Energy: Carbon Capture and Storage

Lord Broers Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marland]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his very good points. The reality is that if we all had our time again we would start on gas, which is going to be fundamental to the future of our energy supply. I am at one with the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, on this, for a change. I very much hope that in the next competition we will have a lot of applicants for a gas project and that we can become world leaders in its carbon capture and storage.

[Lord Broers]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that of course all these low-carbon energy approaches are risky and expensive? This is further evidence that for CCS this is particularly the case. We have had our two large projects stopped; it could be incredibly expensive and feasibility is far from demonstrated. Does not that teach us that we had better get on with nuclear power in a more aggressive way and expand our nuclear capability?

[Lord Marland]

I am delighted to say that on 31 October EDF put its 30,000-page document in for planning for the first new nuclear power station to be launched for 27 years. I can only totally agree with the noble Lord.