Environment: Low-carbon Technologies

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Prescott on a fantastic speech. It is not just we in this country but, I suggest, people in many parts of the world who should be indebted and grateful to him for the work that he has done on climate change and sustainability. Maybe Kyoto has not gone as far or as fast as he, or any of us, would have liked, but I am pleased to hear that he is going to continue with some of this work. It is a major achievement that we have got this far.

I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Haskel on securing this debate. It is interesting that, just as we found last week in the debate on the railways, the Benches opposite are empty, apart from the Front Bench and one sole survivor from the Liberal Democrats, whom it is good to see in his place. Is there any interest in the Conservative Party in energy or, for that matter, in railways? There was not a single speaker from the Conservative Party in the railways debate last week. There were many Liberal Democrats interested in railways, which was great, but I wonder how many speeches from Liberal Democrats we will hear tonight. Maybe we will hear one—or maybe we will not.

That is indicative of something that has worried me in the period since the election. I wonder whether there is a coalition policy on energy; perhaps the coalition is still working it out. I understand that in the nuclear field it may be difficult. The Liberal Democrats were very much against nuclear power in their manifesto, while the Conservatives were much in favour. I do not know how you can have half a nuclear policy. Maybe we will have nuclear power stations if there is no state subsidy or subvention. I suspect that that will be quite difficult. It may reinforce the point made by my noble friends Lord Haskel and Lord Giddens: if the businesses do not see a clear way forward soon, they will go somewhere else. That would be unwise, but there is certainly a lack of enthusiasm here. I hope that the Minister, when he replies, will tell us all that there is a firm energy policy and what is going to happen, rather than something that is possibly a little skin deep.

I will confine my remarks tonight mainly to biomass, which is a useful renewable. It is not often spoken about. It is a fairly balanced means of generation in terms of carbon in and carbon out. What I like about it is that not only is it sustainable but there is quite a lot of it around. I think that it offers the fourth largest amount of energy after coal, oil and gas. It is not too difficult for us to import what we do not have locally from Canada, North America and the Baltic, without destroying areas of farmland. It fits well into the generating mix because it is a proven technology. The equipment and stations can be built quite easily and quickly. It is not intermittent like wind, wave or solar power. You can switch it on or off in accordance with demand. It is an important part of the renewable mix. I still worry about some of the others. People talk about the Severn barrage, the development scheme for which I worked on about 30 years ago. Producing a tonne of cement needs a tonne of carbon; I am not sure what the figure is for steel. One must think about the carbon cost of building some of these things, in addition to their generating carbon savings when they are working.

The other benefit of biomass is that you can mix it with coal and generate power using both products at the same time. Companies such as Drax, which operates one of the biggest power stations in this country, are working on it by mixing it or even building a plant that works only on biomass. It is also interesting to explore the possibilities for much smaller plants. I have been talking to people in Cornwall, who tell me that it is quite economic now to build plants of 20-megawatt size, which is ideal for places where there is demand but, at present, very little supply. You save the extra costs of transmission from the bigger areas, which also gives the generators something of a financial advantage.

There is local opposition to anything like this. We have had and will have many debates about changes to the planning system, as proposed by the Government, which seem to centre on localism. However, I have not heard anyone explain how to separate localism from nimbyism. That, if we are not careful, will prevent the construction of many projects, be they large or small, some of them part of the remit of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, which the previous Government proposed. One of the advantages—if it works—of localism when it comes to small biomass plants is that it would be possible for discounts to be given to local residents if they supported one of these plants locally. It is not the same as burning waste without any filters on top. It is a sustainable type of generation and should be welcomed. However, I am not sure of the extent to which the local authorities that will be giving planning permission for these things will go along with them, even if they get a discount. It happens very well with wind power in places such as Denmark. The local authorities participate in the financing and, somehow, the construction. We will have to see, but maybe the Minister can explain how it will be easier to get planning for some of these things under the new localism agenda.

I shall say a little about transporting biomass. Rail freight is useful in this. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. It is not just about shoving branches into power stations and fires. Biomass usually comes in pellets or chips. The only problem with moving it is that it does not much like getting wet. It must be kept dry during storage and transport. It has less than half the density of water, so the volumes are quite large. There is a lot of potential for generating jobs in ports and on railways, and using the same supply chain as for coal does not work too badly. However, there is a cost to it. Biomass must be harvested, which is rather more expensive than digging up coal in Australia, and it must be processed, as well as transported. For this product to be used effectively, there has to be a recognition in the renewable obligation that the cost of transport and processing needs to be taken into account rather more. It is still a new technology, or a variation on it. If one wants the private sector to invest in small generating stations, or even to change the very big ones such as Drax and others, it needs more comfort that in the longer term it will get a reasonable return on its investment. It can then go ahead with it.

In conclusion, biomass offers a major and useful contribution to the renewable part of our generating capacity, which we will need. Co-firing with coal is one thing. If we have new, smaller stations with local benefit and something to help with planning permission, biomass could be a significant part of a flexible and sustainable energy policy, which I am sure the Government will develop.