Geothermal Energy: Clackmannanshire

Douglas Ross Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Luke Graham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I could not agree more. One reason why I applied for this debate is to espouse the long-term benefits of these projects and how that will align with the country’s industrial strategy.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to look at the broader industry and the place of geothermal within the industry. According to the House of Commons Library, the total energy sector in the UK was worth £24 billion in 2016. In the same year, the industry as a whole invested £11 billion—the equivalent of £1 in every £16 invested in the UK. It is an industry that directly employs 148,000 workers and supports a further 582,000 through the supply chain, consulting and other energy-related activities. That is a total of 730,000 jobs supported in the UK by the energy sector. Meanwhile, around 22,000 people in Scotland are employed in the energy sector, with the oil and gas sector being a major part of that. The energy sector therefore represents an important industry not just in terms of its contribution to the total GDP of the United Kingdom, but in terms of jobs, investment, research and development and supporting industries.

Energy is important. It heats our homes, cooks our meals and runs the appliances, amenities and communications devices without which our tablets, laptops and businesses could not function. In short, it impacts on every aspect of 21st-century life. The 19th and 20th-century sources of energy have long since ceased to be seen as the future. Renewable energy sources are an ever increasing part of the suite of energy sources, and Scotland has been at the forefront of such innovations, with wind and sea power particularly prevalent in its contribution. I wholeheartedly support those steps and hope that the UK will continue to be at the forefront of such renewable energy options—not just wind and sea but others too, such as geothermal.

You may ask, Mr Deputy Speaker, why geothermal energy? In simple terms, geothermal energy is valuable because it is generated and stored in the earth. It is heat extracted directly from the earth. It is generally available via shallow geothermal ground source heat pumps, which use the heat stored in the earth to generate electricity or provide heating. Geothermal is considered a renewable form of energy due to the vast amount of heat inside the earth and the continuous production of additional heat derived effectively from the earth’s core.

It is important to understand that geothermal energy is not the same as fracking, as some have tried to claim. For clarity, geothermal technology uses things such as mine water, closed boreholes and surface water, none of which has any similarity to fracking. Fracking is a process used to break up rock at great depths to release gas from ancient plant deposits. In the UK, this typically happens 2.5 km below the surface using a process involving large diameter boreholes and huge hydraulic pressures, and those are part of the concerns currently being debated. By contrast, with geothermal, the typical closed loop borehole, such as the one that would be used in Clackmannanshire, is no more than 200 metres deep, with a small diameter, and is installed in the same way and to the same standards as a water well.

We should consider the environmental impact, or relative lack thereof, of geothermal energy. It does not require combustion, unlike traditional energy plants, so it emits very low levels of greenhouse gases. It also eliminates the mining and transportation processes involved in fossil fuel energy generation. Finally, it takes up very little surface land, putting it among the smallest footprint per kilowatt of any power generation technology, including coal, nuclear and other renewables.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important and interesting debate. He is speaking specifically about the size of these developments, but, as he mentioned wind energy earlier, does he accept that there is concern in my Moray constituency, as well as in many parts of Scotland and, indeed, of the UK, that large-scale windfarms are scarring our communities? Indeed, Moray has reached saturation point for the number of wind turbines and windfarms we can have, and we should really be looking at smaller methods of renewable energy.