Dr Ian Gibson Commons Select Committee for Science & Technology

A CHALLENGING CLIMATE

Kyoto is not radical enough. Yet it is, at present, the most that is politically doable and even then the largest nation, the US, stands outside it. They accept the science but believe the targets are unachievable without unacceptable economic consequences … [It] would help enormously in securing support for Kyoto, and indeed for the necessary more radical action on climate change, if we had a far clearer and deeper knowledge of how science and technology could help in energy production and use, of how market incentives could play a part in changing behaviour, of how business could not just survive but prosper on the back of good environmental policy. Science and technology is the key to the door … given the scale of the challenge the investment in research and development for the new and potentially groundbreaking technologies is still tiny.

(The Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, from his speech to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2 September 2002)

With the exception of a few prominent Republican Americans, few dispute that climate change poses a serious threat to our world. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) has estimated that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced to around 60 per cent of current levels by 2050 if their effects on the global climate are to be corrected. The government's Energy White Paper, published in February, adopts this as one of its 'targets', but fails to match it with the radical policy proposals needed to convince us that it will be met. Even the shorter-term target of 10 per cent of the country's electricity being provided by renewables by 2010 (increasing to 20 per cent by 2020), given current market conditions and the lack of clear and detailed investment and infrastructural strategies, appears to be little more than an aspiration. Science and technology is indeed the 'key to the door', and it is waiting to be clearly cut and put to use. For this, small incremental change in the current system of energy production is not enough. We need new infrastructures, new incentives, perhaps new laws, and certainly clearer patterns of energy use.

Although admirable in its overall sentiment, the White Paper misses the mark in several areas. Its obtuseness over the future of the nuclear power industry is particularly perplexing, since renewable-energy technologies are not hitting the market rapidly enough and nuclear power must therefore fill the gap. Any shortfall will only be made up with fossil fuels. Similarly, with regard to the vital development of Research and Development (R&D), all the right noises are made, but these ring hollow when coupled with the failure to pledge any further investment or provide any further incentives to industry. If we are to de-carbonise our world, we need to have short-, medium- and long-term policies that will incorporate new technologies, socio-economic strategies and analytical methodologies, including modelling and citizen participation. The key issues for R&D are:

Publicly funded R&D is an essential component of the UK's contribution to climate change
Government funding needs to be transferred to alternative technologies
The skills shortage must be tackled in electricity distribution engineering and in nuclear decommissioning
The UK's R&D capacity needs to be restored in order to reverse the decline of corporate and laboratory enterprise
Greater effort is required to ensure the deployment of technology to the marketplace.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee Report, Towards a Non-Carbon Fuel Economy: Research, Development and Demonstration (March 2003), concludes that sums invested in public Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) lack focus and are wholly insufficient in helping the UK meet its renewables targets and certainly lag behind our competitors. There are far too many funding bodies, which brings about fragmentation and confuses academics and industry. Private industry is not taking up technologies designed in this country and the government is failing to step in and take them forward and provide the necessary incentives to encourage companies.

Industry, academia, lobby groups and non-governmental organisations concerned with energy research have welcomed this report. It complements the work of the government conducted under the aegis of Professor David King, its Chief Scientific Advisor, as well as the Energy Review of the Strategic Unit in Downing Street (February 2002), which has also been hailed as a radical agenda for a low-carbon economy. Needless to say, it also highlights frankly the gaps in the Energy White Paper, seeking to influence its implementation by highlighting RD&D issues.

The report defines non-carbon fuel as low-carbon and carbon-reducing technologies, reflecting the short-term imperative to reduce carbon emissions. Thus, the technologies include clean(er) fossil-fuel power generation; renewable and carbon-neutral sources of power generation; nuclear power (fission and fusion); carbon sequestration; energy efficiency and crosscutting technologies including those concerned with electricity supply and transmission, and enabling technologies such as fuel cells and hydrogen. Transport fuels are not dealt with in any detail. Although they are responsible for 40 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK, we found it necessary to restrict the scope of this inquiry into what is a very broad subject. However, the report does note that, even if electricity generation emitted no carbon dioxide, the UK would not achieve the 60 per cent reduction by 2050 recommended by the RCEP. Indeed, one of the major challenges this century will be to bring transport and environment policy together. Our discussion on fuel cells and the hydrogen economy are, of course, relevant to transport, and electrical power generated from renewable sources can be put to use in transport.

The use of the term 'research, development and demonstration' recognises the importance of all stages of the innovation process. It also pinpoints where the 'far clearer and deeper knowledge' sought by our Prime Minister in the words cited above can be acquired. It is acknowledged that this process is by no means simple or linear with discrete stages, but breaking it down is necessary in order to identify the problems and obstacles faced within it. As well as looking into the barriers to commercialisation and industry and market features that clearly limit or provide disincentives to scientific and technological innovation, the inquiry was based on the following remit:

To evaluate the level of expenditure on RD&D on non-carbon energy technologies by the UK Government, the Research Councils, the Carbon Trust and industry, and where it is being directed
To identify which technologies are, or should be, receiving support, and how much investment is directed at RD&D respectively
To assess the skills base and the state of RD&D for different technologies
To establish the level of, and rationale for, international collaboration in energy RD&D and how priorities are determined
To examine the effect on RD&D of privatisation, liberalisation, regulation and changes in ownership in the sector
To make comparisons with overseas competitors.

In conclusion, the report notes that energy RD&D investment in the UK looks set to remain at the bottom of the international league table, despite recent increases in government funding: "We believe the UK should be investing more, on economic grounds and to ensure that the technology is suited to Britain's national needs and takes advantage of our strengths. By repeating the 'not picking winners' mantra, the government has failed to take a lead."

The strengths identified are offshore technologies (wind, wave and tidal), and nuclear fusion and fission. To drive forward the target for wind, wave and tidal power in the short-, medium- and long-term, across departments, the report recommends that a new Renewable Energy Authority be set up with a dedicated minister. It also proposes a new tax incentive, distinguishing between fossil fuels and carbon-free and carbon-reduced sources at different stages of development. There should be a renewed effort to establish new technologies and increase the market pull, and the large amount of technologies that are still far from the market need to be resourced.

Without attention to the finer details such as these, there is little hope that we will be able to make the radical impact on climate change that the targets we have set ourselves represent. To realise a radical vision of the future, we need to tackle the details more decisively at every stage along the way, committing to investment and the whole of the innovation process. If offshore wind farms are to play the substantial role envisaged in the White Paper to meet the 2010 target, then we need to address the fact that at present the capacity from offshore wind farms is only 4mW. To fulfil the aspiration, a renewables capacity of 10,000mW needs to be installed. The sentiments and the science are there. Our challenge lies in creating the conditions to make them work for urgently needed, tangible change.

Supplied by courtesy of Dr Ian Gibson MP, Chairman, Commons Select Committee for Science and Technology