Energy Bill

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Roper, have raised an interesting point. I was going to support the amendment, at least in principle, but for rather wider reasons than those that the noble Lord, Lord Roper, advanced or, indeed, some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Deben, made. The arguments are sometimes between one group of environmentalists and another and they are sometimes between one vested interest and another. We have been through the same cycle or swing on liquid biofuels. I am not sure where the pendulum will end up on that—there has been a significant intervention, which I was partly involved with in my previous capacity in government.

This is a difficult issue. The amendment asks the Secretary of State, first, to look at it carefully and, secondly, to ensure that the users of biomass as a feedstock have obligations to consider the nature of the supply chain and how far it saves carbon. Even in the best of circumstances, biomass in the broadest sense—it covers a multitude of very different forms of feedstock, from food and farm waste to bespoke forestries that are grown for this purpose on the other side of the world—is, even conceptually, a rather long form of sustainability. You chop down one tree and another one grows, so that in 50 years’ time you have replaced the first one. That is not necessarily the same as some forms of feedstock where the carbon content is low or nil immediately. With biomass, there is a carbon emission. It is therefore important that, in this whole approach, we look at what form of biomass we are using, where it has been sourced from and what it displaces—I had not thought of the softwood argument or the straw argument, although I seem vaguely to remember a similar case not so long ago.

As for displacement on a global scale, I was also thinking about growing bespoke crops in ground that would otherwise be for food, whether in the third world or whether sugar beet, for example, in the UK. It is a big question. At the moment, there is no requirement either on the Government or the regulators and counterparties to look at that aspect. There is also no obligation on the generator proposing a biomass project to look at these issues. The amendment at least gets us into that important discussion.

On some of the figures that the Government have produced—I am not quite sure in which context—we have looked at the early, phase 1 proposals for green energy, of which there is in total 18 gigawatts. Some 5.3 gigawatts comes from six projects for biomass conversions—from fossil fuels to biomass in part or in whole—and another 0.6 gigawatts comes from biomass CHP projects. Therefore, a third of what is currently being proposed upfront regarding all the technologies is biomass. It is much larger than onshore wind in this context, so this will be an important issue. Money is being invested in it and expectations are being raised as to how it will perform. Therefore, what appears to be a simple and modest amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Roper, opens up a wide field. We will not resolve this issue today and we may not even resolve it in the course of the Bill. However, the department, those who enforce the regulations and those who propose biomass projects will have to explain in rather more detail how they are sourcing this, what the effects of sourcing it will be and what the effect on carbon emissions will be. If something like this amendment were accepted by the Government, we would at least get into that discussion. I do not suppose that the Minister will accept the amendment, but it would be helpful if she would at least indicate that the department needs to take another look at this.

[The Earl of Caithness]

The more we look into this subject, the more complicated it gets. We should take seriously the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. He mentioned converting land that is suitable for food crops to other uses. We know that in Brazil maize and corn are being used as fuel for cars. I wrote to Drax when I noted that it was converting three of its stations to biofuel production. Sub-Committee D was looking at energy at the time . The staff at Drax were very bullish and said, “This is a wonderful thing. It is all being grown overseas. It is all reputable and is being monitored very carefully. It will all come over in ships and everybody is going to be very happy”. Another point which has not been mentioned is that the amendment refers to “woody biomass” and if you take land out of agricultural production and convert it to timber production, that is a long-term and expensive operation. My noble friend Lord Deben mentioned straw, which is an annual crop but, as regards the sort of material that we are talking about, you are talking of a crop that could well be harvested in 40 to 60 years’ time. Intervening in such a market leads to complications. I am very glad that I am not the Minister who has to deal with this issue as it would cause me all sorts of nightmares, which just shows how very difficult this whole area is.

[Baroness Maddock]

My Lords, my arrival here was opportune, I think. Every day I look at the headlines in newspapers in the north-east. Today, one of them informs me that the Government have given the green light to a £250 million biomass power station at Blyth. I would be interested to know what criteria were used to decide whether this should go ahead, although I do not expect my noble friend to be able to tell me that now.