Carbon Capture and Storage

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Graham Stringer

Thursday 20th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I will happily answer to pretty much anything, Mr Walker.

I want—unsurprisingly, I guess—to agree once again with the distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), about how important carbon capture and storage will be in future to any form of mineral energy burning at all. I also want to draw attention, as the report does, to related issues: the development of carbon capture, the competition, what happens after the competition, and how CCS may sit in our energy economy in the years to come.

Unlike the Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and I visited the first operational CCS plant in the world. It was not quite operational then, but it has been since spring, and is working well and effectively capturing the plant’s whole production. That is significant, because it demonstrates, contrary to one strand of the debate in recent years, that CCS really works. The question of how well it works economically is a second-order issue, but is nevertheless important.

Clearly, CCS in itself will not make anyone a load of money. Indeed, in terms of traditional energy economics it clearly does the opposite, but interestingly on our visit to Canada we learned that some clever circular loops have been built into the CCS process at the plant at Boundary dam in Saskatchewan. That makes the process much more economically interesting than was suggested by early studies on how it would work.

In the UK, where mercifully the first two plants—the competition plants—are, I hope, going ahead on the basis of a substantial degree of underwriting, the question to ask about CCS’s importance to the wider energy economy in future is what happens about plants three to eight. How will the UK get them under way, and make sure that the elements of CCS in which we already have a substantial lead will be part of its worldwide benefits, which the Committee Chairman described?

To roll one stage back, it is instructive to consider where we stand now with our energy strategies, and the role that mineral fuel may play in them. The recent DECC gas strategy included a series of potential scenarios for the role of gas in our future energy economy. They are predicated on a relatively high carbon figure, given as parts per kWh of energy produced—200 grams; or a lower-level scenario, with a figure of 100 grams; and, indeed, a very much lower one of 50 grams. I cannot remember exactly what page of the DECC gas strategy that is on, but an instructive chart shows what the scenario might consist of.

That shows simply that if we want, overall, a reasonably decarbonised energy supply by 2030, then probably—since it is not just likely but pretty essential that there will be an element of gas in the energy mix, balancing other forms of energy that will come forward—there will be room for perhaps 26 GW of new gas-fired plant to come on to the system, but running at a very low level, to back up and balance the working of the rest of the low-carbon energy economy. Perhaps it might run at about 18% to 20% capacity.

If, on the other hand, we want to overshoot that and double the level to 200 grams—and, to allude to the previous debate, we now know from the IPCC assessment reports that that outcome would be intolerable for our climate change goals—we might have room for 43GW of new gas-fired power stations running pretty much at full tilt. In neither scenario, incidentally, would we have room for coal-fired power plant.

The problem with the lower-level scenario is that it would mean suggesting, now, that a number of companies should invest over the coming period in gas-fired power stations that would run for hardly any of the time. That will probably not happen. At the moment a capacity auction is under way precisely to try to get investment in new gas-fired power plants. We are providing capacity payments over a 15-year period for investment in and building of those plants, which, under the relevant scenario, would not run very much.

My view is that investment on that basis simply will not happen. It is possible that no new gas-fired plant will clear the present auction process. We will get underwriting for some existing gas plants, on an annual basis, to continue to supply, but there will probably not be investment in any new gas plants. It is quite possible that without considerable financial assistance there will never be any investment in gas-fired plants in the medium term.

If that is what is ahead, might it be a better to invest in bringing forward CCS, so that the gas plants could run at the appropriate level over the relevant period—and some coal plants could run as well—than to seek the will-o’-the-wisp of providing increasing amounts of money to supply gas-fired power plant providers so they can develop plants that will not run much? Economic policy is directly relevant to the idea that we get on with carbon capture and storage, beyond the first two plants that have been subject to the competition reward, and underpin it over the next period. To my mind, that is the only way in which mineral-based fossil fuel can continue to run on our systems to any great extent over the next period.

