Energy: Tariffs
Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Marland
Lord Marland
I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining high block tariffs. Clearly, it is an issue which finds favour with both sides of the House and I have noble friends on this side who are very keen to see this happen. We have facilitated consultation with Professor Hills, for example, on this subject, so that he can take it into account in the fuel poverty review he is carrying out at the moment. It is something of great consideration. The noble Lord has a long history in raising this point and I am grateful to him.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, in the interests of the transparency to which the Minister has referred, will the Government ensure that on their bills to consumers, all energy companies include an accurate list of all the costs of government obligations—for example, under the renewables obligation?
Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations 2011
Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Marland
The Lord Bishop of Chester
In a previous incarnation, I was a chemist. In all my previous experience of carbon dioxide, it never had a liquid state. It went straight from gas to solid; hence you can buy solid carbon dioxide to keep your ice-cream cold, and so on. Under what conditions do you get liquid carbon dioxide? I have not come across it.
Lord Marland
I did not actually say it was liquid. I said it was more liquid than gas. Denser carbon dioxide will be moved down the pipes. It is readily identifiable as a subject because, as the right reverend Prelate will know as a great scientist, you cannot touch carbon dioxide.
The right reverend Prelate made another point about storage. We are reliably informed that there will not be leakage. We have to take every precaution to make sure that there will not be leakage and must make sure that all adequate precautions are taken. Of course, this is a demonstration project. We are moving into unfounded territory and who knows what the outcome will be. It is very important that we have rigorously tested the programme, but it is a demonstration project. I will not comment on the outcome of the demonstration project at the moment because the intense negotiations finish on Friday. We remain optimistic.
Lord Marland
That is certainly not the intention. There may be residual oil in an empty oil well, but it is not the driver for them carrying out this process. However, I am grateful to the noble Duke for informing us of that.
The right reverend Prelate asked whether we know whether CCS will be commercially viable. Until we have done the first demonstration, we do not know whether we can do it on a large scale. If we achieve it on a large scale, economies of scale will come into play, and we hope it will become commercially viable. In answer to his subsidy question, that is why the Government have committed £1 billion of capital expenditure to try to make the first demonstrator work. The right reverend Prelate made a very good point about the future of coal. As he said, we are reliant on coal. It is not our intention to rid ourselves of coal but to make it cleaner within a low-carbon economy. As a scientist, he will know that they will have to put in NOx cleaning systems in 2016 and 2017 to make coal cleaner. He is probably the only person in this Room who knows what the effect is, and I will not pretend to go into detail with him on it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, kindly gave me some prior notice of her questions. She made two very good points and, if I am honest, I am not completely satisfied in my mind that I have the right answers to them. At what point does a Minister intervene? Should a Minister intervene? What is the reasonable time that should be allowed? In her own words, let us hope that it does not come to that. However, at some point you have to have an ultimate arbiter. At some point it is reasonable to think that the ultimate arbiter should be the Minister, in which case it is reasonable that at some point the Minister would intervene. Should we put a time limit on a dispute? I tend to agree that we should, but if we are too prescriptive about it, we may force the thing in the wrong direction. I will take away those points to consider in the department to see whether there is a straighter edge to put on those two excellent suggestions.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
On that point, page 8 of the notes states that there should be,
“the opportunity to refer a negotiation to an independent party”,
for perfectly good reasons. I entirely accept that. Is the Minister happy with the description “an independent party”? It seems to me that he will have a vested interest in being the arbiter if in a commercial situation there is no agreement. It would be normal for the Minister to be regarded as independent for those purposes, as described on page 8.
Lord Marland
Where does it stop? At what point is someone independent if the word means that they are able to take an objective and independent view of the problem? I do not disagree with the right reverend Prelate on the conclusion that we are trying to achieve. As I referenced earlier, I think that it needs further thought and a straighter edge. I readily said that we should perhaps try to get a little more detail on it. I do not have a prescription now. I am not necessarily sure that we should have a prescription now, but I am happy to carry on the discussion outside the Committee because it is at the margin of the reality and focus of the issue of CCS. To use the words of the noble Baroness, let us hope that it does not get to the point where we have to.
