Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): I welcome, via StarLeaf, Professor Jon Gibbins, director of the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC). I am sorry that we have run a bit over our schedule, so thank you for your indulgence. I invite you to give us your briefing, after which members will have an opportunity to ask questions.

Professor Jon Gibbins (UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre): Thank you, Chair. I am director of the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre. I have been working on carbon capture and storage (CCS) for approximately 20 years. At the moment, we have a situation where climate change objectives have changed radically from what they were. When I first started on carbon capture and storage in the early 2000s, the then Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution said that what was required in the UK's share of avoiding dangerous climate change was a 60% reduction in emissions. That went forward for a while, and there was a fair bit of debate about it. We had the Gleneagles conference, where the UK led the world on climate change in 2005. We eventually got to the Climate Change Act 2008, which increased the target to an 80% reduction and set up the independent body, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). It made the 80% reduction a legally binding target, not just a recommendation.

Time has moved on, and climate science has progressed. In its most recent deliberations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came to the conclusion that the ultimate effect of climate that we would see is proportional to the cumulative emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere. It is simply a matter of how much CO2 is being emitted over time from anthropogenic sources. If you follow that science, you find that the only way to avoid dangerous climate change is to limit the cumulative amount over time to a value that will not cause unwarranted warming. That has the immediate consequence that you clearly have to get to net zero. It also has the consequence that, if you emitted too much CO2 before you get to net zero, you will have to go negative.

This is a very different situation. For a long time, we have been used to the idea of being thrifty and frugal and to cutting down, first, to 60% and, secondly, to 80%, which was, more or less, a reasonable strategy. It will work, and you might want to use carbon capture and storage to help keep certain activities going, such as coal consumption, but it was not absolutely necessary. As soon as you go to net zero or particularly to a net negative, you have to have some form of carbon capture and storage; indeed, you not only have to do what I call "traditional CCS", where you capture from point sources, but you have to be able to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. You need to be able to do that using technologies that are not limited by natural resources; you cannot just rely on take-up by land, particularly since that will be adversely affected by the warming that we will inevitably see now. You cannot rely on CO2 being picked up from biomass, which you burn in order to capture the CO2. You have to rely on technical means in order to take CO2 from the air. That is the way it is.

That technology is available. We do not know how much it will eventually cost because it is being developed. Effectively, I suggest that the whole dialogue, which says that you have to cut emissions from particular industries or you have to do this or that, implies that there is an infinite price on emitting CO2 to the atmosphere. That provides an imperative because it is infinite. We have to do it; there is no alternative. Well, there is an alternative: the alternative is to pay to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere. That includes removing CO2 from the atmosphere to compensate for the emission of other greenhouse gases. The UK has a target of net greenhouse gas emissions, taking all significant greenhouse gases into account.

That is the context. Because we have changed to net zero and because we see the possibility of net negative, the dialogue has changed. It is not a matter of cutting emissions, which would be all right; you have to face up to the fact that you have to get net zero overall. In the context of the Bill, there does not appear to be much recognition of how, in reality, the world will achieve a balance. It does not recognise the fact that you can do that — indeed, you will have to do that — in different places. You cannot do CO2 removal just anywhere. The Bill misses that out. Clearly, you have to look at local circumstances. You have to average over the world as a whole, which you can because the climate is well mixed.

Just as an aside, I noted that a nitrogen budget appears to be incorporated into the Bill as well. Apart from N2O, which is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, I do not think that nitrogen has much bearing on the matter here directly. The difficulty in achieving net zero is that you are required to focus. We really need to focus on that and on objectives. It is fair enough that people have not got to grips with what climate really requires any more, because it just goes against previous trends. We started out worrying about whether there was enough fossil fuel. We had the oil crisis. We tried to reduce energy consumption. As I say, we were then we were told, "Oh, just reduce CO2 emissions by 60% and we will be OK", and "Just reduce them by 80% and we will be OK". Now there is a much harder and non-traditional objective. It is no longer "Conserve" and "Cut" — it is just, "Get to net zero". As I say, for that, we will have new terms of reference.