I am not the only person saying that. The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney—I was going to say that he is my good friend, but unfortunately he is not; I wish he was—warned just a few weeks ago that on the present arrangements, industry was in danger of backing stranded assets. He told a World Bank seminar that the “vast majority of reserves”—that is, fossil fuel reserves—“are unburnable” if global temperature rises are to be limited to below 2°. He meant that under present circumstances, we simply will not be able both to burn those fossil fuels and reach the 2° target. With carbon capture and storage, however, the scenario starts to change.

[Graham Stringer]

I am enjoying listening to my hon. Friend’s analysis. I would be grateful if he answered two simple questions. How much of that analysis depends on obtaining a legally binding agreement in Paris next year? What does he think the implications of his analysis are for the development of shale gas?

[Dr Whitehead]

To answer the first question, I think a great deal is riding on there being a legally binding contract in Paris next year. Clearly, if Paris turns out to be a complete fiasco and everybody goes in their own direction, we will have to contemplate a future roughly like the one the Governor of the Bank of England thinks we may be facing. As for the potential of an agreement in Paris, I am encouraged by the combination of bottom-up and top-down measures, which may be a rather better way of getting a world agreement than some of the other arrangements there have been in the past. That is why it is particularly important that we contemplate serious bottom-up measures in this country.

On the second question, my personal view is that not only is shale gas in the category of reserves that are unburnable but at present we already face the likelihood that known fossil fuel reserves would have to stay in the ground if we do not do something about how we burn them—never mind us fracking rocks apart to provide new sources. The position with the carbon budget is that serious, as the Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee pointed out. That is why, from a wider point of view, I question whether drilling large amounts of shale gas out of the ground to add to the pile of unburnable fossil fuel is necessarily the best long-term policy idea anyone has ever had.

What may change some of those scenarios, however, is, as I have mentioned, the extent to which we move on to the ambition that I think we should have, namely that a good proportion of the new gas-fired power plants—and, perhaps, some coal-fired ones—are properly equipped with carbon capture and storage, as at Boundary dam, Saskatchewan. That way, they can properly play their role in our energy mix while keeping us to our carbon targets.

My view—one also emphasised by the Committee—is that if we are to do that, we cannot simply hope that over the next few years those arrangements will be economic from the market’s point of view. We need to give carbon capture and storage a continued policy leg-up, which can best be done through a device such as contracts for difference for the next few plants to come through after the first two competition plants. To do that, we have to look carefully at the levy control framework we have at the moment, particularly as it moves from the period up to 2020 into the period of 2020 to 2025.

It is urgent that we clarify what a levy control framework will look like over that next period, and, in particular, one that includes carbon capture and storage and other forms of energy assistance. That way there will be certainty in the market so that those developments can take place, as we move forward. At the moment, the levy control framework not only does not have room for even one more large wind farm but disappears off a cliff in 2020 in any event.

I add to the wider philosophical debate about the advantages of carbon capture and storage the practical point that we need urgent thought about just how we support CCS over the next period, so that we have the investment in it that we know will be needed if the outcomes I have described do not come to pass. We need investors to be secure in their minds that they can make carbon capture and storage a reality of the British energy scene, with the benign consequences I have outlined this afternoon.

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Graham Stringer

Thursday 20th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Mr Betts, I also have to apologise to you for my late arrival this afternoon, and in particular for my inability to hear the contribution to the debate of the Chair of our Select Committee. Nevertheless I predict, although not with absolute certainty, with a fairly high level of certainty that I will probably agree with him in what I say.

I was detained in coming to this important debate by a discussion I was having on Japanese knotweed; to be precise, it was a discussion on Radio 2. On arriving here, I was thinking that perhaps Japanese knotweed is not such an awful metaphor for our debate today, inasmuch as it is here, there is a considerable amount of disagreement about its effect and there is a lot of scientific activity going on at the moment to try to clarify and qualify that effect, including studies to see what insects predate on Japanese knotweed. And there is some uncertainty about whether the effects of insects on Japanese knotweed are real, and about whether “urgent” action needs to be taken, or just “reasonably urgent” action, or “not very much action at all”. So there is quite a lot of debate about Japanese knotweed.