Energy: Fourth Carbon Report
Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Marland
Lord Marland
There are a number of costs floating around the place. The gross cost of the carbon budget over the five-year period is estimated at £7 billion. However, because we have the benefit of, and are keeping our options open on, utilising carbon trading, and because we have consistently established a surplus which we can trade into the market, and given a number of the domestic improvements that we are making through the Green Deal et cetera, we feel that figure can come down to £1.7 billion over five years. I think that noble Lords will agree that that is a very containable figure, given the opportunity of accessing an enormous market that will bring prosperity and jobs into the country. I hope that the benefit of that will far outweigh that figure.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, briefly, what assumptions are being made by the Government in their plans for the building of new nuclear power stations or the introduction of carbon capture and storage, and the cost thereof? They are subjects which seem to be absent from the Statement.
Lord Marland
The right reverend Prelate hits on a very topical issue. I am very happy to say that tomorrow we will present the findings of Mike Weightman, who was commissioned by the Secretary of State, Chris Huhne, to report on Fukushima, and look at them in terms of the future of the nuclear industry in this country. It would be wrong of me to intercept that report in this House, as it will be announced tomorrow. However, I can say that I met Mike Weightman earlier this week when we went through the implications of his report. We must not be complacent about our own position, but I think that we will feel quite positive by the end of tomorrow. That will, I hope, bring new nuclear back on to the agenda. I think that it has the broad approval of the House and it of course goes to the heart of carbon reduction and energy security.
On carbon capture and storage, as the right reverend Prelate knows, I am leading negotiations on the first demonstrator. I had meetings last night with the chairmen of each of the consortium companies to try to get us to the timetable that I have mentioned to the House. Broadly speaking, we are on track with that timetable and we are now looking at a cost which should be achievable. I hope that we will have that fully on the agenda towards the autumn—as I hope, for my part, we will have with new nuclear.
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Marland(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Marland
My Lords, welcome back to what I hope will be the last day of our Committee stage. I also welcome back the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon. I hope that her foot is much better. Should we have a vote later today, a number of coalition Peers will be very happy to push her into the Chamber in her wheelchair to ensure that, for once, she goes into the right Lobby.
The coalition Government welcome this amendment. I have telegraphed this before in various debates that we have had on the subject. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, is a recognised expert and, as usual, is thumping the drum for Cornwall. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for thumping the drum for the north-east, which I looked at very closely and from where I have also had representations. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, is absolutely right that capital moves within countries and, if we are to take this matter forward, we should do it as quickly as we can to look at the possibilities.
To answer a number of questions, geothermal does benefit from two ROCs. There is financial support available. As recently as December, we gave grants to Keele, Newcastle and Southampton universities to continue their activities. I hope that that deals with part of what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester said.
As I have said before, we are looking actively at the practicalities and, in particular, the legal aspects. In fact, only the other day we looked to see whether we could use the Irish licensing system, legal system and legal documents to do it, but it is a huge amount of work. It is not a question of just adopting their system and using it as a template. Unfortunately, because the UK legal system is silent on this issue, we start with a blank sheet of paper and have to create our own licensing regime, which, those of you who have been in government will know, is quite complex.
Given the potential complexity of the licensing scheme, it is my proposal that the Government continue to work on this issue and to take the matter away. I can assure noble Lords, as I have done in the past, that looking closely at trying to find a regime that suits is something that has my sympathy and support. I am very grateful that we should have the scientific evidence that the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, mentioned to support this excellent amendment. However, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
Before the Minister sits down, I want to press one of the points I made. Imagine an electricity generating station in Cornwall, generating electricity from this source. Will the Government view this as akin to nuclear generation and offer no subsidy so that it has to stand on its own commercial feet or will it be regarded as equivalent to offshore wind, where there is an ongoing subsidy for the actual units produced?
Lord Marland
Giving it a ROC is an incentive to use it. This means that it is in a totally different category from nuclear and therefore fits into the same category as onshore and offshore wind, which also benefit from the same revenue contributions and financial support. I hope that clarifies the point.