It may seem as though that is a pretty radical way of doing it, but the US sets a good example on that. We have John Kerry saying that 50% of the technologies that we will need have not been developed yet, and the most recent climate change Bill proposals in the US propose having four direct air capture (DAC) centres. It proposes a lot of other things, but particularly for getting to net zero, it proposes having four direct air capture centres, each capturing one million tons a year of CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it permanently. We can see that people are grappling with the new realities and facing up to the fact that we will have to do things that do not make any sense at all in the view of energy conservation; they are being done purely for climate and to get to net zero.

In that context, as I say, Northern Ireland does not have access to secure geological storage as readily as other parts of the United Kingdom. It is only reasonable that that storage takes place in areas where it can happen at lower cost. As I say, the carbon dioxide does not need to be the same carbon dioxide as you emitted; it is perfectly reasonable to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere anywhere in the world in order to offset other warming effects. The 82% target set by the Committee on Climate Change, which has oversight of all the UK's emissions, should be taken extremely seriously. As I say, it is perfectly reasonable that Northern Ireland

because it does not have the tools to do the job. It really does not. That is just a factor of geography and geology.

Having said all that, I think that, in looking at integration with the rest of the UK, we see that there are at least two possibilities for participation in the economy that will deliver net zero. One is the use of decarbonised energy vectors from the rest of the economy, some of which will be produced with the help of CCS. It is important in your legislation to think about the extent to which you will have decarbonised electricity imports and possibly decarbonised hydrogen or even ammonia imports. Those should not be ruled out because they could be a valuable way to achieve that challenging target.

I also mention the use of biomass to achieve negative emissions. You cannot or should not force the use of biomass beyond reasonable availability. At the moment, the UK imports biomass from the United States to use in power plants as pellets. I see no reason why properly resourced biomass from Northern Ireland should not be used in the same way. I know that you can use biomass locally to generate energy, but the best use of it for climate is to take it to a point where it can be used with carbon capture and storage, thereby removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Even allowing for any losses in transport, you will get much better climate benefits by doing that. Again, that ought to be considered and put into the balance.

Overall, when you are looking at net zero, you should think about it as a matter of economics, not one of infinite carbon price that drives any particular activity. You can think what to do. It may well pay significantly to reduce emissions, but, when you are pushing it really hard, do not try to reduce the emissions directly from one place and instead sometimes remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere elsewhere in the world. The climate will not know the difference.

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): Thank you for that informative and detailed presentation. We will move around the room. The first member who wants to ask a question is Philip McGuigan.

Mr McGuigan: My apologies, Jon. Either your internet or mine caused bits and pieces of your evidence to go missing. It is most likely my internet.

You made reference to the CCC report, which says that a net zero target is not achievable for the North without a disproportionate amount of carbon capture and storage technology being in place here. It makes sense to me that you should place that technology where it is most needed, which, according to the CCC report, is the North.

Regardless of that, given the development of projections on the future climate change technology that you outlined — you referenced John Kerry in the US and the likelihood of probably millions of pounds being invested in that technology — is it possible that all that can contribute to net zero here? You said that, obviously, the most important factor in all this is reducing carbon emissions. I read a report at the weekend about how companies and maybe particular Governments will use technology as an excuse not to reduce carbon. We must reduce carbon, first and foremost, and use technology only in instances where that is not possible.

Professor Gibbins: Getting to net zero will be very expensive. It is a challenge. We have a limited time to do it in. I really hope that we cut emissions as fast as we can and do not put the burden on future generations to pull it back out of the atmosphere.

However, it is just a matter of net emissions. The climate really cannot tell if you have put CO2 into the atmosphere in one place and taken it out somewhere else. It just cannot tell the difference. It is exactly the same. It is a matter of economics, and I cannot suggest too strongly that you look at it objectively. The priority is to avoid dangerous climate change. It is not particularly to cut emissions from one source in one part of the world. It is about getting an overall result, so it becomes a matter of economics.

