Energy Bill

This has been a fascinating debate about whether we should have performance standards, and there is much at stake for this country and for my children and grandchildren. It is a pity that we have not spent more time talking about that, because in many respects their future well-being depends on the matter. We ought to put it into perspective a bit. I have been working for a clean coal sector within our energy provision for quite a long time, and I have been disappointed by the progress in the House since I have been here. I must say, however, that the pace of progress has increased remarkably since the current Secretary of State has been in his position, and I am delighted that that is the case. I was disappointed that the CCS competition was not worked out in quite the efficient way I had hoped. To be fair, the Minister of State has admitted that, which I welcome. I also welcome the fact that the next three of the promised four projects in Britain's CCS programme will be undertaken under different criteria. There is an important learning curve, and we have grabbed it and taken it on board. I shall briefly mention the technology involved. There are already more than 70 projects in existence throughout the world, and carbon storage has been well handled by BP in the middle of the Algerian desert for 13 years. Anyone who goes down to Sunbury to look at its centre where CCS is controlled and researched will be amazed by the progress that has been made, how much monitoring is undertaken and how safe the process is. I am worried for my grandchildren, not about leaks of carbon dioxide but that the power stations will cease to produce the energy that we need in this country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) said that too, although we come to different conclusions. New clause 8 is particularly important. I am disappointed that the Minister decided to go for a three-year reporting term. I would prefer an annual report, not least because energy provision will be the most crucial and worrying area of activity, and one of the most doubtful, for our well-being and that of our children and grandchildren. The development of CCS in the next 10 years will be absolutely vital for the well-being of this country, which is why I would have hoped that we could return to it every year. There are many questions that we need to keep track of and find answers to. The pace has picked up enormously, and in my view it will continue to do so. We will be hanging on the back of global development in CCS in the next 10 years, and we need to be as well informed as we possibly can be. That is why I urge the Minister, even at this late stage, to rethink the timing of reporting. I believe that we need an annual report. I need to question the Minister also on the content of the report. I notice that subsection (2)(a) of new clause 8 states that the purpose of the report is an assessment of""whether carbon capture and storage technology in generation of electricity on a commercial scale"" has been successfully demonstrated. "On a commercial scale" means that all three elements of CCS must have been demonstrated—taking the carbon from the generation station, transporting it to the aquifer and shoving it down the aquifer. It also requires getting the coal in the first place, so we need to keep track of many issues with regard to CCS on a commercial scale. I ask the Minister whether a number of them will be included in what I hope will be the annual report to the House. Of course we will need to talk about sites following the decision on the three projects that we hope to make progress on—a decision that we hope the Minister will make by the end of this year. As an aside, I was delighted to learn that she expects to make a decision quickly on the competition for the initial experiment and the first station. I hope that happens within weeks rather than months and I look forward to it. Will the report include the concept of clusters, which is vital to this country and its people, who will want to know where the jobs and the power stations will be, and how we are going to plan such things in the years to come? There is also the issue of a pipeline network. The size of the pipeline is crucial. If we have a relatively small pipeline and a cluster thereafter, we might be unable to progress with further stations because the pipeline cannot take the carbon. That would clearly be crazy, so we need to think about the size of the pipeline and how the pipeline network will service the transportation of the carbon that we extract from the coal. We need a real understanding of how we are going to shove the carbon down into the aquifers. There is no doubt that we are immensely well blessed with aquifers in the North sea, because we can not only create a global trade in storage, which will enhance Britain's income, but enhance the production of oil and gas. It is estimated that if we do that properly, we can get an extra 15 per cent. more oil out of the North sea, which is a prize worth grabbing when we are being told from certain quarters that our production will peak by 2015. We need to understand aquifers. Longannet is talking with Shell about stuffing the carbon down into the aquifers, but we need more information, and to track the situation. In Sunbury, BP has worked on tracking the carbon using satellites, which is a most remarkable technology. Technology to work out the dispersal of the CO2 underground in the aquifer, which is important, is also in place. We are behind not on technology but on putting the stuff together on a commercial scale of, say, 800 MW. That is what we are testing for—the technology is already there. Will the report also be about aquifers and the potential for Britain to sell aquifer space to other producers of CO2? That business is growing quickly and dramatically throughout the world.