Examination of Witnesses (Questions 31-39)
MR MALCOLM
WICKS MP, MR
MARTIN DEUTZ
AND MS
BRONWEN NORTHMORE
4 JUNE 2008
Q31 Chairman: As you know, we have organised
this brief inquiry at relatively short notice because of the considerable
interest and controversy surrounding Kingsnorth and the progress
towards viable carbon capture and storage. We have squeezed it
into our programme. Mr Wicks, I am very grateful to you and your
officials for coming in. I understand that you want to make a
brief opening statement.
Mr Wicks: First, thank you for
enabling us to provide evidence today. This is an issue that is
very dear to my heart and the government's priorities. I am accompanied
by my colleagues Martin Deutz, head of the Cleaner Fossil Fuels
Unit in the department, and Bronwen Northmore, policy director
of that unit. The International Energy Agency predicts that global
energy demand will be more than 50 per cent higher by 2030 with
energy-related greenhouse gases around 57 per cent higher. The
increased demand for energy will be met largely by fossil fuel
power stations. In particular, demand for coal is predicted to
rise by 73 per cent by 2030. It is not just in global terms that
coal is an important fuel; coal is and will continue to be in
our judgment a vital part of the UK's energy mix essential for
providing us with secure and reliable energy supplies. Yet we
recognise that lower carbon technologies are required if we wish
to continue to use fossil fuels and meet our climate change objectives.
The challenge, therefore, for the UK and the world is to reconcile
increasing energy demand with the need for secure and diverse
energy supplies while ensuring that we reduce our carbon dioxide
emissions radically, which is where CCS could play a vital role.
With the potential to reduce emissions from power stations by
90 per cent CCS can help us meet both our energy security and
climate change objectives. However, the full chain of capture,
transport and storage is yet to be demonstrated on a commercial
scale power station. This is why the government is supporting
one of the world's first projects to demonstrate post-combustion
capture technology on a coal-fired power station with a generating
capacity of at least 300 megawatts. We are also taking other actions
to develop CCS technologies. We are supporting research and development
through the research councils, the Technology Strategy Board and
the new Energy Technologies Institute. We are providing capital
grants for the development of components of the CCS chain through
what we call the Environmental Transformation Fund and also developing
and implementing one of the first comprehensive regulatory regimes
for the storage of carbon dioxide. We are also working through
multilateral organisations such as the International Energy Agency
and the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum to promote CCS globally.
Indeed, we are very active internationally. Finally, it is in
our vital interest that CCS is developed and deployed as rapidly
as possible both in the UK and globally. We are taking the steps
required to achieve this with one or two other countries and leading
the world by our actions.
Q32 Chairman: If the government is
so keen on CCS and making such excellent progress towards it why
on earth is it even contemplating authorising the construction
of a coal-fired power station before we have the technology?
Mr Wicks: There are mechanisms
in place. I am thinking of the European Union's emissions trading
scheme of which we are fully a part. The objective of the ETS
is to help us across Europe to hit the very demanding CO2 reduction
targets. The mechanism of the ETS is to bear down on carbon emissions
over time. That means anyone contemplating a new fossil fuel power
station will have to take that into account in terms of the economics
and take steps to reduce carbon emissions. Alongside climate change,
which I genuinely believe is the pre-eminent challenge for us
and the planet this century, we must have regard to energy supply
and security. If one looks ahead to a future when much of our
electricity comes from renewables—between 30 and 40 per
cent of our electricity could come from renewables by 2020—after
that time significant quantities of electricity will come from
nuclear power stations. One needs fossil fuel power stations to
provide flexibility and balance in the system.
Q33 Chairman: What you have said
about the EU ETS and cap will confirm the very worst fears of
critics of the system because you seem to be using it as justification
for choosing the most polluting form of technology for the newest
coal-fired power station in Britain.
Mr Wicks: I repeat that maybe
together with Norway and the United States we are the leading
nations in the world in CCS technology. We are developing very
good capacity and we are working internationally. If we simply
say there should be no more coal-fired power stations until the
technology is fully proven, which sadly will be some years hence—
Q34 Chairman: When?
Mr Wicks: None of us can be absolutely
certain because we need to demonstrate the technology. We hope
that our demonstration project will be up and running in 2014.
Q35 Chairman: So, it may be another
20 years before it is economically viable?
Mr Wicks: It is very difficult
to predict when this might become universalised in this country.
I am not embarrassed to say we do not know because none of us
knows the answer to that question. But those who reject coal—by
the way, sometimes they are the same people who reject nuclear,
but that is another issue—have to answer the question about
from where will we get our energy supply? I think that given the
geopolitics of energy insecurity in future diversity, in terms
of energy resource is absolutely vital. If we did not have coal
it would bring forward an extra dash for gas. We need to think
of the national security implications of that.
Q36 Chairman: Even though you honestly
admit, which I respect, that you have no idea when we may have
economically viable carbon capture and storage technology you
are quite happy to authorise the construction of new highly polluting
coal-fired power stations in Britain?
Mr Wicks: You frame it in a certain
way. When you say that I admit it, it is not a question of your
dragging an admission out of me. I am proceeding on the basis
of the science and technology and evidence base. I am pleased
to do that before a Select Committee. Maybe I am a bit old-fashioned,
but that is part of the thing you do before a Select Committee.
That is what the knowledge base tells us. I just report that to
you, Mr Yeo. What I am trying to say is that anyone who is serious
in saying we should never have any coal until the technology is
there must look at the implications for national security and
some competence in terms of what it means for the diversity of
resource for the national grid. There are a number of other serious
issues. Perhaps my colleague Martin Deutz can add to the argument.
Mr Deutz: New super-critical coal-fired
power stations emit about 20 per cent less for the same amount
of generation. Although what you say would be correct if we built
new unabated coal-fired power stations, the net effect in terms
of emissions for the same level of generating output would be
a considerable reduction.
Q37 Chairman: But even with a 20
per cent reduction in emissions from previous old-fashioned coal-fired
plant it would be vastly more than if you adopted almost any other
form of electricity generation?
Mr Deutz: It still emits more.
Q38 Chairman: You are still very
seriously above any other alternative?
Mr Deutz: That is true.
Q39 Joan Walley: I want to return
to the Chairman's question about allowing a planning application
to go ahead without knowing exactly when the technology will be
available. What is your response to the letter from the Royal
Society to the Secretary of State that any planning permission
should be conditional by a certain future date on the availability
of abatement technology?
Mr Wicks: I hear the arguments.
In a proper argument I would want to bring in the other matters
that I raised today briefly about how to run a system without
the flexibility that coal can provide. It is interesting that
two winters ago when the price of gas was so high supply was maintained
at a difficult time in large part because extra electricity from
coal was brought on because of the flexibilities in the system.
We are absolutely committed to developing clean coal technology
and CCS as quickly as possible. One of the reasons we want a demonstration
plant in the United Kingdom is not only for the benefit of this
country in terms of our own carbon reduction targets but so we
can help to develop a technology that has an application abroad.
We are thinking particularly of China. I suppose that if we did
not have coal-fired power stations we would be less able to demonstrate
the technology which is the way to square the circle in future.
As I said at the beginning when I quoted the IEA estimates, whatever
people might wish in terms of renewables and energy efficiency
the world will be burning huge amounts of fossil fuels. Eighty
per cent of future demand will come from fossil fuels, a lot of
it being coal in places like China. Our job with others is to
make sure that technology can help us to tackle that problem.
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