noble Lord mentioned. I disagree with her on the fundamentals of this. We are putting these things in place and we are one of the leading nations in Europe on the production and distribution of hydrogen.
Surplus Carbon Emissions
Baroness Northover Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I can say no more than I said in my initial Answer. Of course, we will take into account the advice from the Climate Change Committee and the devolved Administrations. But this is a problem of success; we have overachieved on all our carbon budgets so far, and we should celebrate that. As I said, in terms of carryover, we will take a decision before 31 May.
Baroness Northover (LD)
Does the Minister agree that the reductions are due largely to Covid and the slowdown of the economy during that period, as opposed to what the Government had put in place? On the basis of that, and the advice of the Climate Change Committee that carryover would put our position at “serious risk”, surely the Government will not again ignore its advice? Can the Minister go back and make sure that they do indeed act on that advice?
Lord Callanan (Con)
We always take that advice into consideration. Covid was obviously a factor in that budget, but we overperformed on all the previous budgets before that as well. It is one factor; we will take it into consideration.
Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Fund
Baroness Northover Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, the Minister has just confirmed that no commercial plants are yet operational in Britain. Is the Government’s plan to capture 20 million to 30 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030 not therefore unachievable? Why are the Government subsidising this with £1 billion, at the expense of proven renewables?
Lord Callanan (Con)
It is not one or the other; we need to do both. Of course we need to push ahead with renewables, and I have set out many times in this House how well we are doing. Almost 60% of electricity in the last quarter was delivered by renewables, but CCUS is also essential. We have committed £20 billion-worth of funding to CCUS over the next few years because everybody thinks it essential to meeting our goals. It also offers a massive export opportunity for this country, as we have expertise in many of these technologies. The estimate is that capturing 20 million to 30 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030 could deliver up to 50,000 jobs, many of them in our industrial heartlands.
Climate: Behaviour Change (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)
Baroness Northover Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for her very patient and expert steering of this vital new select committee through its first major inquiry and for introducing this debate so effectively. The science on climate change is very clear, and staying below 1.5 degrees looks almost impossible already. The need for action is urgent, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford has said. The Climate Change Committee has made it clear that we will not reach net zero unless everyone plays their part with changes in the way we all live—behaviour changes. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, has a rather surprisingly limited view of what behaviour change is—it is about how we live, which includes using different technology.
Given the crisis, the Government seem distracted, unable to focus with sustained attention, clarity or resources on what needs to be done. They say they want to reach net zero but are not putting in place what is required. I am glad to see the new department for net zero—DECC never should have been disbanded— but where are the game-changing policies in this area, in the way that China and now the US, with the Inflation Reduction Act to which the noble Lord, Lord St John, referred, and the EU are taking forward?
The Government say they want to tackle climate change, but they shy away from assisting the public to make the choices that would help to enable that, as my noble friend and others have said. The Government have a major role to play: pointing the direction, redirecting industry. Therefore, it is welcome that they have said no new fossil-fuel cars should be sold by 2030. That redirects the car industry; now that industry is falling over itself to develop electric models. But the Government also need to make sure that this is feasible by putting the infrastructure necessary in place for this—charging points, for example, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, made clear. This enables behaviour change.
One of the things we heard was worry about fairness and ensuring that things were affordable, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned. With the cost of living crisis and the economic consequences of Brexit and the pandemic, this further reinforces the need to invest in, for example, public transport. Housing was another area we examined. How are the Government ensuring that new houses meet certain standards, and what are they doing to bring forward the retrofitting of old building stock, in which people live their lives?
We heard quite a bit about heat pumps, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, indicated. On their implementation, we are far behind our neighbours on the continent—I was really surprised at the evidence we received as to how far they had gone. The grants for heat pumps nowhere near meet the cost of purchase and installation. The Government even have policies here where the perfect is the enemy of the good, by demanding that insulation, which is obviously worth while, goes alongside installation, further increasing the cost. If someone simply bought a gas boiler, they would not need to do that, and that needs to be examined.
As several noble Lords have said, Chris Skidmore has looked at whether the “guardrails”, as he puts it, are in place to meet the target of net zero by 2050. In terms of what the Government were doing to guide the population, we had to conclude that Chris Skidmore’s guardrails were pretty weak, even non-existent. I therefore look forward to hearing what the Minister says in his reply.