Great British Energy Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, was music to my ears. This really is the missing prince at the ball—the missing element in the whole strategy of reducing emissions in order to curb the violence of climate change, which, after all, is the main purpose of all our endeavours. It is not a secondary purpose, it is the main purpose, and of course it is failing. Emissions are continuing to rise worldwide and the forecasts are very gloomy that they will rise still further. Our own performance has been good in contrast, as one tiny bit of the jigsaw, but overall the aim of reducing emissions is not succeeding. Carbon capture, usage and storage is an area where vast improvements can be made, with real effort to store emissions, such that we no longer have to watch those gloomy monthly or three-monthly figures detailing rising emissions worldwide again and again.

Furthermore, it is admitted, quietly—I think I have heard NESO and other experts say it openly—that carbon capture and storage is an essential part of the 2030 story. Because we have delayed so much—all parties are to blame—and we have not got on with nuclear, which we have allowed to shrink because we dithered on various other technologies, there has been very little advance on carbon capture and storage, but we know that in order to achieve decarbonised electricity by 2030—I think we are talking about the present electricity output, which is one-fifth of our total energy storage, not the whole of an electrified economy—we will need, in order to prevent outages, further gas-generated power. That is not proclaimed very loudly; CGN plants are being contracted for, designed and built to make it possible for there to be reliable and, we hope, affordable energy in 2030, even though it is substantially decarbonised.

That will require an output of carbon of considerable size, which will have to be captured and stored, otherwise the system will not work. The 2030 target is literally unobtainable, unless we have an elaborate expansion of carbon capture and storage for gas-generated electricity, which is an essential part of the pattern for 2030, as it probably is for 2040 and 2050 as well. Domestically, this is a central issue, yet it is hardly mentioned in this discussion or in the Bill.

That is not all; worldwide, the one contribution that this nation could really make through its brilliant technology is in developing cheaper versions of carbon capture and storage. All over Asia, there are coal-driven electric plants belching carbon and smoke, and more are being built at the moment. China has achieved amazing things in reducing its coal-based electricity from 1,900 gigawatts a year down to about 1,000 gigawatts. As we now produce no electricity from coal, which is rather amazing, that is an infinite number of times the amount that we produce. China is down to 1,000 gigawatts, but that is still a vast addition every year and every day—it is producing much more than we do in a year in emissions of carbon dioxide and methane as well.

To deal with the world’s problem, carbon capture and storage is essential, capturing not only carbon emitted when generated from fossil fuels but carbon direct from the atmosphere. Some major projects are being developed around the world on that scale. All these are essential projects to achieve the main aim, which is to lower emissions. If that is the main aim then Great British Energy should surely have a serious role in it.

We should be using the resources of organisations with money to invest in getting the cost down, to the point where it is possible to put some kind of abatement on those 11,000 chimneys and have some control of the carbon to be captured. Can that be done in the next stages? Of the countries concerned, one is talking mainly about the United States, where it can be done; China, where they are trying to do it; and India, where they are trying hard but not succeeding at all. They need the engineering skills to install carbon capture and storage, once we have developed systems which are cheaper and more economic. There is a whole new programme there to be developed. Is it being developed and invested in? Is this organisation looking at it? We have not had a single word from the Government—not a word—on the idea that this should be a major part of the story.

The noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, is totally right that this should of course be a major part of the story. I fear that, as with so many parts of the endeavour to get to a green transition, we are losing sight of the main purpose, which is reducing emissions. This nation is superbly equipped to contribute on that front, but not necessarily by itself subsidising more and more low-carbon electricity for our own purposes. We should go that way but not push it too fast, because if we do that then we will slow things down.

If we are to contribute to the world’s efforts on this, which are failing and going backwards at the moment, and to make more progress, we must turn to carbon capture and storage. Why is there no mention of it in the Bill? Please can it go in, through this amendment or in other ways that the Government choose, to indicate that we are serious about reducing emissions and not just about the virtuous side of clean energy, which is very nice and very important but not the main aim?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 35 is about the renewable liquid heating fuel obligation, which is something we debated in Committee. I thank my noble friend the Minister for spending time with us and understanding the problems of some of the people who operate in this field. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, for his support.

This issue affects 4 million people in this country, and about 250,000 businesses, who are off the gas grid and therefore generally rely on heating oil, as I do in the countryside—I declare an interest. These are big businesses and they are no more complicated than other similar systems, but it is a question of whether the renewable fuel obligation could be applied, so that it would be easier for people to continue to use fuel oil with this addition, rather than having to spend a lot of money converting to some other means, which I know has been debated at length.