Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Huhne and Lindsay Roy

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

Plans for carbon capture and storage have descended into a farce. The length of the pipeline from Longannet to the empty reservoirs in the North sea, which is the excuse for not continuing, has not changed. Is it not the Government’s economic commitment to CCS, and to the pioneering project at Longannet, that has changed?

[Chris Huhne]

No, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that. Once we had gone through the front-end engineering design studies, the specifics of the Longannet project were clear, including on the costs of transferring carbon into the reservoirs. Those costs were high; as a result, we could not do carbon capture and storage at Longannet, compared with where we believe we can do it elsewhere.