Asked by: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many postgraduates enrolled at UK universities and colleges are specialising in soil science.
Answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Information on enrolments at UK Higher Education Institutions are collected and published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The latest data for the 2014/15 academic year suggests there were about 40 full-person equivalent postgraduate students enrolled in soil science across three UK universities and colleges; these are the University of Aberdeen, University of Nottingham and the University of Reading. Of these, about 15 full-person equivalents were masters students studying at the University of Aberdeen.
Soil science has a Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) code of F770. This is a detailed level code and some universities may occasionally allocate students to more general codes.
Asked by: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many masters degree courses on soil science are currently offered by UK universities.
Answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Information on enrolments at UK Higher Education Institutions are collected and published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). The latest data for the 2014/15 academic year suggests there were about 40 full-person equivalent postgraduate students enrolled in soil science across three UK universities and colleges; these are the University of Aberdeen, University of Nottingham and the University of Reading. Of these, about 15 full-person equivalents were masters students studying at the University of Aberdeen.
Soil science has a Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) code of F770. This is a detailed level code and some universities may occasionally allocate students to more general codes.
Asked by: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many undergraduate courses leading to a formal qualification are provided in (1) soil biology, (2) soil chemistry, and (3) combined soil biology and chemistry, and how many students were enrolled in each course at the beginning of the 2015–16 academic year.
Answered by Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Information on enrolments at UK Higher Education Institutions is collected and published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), and the latest academic year for which data are available is 2014/15.
The Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) is the classification of subjects used by HESA. Soil biology and Soil chemistry are not separate subject classifications in the JACS system; the closest classification is Soil science.
The latest data for 2014/15, suggest there were fewer than 10 full-person equivalent undergraduate students studying Soil science at a single UK Higher Education Institution - the University of Aberdeen.
Soil science has a Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) code of F770. This is a detailed level code and some universities may occasionally allocate students to more general codes.
Asked by: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the expenditure on soil research by all UK research councils in each year since 2006.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The annual spend on research related to soil science through the Research Councils is provided in the table below.
Financial Year | Spend |
2005-06 | £13.3M* |
2006-07 | £16.9M* |
2007-08 | £19.7M* |
2008-09 | £15.4M* |
2009-10 | £17.3M* |
2010-11 | £24.1M |
2011-12 | £20.6M |
2012-13 | £24.2M |
2013-14 | £31.2M |
2014-15 | £20.8M |
2015-16 | £45.1M |
*Data is not available for the Arts and Humanities Research Council prior to 2010-11.
Asked by: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many soil scientists are currently employed by (1) universities and colleges, (2) research institutions, and (3) the private sector, in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
This level of detail is not held by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Asked by: Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of how the carbon emissions of waste-fed anaerobic digestion plants compare to those of plants fed by energy crops.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The carbon emissions from anaerobic digestion (AD) plants have been assessed by adding together; the greenhouse gas emissions from the AD plant including an estimate of their methane leakage rate, the reduction in UK greenhouse gas emissions from the use of biomethane to substitute for natural gas in the gas grid, and where this is relevant, the emissions avoided by no longer needing to dispose of the feedstock. The estimates below are for typical plants and will depend on particular circumstances.
For food waste this net change in greenhouse gas emissions was assessed as a saving of 850 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt hour of energy in the biomethane produced (g CO2eq /kWh). This arises principally from the reduction in emissions from the landfilling of food waste. Animal waste based AD plant save emissions of 704 g CO2eq /kWh as a result of the reduction in storage emissions of slurries and manures. The use of annual energy crops for AD was assessed as saving 102 g CO2eq /kWh.
The assumptions behind this assessment are detailed in the Impact Assessment that accompanied the recent consultation ‘The Renewable Heat Incentive: A reformed and refocused scheme’ and did not taken account of any additional carbon emissions impacts relating to indirect land use change, which may arise from changes in agricultural land caused by the expansion of croplands for feedstock production.
This evidence was drawn from the modelling that supported the Impact Assessment for the recent Renewable Heat Incentive consultation that closed on 27th April.
Food waste is estimated to be considerably more cost-effective than agricultural feedstocks because of the ‘upstream’ emissions abatement that is assumed to occur as a result of diverting food waste from landfill to an anaerobic digester. This is despite the controls that are in place at landfill sites to collect and combust landfill gas.
Agricultural wastes are also assumed to produce upstream emission abatement owing largely to avoided emissions from the storage of slurries and manures, although these are less significant than the upstream abatement from food waste. In contrast energy crops do not offer these GHG emission reduction advantages.