Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to support the development of carbon capture, utilisation and storage technology.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are clear that CCUS is a priority for this Government, and we are progressing at pace. In March 2023 we announced up to £20 billion funding for early deployment of CCUS across all sectors, and in December we outlined how we will get to a competitive carbon capture market by 2035.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the (a) carbon sequestration potential of grasslands and (b) impact of sampling depth on the amount of carbon stored.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In June 2019, the Environment Agency published a State of the Environment: Soil Report, which identified that intensive agriculture, such as ploughing up permanent pasture for arable crops or temporary grassland, usually reduces soil organic matter (including carbon).
We are paying for a range of actions through farming schemes such as Sustainable Farming Incentive to support farm decarbonisation and Countryside Stewardship and Landscape Recovery to store more carbon in the landscape. The schemes will help farmers deliver environmental outcomes on the land they manage while helping their businesses become more productive and sustainable.
Arable soils are known to be more depleted in soil carbon than grasslands, so the potential for future sequestration is lower in grasslands than when compared to arable soils. Sampling to a meter’s depth is preferable so that as much of the soil carbon store as possible may be measured. However, in order to provide a balance between practicality and robust measurements, sampling to a depth of up to 40cm would generally be appropriate as this is the depth to which most land management practices affect the soil profile most significantly.
Robust and accurate carbon audits which are based on or from business-level data can be valuable in benchmarking performance, and help farm businesses plan and action decarbonising measures and enhance management of negative emissions. To help farmers confidently understand the emissions on their land and take advantage of the new financial opportunities this will unlock, we are committed to developing a harmonised approach to measuring carbon on farms. We are also considering how we can best support the implementation of carbon audits through a controlled expansion of the Defra Farming and Countryside Programme sustainable farming advice offer.
We recognise the challenges in improving the robustness and consistency of carbon auditing tools. To help harmonise these tools and how they are used, Defra is currently funding a 'Harmonisation of Carbon Accounting Tools for Agriculture' project to assess differences between a number of market leading carbon calculators, understand the causes of this divergence and how it impacts tool users and how to improve harmonisation.
Defra is also working to provide greater access to the calculations and the models developed as part of the UK’s Agricultural Inventory of Ammonia and GHG Emissions to interested third parties. This will support longer term alignment between the UK’s national GHG accounts and primary data gathered from farms.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the North Sea Transition Authority for supporting the delivery of the UK’s climate targets.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The North Sea Transition Authority plays a crucial role in helping to achieve the Government's commitment to reach Net Zero emissions by 2050. Its Strategy reflects the ongoing energy transition and features a range of net zero obligations on the oil and gas industry, including stepping up efforts to reduce production emissions, supporting carbon capture and storage projects and unlocking clean hydrogen production.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the International Energy Agency's publication entitled The Oil and Gas Industry in Net Zero Transitions, published in November 2023.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government reads publications from the International Energy Agency with interest and will consider the contents of its latest report carefully. As recognised in the report, the oil and gas industry is well placed to scale up some of the key technologies needed to reach net zero such as hydrogen, carbon capture, and offshore wind.
Asked by: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether she has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on funding to support the development of the low-carbon cement sector.
Answered by Graham Stuart
My Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State regularly discusses a range of issues with my Rt hon Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer. Carbon Capture Usage and Storage will be crucial for decarbonisation of industries, such as cement, which otherwise lack viable alternatives to achieve deep decarbonisation. CCUS and low carbon hydrogen are vital to transforming these sectors. In March, the Chancellor announced £20 billion investment in the early development of CCUS to help meet the Government’s climate commitments. The Government is taking forward the Hanson Padeswood Cement Works to proceed to negotiations for support under the Industrial Carbon Capture business model.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether her Department has made an assessment of the (a) role and (b) limitations of carbon capture and storage in supporting broader efforts to decarbonise the construction sector.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Industrial carbon capture and storage use will play a crucial role in deep decarbonisation of heavy industries that would otherwise have no alternative to decarbonise, including in the construction sector. CCUS is the only viable solution for addressing process emissions, such as from cement production.
The Hanson Padeswood Cement Works and Buxton Lime Net Zero projects were selected as two of the eight projects to move to negotiations as part of our Track-1 Project Negotiation List.
The Department for Business and Trade is working with the construction sector through the Construction Leadership Council, with a key priority being net zero and biodiversity, to support decarbonisation in the sector.
Asked by: Andrew Percy (Conservative - Brigg and Goole)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the Answer of 19 September 2023 to Question 199325 on Biofuels, whether that assessment includes whether transitional support should (a) include all unabated biomass power generators and (b) be restricted to biomass power generation sites scoped into the power bioenergy and carbon capture programme.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Government plans to consult shortly on eligibility for potential support for facilitating the transition from unabated biomass generation to power bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to reach 7-9 GW of Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage power by 2030.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Power generation with Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) will be crucial to provide the flexible low carbon power generation required to decarbonise securely the power sector by 2035.
In March, the Government entered negotiations to deliver the UK’s first power CCUS project through the CCUS Cluster Sequencing Process, with the aim of reaching Final Investment Decisions in 2024.
This is not the extent of the Government's ambition: in March, the Department announced that it will launch a process this year to enable further expansion of the Track-1 CCUS clusters, and in July, it commenced engagement and due diligence with future CO2 storage sites to deliver two additional clusters by 2030 through Track-2.
This will enable further power CCUS deployment, alongside other CCUS-enabled technologies, and put the UK on the pathway to meeting its power sector decarbonisation ambitions, which Government analysis suggest could require as much as 10GW of power CCUS by 2035.
Asked by: David Duguid (Conservative - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent steps her Department has taken to increase the rate of installation of (a) carbon capture and storage, (b) hydrogen and (c) other (i) low-carbon and (ii) flexible backup electricity power technologies.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The £20 billion announced in the Budget sets up the UK to deliver four Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) clusters by 2030. The Government will publish a vision for the CCUS sector in 2023. The Government's ambition is for up to 2GW of low-carbon hydrogen capacity to be in operation or construction by 2025. Government aims to complete the first Hydrogen Allocation Round by the end of 2023.
The Government is working with Ofgem and industry to implement the actions of the Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan to achieve a more flexible energy system.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of the UK's energy output that will be produced by fossil fuels by 2050; and whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her policies of Exxon Mobil's paper entitled Global EnergyOutlook 2023.
Answered by Graham Stuart
When the UK has reached net zero in 2050, around a quarter of the UK's energy needs will come from oil and gas. This figure is calculated using data published by the Climate Change Committee in its Sixth Carbon Budget advice. By 2050 oil use will become increasingly concentrated in aviation and gas will be used with carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) to generate electricity and hydrogen. Global outlooks also point to the need for continued, but declining, oil and gas use, highlighting the importance of CCUS.