John Redwood
Main Page: John Redwood (Conservative - Wokingham)
Anna Turley
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his commitment to and support for this. He is absolutely right that there are important steps that the Government could take to support this, which the Committee discussed in detail. The report starts to set those out. In particular, we look at the development of viable business models. He will remember that our witnesses agreed that CCUS costs could be substantially lowered by separating the business model for carbon capture in industrial facilities from that of the transport and storage infrastructure. That could create much less risk in part of the process, because those two activities have very different cost and risk profiles. The Government should put more effort into establishing that, because it is very important. Although transport and storage infrastructure is expensive, a single facility could receive carbon from multiple sites, and it is estimated that the costs of transport and storage per tonne could be reduced by as much as 90% if infrastructure costs are shared across multiple capture points. Infrastructure is critical, and that is where the Government could play a huge role.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
When the Committee put forward its requirement for investment in substantial capacity, what did it think the cost of that increased capacity would be, and who should pay the bill?
Anna Turley
I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I understand that, after losing those two projects, any Government will have to carry out a cost-benefit analysis, and expenditure was one of the issues that was raised. We know that CCUS projects today are already much cheaper than those involved in the previous competitions. At that point, the cost was between £1 billion and £2.5 billion, but the cost of the projects coming through today is well under £500 million. That is a result of the learning that we have done in that time. I believe that CCUS will play an essential part in meeting our climate change targets. All the evidence, particularly that of the Committee on Climate Change, shows that if we do not deploy CCUS, the cost of meeting our targets will double. The Energy Technologies Institute estimates that the cost would rise from 1% of GDP to 2% of GDP, so the question is not whether we can afford to do this but whether we can afford not to do so.