However, what we do know, with a reasonably high degree of certainty, is that Japanese knotweed is very invasive; it uproots our houses and properties, and needs to be dealt with. Indeed, if a surveyor came along to me if I was attempting to deal with my house repairs and said, “It’s very likely that Japanese knotweed is undermining the foundations of your house,” I probably would not say, “I’m not going to do anything about this, because I want to wait until I know that it’s extremely likely that it is undermining the foundations of my house. So I will just let the stuff get on with it until I am absolutely certain, on scientific grounds, that it is extremely likely that my house will be done over.” Instead, I would probably say, “Well, ‘very likely’ is pretty much good enough for me. I’m going to do something about this, and get my house sorted out.”

That in particular was why I intervened on the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) during his contribution, which was about the difference between the fourth assessment report and the fifth assessment report on the degree of likelihood. While it is true that there has been a change between those two reports in what the guide for policy makers is indicating in terms of just how great a degree of emergency we face as far as the effects of anthropogenic global warming are concerned, the assessment has indeed moved from “very likely” to “extremely likely”. As I have underlined, even if someone did not really think that “extremely likely” was absolutely the starting point for taking any further action, they might be rather alarmed by what has happened previously.

What I then worry about is those people who look at the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, just as the Select Committee has done, and who start to raise concerns about it in the way that we have heard today. It is not that those concerns are illegitimate or necessarily entirely out of court, in terms of discussion. However, after that we have to say, “What might some of those concerns amount to, depending on how they are depicted, as important or otherwise, to what is—as IPCC’s fifth assessment report is—a transition of a series of scientific documents, discussions and conclusions, into a document that has some relevance as far as policy makers are concerned?” Indeed, that is precisely the equivalent of a discussion on the science of Japanese knotweed and the surveyor’s report.

[Graham Stringer]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be better if scientists summarised the science, not politicians?

[Dr Whitehead]

It is better that a report produced for policy purposes is a synthesis of what scientists and others are saying and concluding. Indeed, that is exactly what our report concluded.

Beyond that, we then come not to the question of what concerns there might be about some of the detail of the fifth assessment report and its policy summary, but to one important element of scientific method. I should say that I am a social scientist, not a scientist scientist, but I certainly would always have regard to scientific method in my researches and thoughts on a matter, and would be pretty much guided by scientific method and principles of probability and various other things such as those. The important element is that there are always outliers in any scientific discussion. How could it be otherwise? That is what science is about. Science is never unanimous. Indeed, the whole of scientific method is to take something that looks unanimous and test it to destruction and see whether a new consensus emerges from that—and that in turn is tested. There are always outliers and always people who are testing science, and always people who will disagree with a conclusion.

In terms of what science does in informing policy makers, the question is how to best get to the best science that there is, currently, to inform something that will not have 100% certainty behind it but which is, as I have described in terms of what people do about their house, an imperative that they may have to act on, without 100% certainty, but with a high degree of probability behind their actions. That is essentially what the IPCC fifth assessment report is about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

The right hon. Gentleman is right. He will recall that I said that it sounded to me a little bit like that was the direction in which some of the contributions might be moving. I do not personally accuse the right hon. Gentleman of taking that position. However, a number of other people—not he—have taken and do take that position and it seems to me that they are, as a result, hopelessly adrift in terms of what we might or might not do.