Revised Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation, volumes I and II (EN-6)
Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Marland(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Marland
As the noble Lord will know, I have enjoyed the fine wines of the south of France while visiting the Mox plant down there to make sure that we do this properly. Of course, part of our discussions involved meeting the Areva board to do that.
A number of noble Lords raised the subject of the geological storage facility. Of course, it is ridiculous that it is so far out—and, of course, there is a huge workload, so I have instructed a work stream to ensure that we can get a much closer period. But as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, knows, this is a voluntary decision made by the community. It will not be the Government jumping in with their jackboots and saying, “We will have it here”. This takes negotiation and long-term development and it takes partnership and working with the local community. We will take a very active role with the Cumbrian community to try to nudge this thing to a much closer timetable to the one that I have given you.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester asked about the maximum capacity available. If there was one reactor on each of the eight sites, using the current new reactor—it is not for me to determine which reactor is used—there will be between 10 and 14 gigawatts, which as the noble Lord, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, said, is considerably more than what we have at the moment.
As to Scotland, I regret to say that this is outside my control. If we have a Conservative Government in Scotland, I am sure that there will be a great push for nuclear.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
I am sorry to intervene, but can I press the Minister on this point? If even with the scenario that there is no increase in electricity need over the next 15 years, which with the increase in population and the other factors that I referred to seems an optimistic assumption, and you need 59 gigawatts of capacity by 2025 even on that optimistic assumption—if with those plans you get only that amount of additional capacity—there is something missing or short. Or am I speaking indeed as a fool and not adding my sums up?
Lord Marland
There are two erroneous statements there, if I may say so. First, we are not predicting that the demand for electricity will be as the right reverend Prelate is suggesting; we are predicting that it will be between two and three times what it is now in 2050. So we know the task ahead. We are also not sitting here and saying that there are eight sites and that is all there are going to be—and I want noble Lords to go away and understand that. We must obviously endeavour to have more sites. The Government will not sit back and say that all we have are eight sites. At the moment, I am answering his question about capacity. I was saying what capacity would be if we had eight sites and one reactor on each site; that is what we hope to achieve from those eight sites. Clearly, if we have 10, it will be more.
The noble Lord, Lord Broers, gave one of the finest speeches that I have heard—he was remarkably to the point, and talked about fusion. As he knows, that is a subject for BIS, which is fully supportive of the development of this particular form of future generation.
I do not want to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, by not answering a number of her questions. She rightly asked how we quantified the cost of waste and its disposal when the Government say that the private sector is responsible for paying for it. Of course, over 100 years we cannot predict that, which is why there is a system for reviews of the mathematics, which will happen frequently, and I can give her more detail of that because it is published somewhere in our documents. She asked whether the Secretary of State would take advice on the decision. Of course he will—but the point is that this country and its electors will want the Secretary of State to be responsible for a decision on something as complicated as this, and he will make it. She asked whether the IPC would have a role in deciding adequacy of interim storage on site. Yes—and that is clarified in the draft of the NPS in paragraph 2.11.6.
Climate Change: Cancun
Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Marland(14 years ago)
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Lord Marland
I, too, pay tribute to the input from the National Assemblies for the great work that they have done in getting to this point and in helping with these negotiations.
On the green fund, it is clear that countries must honour their commitments. It is fundamental that, in the build-up to establishing this fund, feet are held to the fire as to the exact contribution that countries will make. However, 193 out of 194 countries signing up to something and the transparent way in which it will be done will be a very good starting point.
Our own Government have committed £1.5 billion as fast-track funding between 2010 and 2012. Our ongoing commitment is part of a £2.9 billion commitment over a five-year period—we will certainly not go back on that commitment—of which £300 million will be allocated to the deforestation issue.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, the Statement acknowledges that levels of emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise, despite all the conferences, meetings and decisions to date. When do the Government realistically expect the rate in the rise of carbon dioxide to begin to decrease?
Lord Marland
I thank the right reverend Prelate for that. Unfortunately, I do not have my charts in front of me, but I would be happy to provide him with some of the analysis to answer that question. I thank the Church of England for the example that it has set through step change in driving the church towards nil carbon emissions in the near future. Again, that is leading by example.