Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the use of woody biomass as feedstock for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage on (a) global land use and (b) the availability of land for growing crops.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
To ensure that bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) delivers genuine negative emissions, Government will require that only sustainable biomass is used. The 2023 Biomass Strategy included an assessment of sustainable biomass availability to the UK (including woody biomass), to support the UK’s net zero target. The availability of sustainable woody biomass was estimated using updated modelling which included considerations of global land use to exclude unsustainable changes, as well as accounting for wider land use pressures such as food security and biodiversity.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will update her Department’s greenhouse gas removals business model to include (a) enhanced rock weathering and (b) other technologies that do not use carbon capture and storage.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the potential role of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies that do not require carbon capture and storage (CCS) in meeting net zero, including enhanced rock weathering, though specific technical and regulatory barriers must be addressed before any decisions can be made on their eligibility for the GGR business model. As set out in the Government response to the GGR business model consultation, published in June 2023, this includes the need for further evidence on permanence, reversibility, and environmental impacts associated with these methods.
The Government is working closely with academics, industry, and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) GGR Demonstrator projects to investigate the feasibility of scaling non-CCS GGR technologies in future.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will update her Department’s greenhouse gas removals business model to include (a) enhanced rock weathering and (b) other technologies that do not use carbon capture and storage.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises the potential role of greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies that do not require carbon capture and storage (CCS) in meeting net zero, including enhanced rock weathering, though specific technical and regulatory barriers must be addressed before any decisions can be made on their eligibility for the GGR business model. As set out in the government response to the GGR business model consultation, published in June 2023, this includes the need for further evidence on permanence, reversibility, and environmental impacts associated with these methods.
The Government is working closely with academics, industry, and the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) GGR Demonstrator projects to investigate the feasibility of scaling non-CCS GGR technologies in future.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following recent fluctuations in the energy market, what long-term plans they have to transition to more sustainable and affordable energy sources.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
As stated in Powering Up Britain, published in 2023, the mission of the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero is to replace reliance on imported fossil fuels with cheaper, cleaner, domestic sources of energy. This set out our strategy to increase supply of low-carbon energy by enhancing our strengths on wind, solar and nuclear power electricity generation alongside hydrogen production and carbon capture, usage and storage. This includes the infrastructure to produce, store and transport low-carbon energy around the country and to capture, transport and store carbon dioxide.
Asked by: Nia Griffith (Labour - Llanelli)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to help energy intensive industries to decarbonise.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government has committed up to £20 billion to support early deployment of carbon capture, usage and storage, and up to £500 million for the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund to help industry decarbonise, for which phase 3 opened last month.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether her Department is taking steps to include the the impact of (a) seagrass meadows, (b) salt marshes and (c) other blue carbon habitats in the greenhouse gas inventory.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The estimation of the impact of anthropogenic activities on seagrass meadows, salt marshes and other blue carbon habitats along the shores of the UK is currently precluded by widespread gaps in the data required to generate emission estimates in line with current guidelines.
We are working with the UK Blue Carbon Evidence Partnership (UKBCEP) to resolve this. As a first step, a roadmap to inclusion of saltmarsh has been created and the UKBCEP are working to collect the necessary data.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make a comparative assessment of the adequacy of access to carbon capture and storage capabilities in each region; and whether she is taking steps to help ensure the (a) equity and (b) efficiency of the distribution of such capabilities.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department has previously undertaken assessments of the potential CCUS capabilities of industrial clusters across the UK, including the HyNet, East Coast Cluster, Acorn, and Viking clusters, as part of the Cluster Sequencing Process. The guidance and eligibility criteria for these assessments is available on gov.uk.
CCUS will be essential to meeting the UK’s 2050 net zero target, playing a vital role in levelling up the economy, supporting the low-carbon economic transformation of our industrial regions, creating new high value jobs across the UK. We remain committed to industrial decarbonisation across all nations and regions of the UK as we work toward net zero.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make a comparative estimate of the funding the Government has committed to spend with the amount spent on (a) Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS), (b) hydrogen production and (c) Direct air capture (DAC) since January 2020.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
In the 2023 Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced up to £20bn for the deployment of CCUS in the UK. Commercial negotiations are ongoing. Up to £40m of the CCUS Infrastructure Fund is being spent under the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Fund. Under the Net Innovation Zero Portfolio (NZIP) the UK government has committed £25m to CCUS innovations.
From the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), £60m has been committed to the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removal Innovation Programme. Of this around £23 million is funding for the Direct Air Capture technology demonstration projects.
Over £127 million has been allocated to hydrogen production projects from the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. The first hydrogen allocation round (HAR1) will provide over £2 billion of revenue support from the Hydrogen Production Business Model, which will start to be paid once projects become operational from 2025. Hydrogen innovation projects have been allocated over £170m from the NZIP.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the £20 billion of funding announced in the Spring Budget 2023 for early deployment of carbon capture, usage and storage was in addition to previous announcements of funding for (a) carbon capture, usage and storage, (b) hydrogen power and (c) direct air capture made since January 2020.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
In March 2023 Government announced up to £20 billion funding for early deployment of CCUS across all sectors. This includes the £1 billion Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) Infrastructure Fund (CIF), supporting the ambition for CCUS in four industrial clusters by 2030 at the latest.
The Government has also made wider announcements on funding for green technologies since 2020. For example, in May 2021, the Government announced £166m cash injection for green technology, this included £6m for the Direct Air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removals Innovation Programme, Phase 1. In July 2022, the Government announced that carbon removal technology would benefit from over £54m of Government Funding. This was for the Direct air Capture and Greenhouse Gas Removals Programme Phase 2.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the draft Energy National Policy Statements, what assessment she has made of the environmental impact of extending the proposed Critical National Priority presumption to any low carbon energy infrastructure (a) onshore and (b) offshore, including (i) nuclear generation and (ii) nature gas fired generation which is carbon capture ready.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department has published an Appraisal of Sustainability of the National Policy Statements. The Appraisal of Sustainability provides an assessment of Critical National Priority under several headline themes, including the natural environment, and includes proposed monitoring to examine the effects predicted through the Appraisal of Sustainability against the actual effects of the National Policy Statements when they are implemented.
The published Post Adoption Statement also addresses amendments to the National Policy Statements that have been informed by the Appraisal of Sustainability findings.