[Graham Stringer]

I hope that my hon. Friend does not mean me. I hope I made it quite clear that, as far as I am concerned, the scientific papers are produced—unless evidence shows they are not—by scientists of integrity. Where the problem lies is that representatives of Governments take a large amount of that science and reach political compromises, which is bad for the production of a document. That should be done by scientists, because they would produce a different document. Because they represent the view of their Government, Government representatives stop information from those scientific papers getting into the report. That is not a conspiracy; that is political process.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend sets out a process that seems remarkably similar to every single bit of policy work that ever takes place anywhere in the world on pretty much anything. There is a scientific process and if scientists wish to inform policy makers who are involved in that process, those policy makers will be involved in a process that is less than perfect in relation to what the science says. It is a combination of what is possible, what the policy is that is informed by the scientific process and, most importantly, whether the policy makers should wait for the science to be absolutely perfect before they do anything. My hon. Friend is coming close to saying that unless the science is perfect and scientists can have a sign-off on absolutely everything that goes on to the desk of the last policy maker, we should do nothing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Stringer]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. The British Government do not follow the same process as the IPCC when it comes to scientific advice. The Government have a scientific adviser who gives independent advice to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister. Each Department has a scientific adviser and specialist committees. They do not wait until there is certainty; they produce the best available science at the time and Ministers take decisions on that advice. If the IPCC followed that process, I would be a much happier person, but it does not do that. It introduces politicians into the scientific process. That is where it goes wrong, and that is not describing a conspiracy.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend describes the sort of process at an international level that to some extent goes on in Her Majesty’s Government. The document that he refers to, which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden, is headed, guide for policy makers. It does not purport to be the scientific document. The scientific documents, as we have agreed, are elsewhere.

Energy Company Licence Revocation

Debate between Alan Whitehead and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whitehead]

The hon. Gentleman misses my central point—that it is difficult to say there has been cumulative abuse of a licence when the licence contains no means of judging that. Without such means, it is difficult to make those judgments. Members across the Chamber will agree that if a company that flagrantly and repeatedly abused its licence conditions faced the ultimate sanction of having its licence removed, it would think long and hard before sailing too close to that circumstance.

I questioned whether the Secretary of State’s heart is in the debate. I do not know whether his brief for the debate was one of specificity or one of principle. Did it say, “In the circumstances where it appears we might have the power, you can walk around the issue by talking about a final notice”, or, “Under no circumstances should the regulatory system for utilities or associated bodies enable the removal of licences, so defend the fact that the licence cannot be removed under existing regulations”?

I wish to draw attention to another note on compliance and ultimate sanctions, which states that

“licence holders must also, at all times, satisfy the four authorisation criteria. . . insurance, financial fitness, good repute and professional competence. If we have serious doubts about whether you comply with any of these criteria, we may make further enquiries.”

It concludes:

“If you do not comply with your licensing obligations we will consider enforcement action. This may ultimately result in the suspension or revocation of your authorisation.”

That guidance is issued not by Ofgem but by the Office of the Rail Regulator, so there is a regulatory arrangement—presumably agreed and authorised by the Government—that enables the ultimate sanction of a licence being revoked. Did the Secretary of State defend the lack of such an ultimate sanction on the grounds that it is a bad thing? If so, such a sanction already exists. However badly the railways are regulated, at least regulations are in place that allow for that ultimate sanction.

[Graham Stringer]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a profound speech, enabling the House to benefit from his considerable knowledge. Does he believe that the people of Warrington South, Southampton, Test and Manchester would dance in the streets at the prospect of Centrica, British Gas or npower being threatened with the removal of their licences because of their appalling behaviour over the past 20 years or so?

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Were I to knock on doors in Southampton, Test and refer people to the rail regulator’s compliance arrangements and relate them to Ofgem and ultimate sanctions I might get a fairly dusty response. If I were to say to them, “Energy companies appear to have been ripping you off over many years in many different ways and the huge fines levied on them don’t appear to have made any great difference, whereas now it is being proposed that they may simply be told to leave by the back door with their possessions and not supply you with energy any more”, then they would indeed be dancing in the streets. I can only say in my defence that I am not a dancing in the streets kind of politician, but others might wish to do that on my behalf.

We are aware that regulatory arrangements exist for other industries and that they should therefore exist for this industry. That is the nub of the issue, and I hope that Members will support that simple, central point on the regulation of electricity and gas in the future.