Energy: Large Combustion Plant Directive

Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Henley

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot give that figure to my noble friend off-the-cuff; I will certainly write to him. If the French have spare capacity from their nuclear power stations, I do not see anything wrong with buying in capacity from them to deal with shortfalls that we may have.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us what will be the method of generation for the plants that will need to be constructed and brought on stream by 2015?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I imagine that most of them will be gas, but there will also be a certain amount of renewable, particularly wind. However, there will also be renewable from other sources, such as biomass, which the noble Baroness opposite referred to. In due course, as we have large stocks of coal, and by means of clean coal procedure—the further derogations that we have until 2023 will allow us to develop this further—coal could also play a part.