It is very important to develop the technologies to remove CO2 from the air. At the moment, people are looking at it not for serious removal, because there are cheaper ways to cut CO2 emissions in the short term, but given that it will be needed, it is very important to get on with it and get the cost down.

That is all I am saying. The climate genuinely cannot tell the difference whether you remove it at source or elsewhere.

Mr McGuigan: Specifically in relation to here, could you describe the limitations that you see facing the advancement of the technology or its capabilities over a five-to-10 year period?

Professor Gibbins: We expect to see the first plants going over a five-year period. At the moment, in the United States, Oxy Petroleum and Carbon Engineering are working on a plant at the million ton scale, and there may be one at the four million ton scale. I expect to see some technologies developing fairly rapidly. There is quite a lot of interest from companies like Microsoft. Microsoft is looking at reducing not only its own current emissions but its historical emissions. Bill Gates is supporting the Carbon Engineering project. I think that technology will soon be rolled out quite a lot, and you may find that people will be offered the scope to just capture their annual emissions. If you are talking about costs of hundreds of pounds a ton and five or 10 tons a year or whatever it is, that would, for some people, be a reasonable luxury expenditure. I think we will see that developing. We are not looking to get to net zero until 2050, and, in the longer term, the roll-out of the process will essentially be seen as a national activity to underpin the commitment to net zero.

I am not saying that this will get you to net zero in five or 10 years, but, whatever we do, we will not get to net zero in five or 10 years. What I am saying is that, when we are looking at longer-term trends over several decades — we need three decades to get to net zero — if you want to get to net zero by cutting every possible source of CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions, you will, first, fail because you will find it impossible, but, secondly, it will cost huge amounts of money and, in fact, you will alienate a number of people in trying to get there. If you say, "We have to get to net zero. That is not negotiable, but there are ways of doing it that involve spending money for no benefit other than the climate", we will have a way ahead and it will deliver; in fact, it will deliver the unfortunate likelihood that we have to get net negative emissions as well.

Mr McGlone: Thanks very much indeed, Jon. I found that very illuminating. You are clearly an expert in your field; I read your CV. You referred to two elements, the first of which is the use of decarbonised energy. Can you talk me through what that is? The second element is the use of biomass in carbon capturing. Can you talk me through what you mean by that as well, please?

Professor Gibbins: Sure. Obviously, you cannot capture CO2 from people's houses, for example, or from small factories, and you cannot capture and store CO2 directly if you do not have access to a pipeline system to take it to geological storage. I should say that geological storage is porous rock layers a kilometre down offshore in the UK — the sort of places that have held oil and gas for many millions of years. If you do not have that, you need to use a fuel or energy source that does not emit CO2, and that is basically electricity or hydrogen. Those are the only two options, and, as you probably know, in the UK, we are looking at using greater electrification in a lot of industries and at using heat pumps in houses instead of central heating. For some industrial applications that need high-temperature heat, we are looking at using hydrogen and considering that for use in houses. The jury is still out on whether electrification or hydrogen is preferable in some areas.

A lot of the low-carbon electricity or hydrogen, in particular, will come from clusters with CCS and will be distributed throughout the country. My advice was, tying into the general tenor of the current proposals, that you should make it perfectly reasonable to import carbon-free energy vectors from elsewhere in the UK or even from across the border. There may well be feasible carbon capture and storage clusters in the South of Ireland. You should just be aware that you may need to bring in things from outside, and that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, so do not rule it out.

The point about biomass is that, when you look at the climate benefit, you see that there is an overwhelming advantage in using biomass with carbon capture and storage, where the carbon dioxide, instead of being emitted to the atmosphere, is put away permanently. When you think about it, you find that it does not matter where the carbon dioxide came from: if a molecule of carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere that could otherwise not go into the atmosphere, there is one molecule less.

As far as warming is concerned, that is it. Whether it came from biomass or fossil fuel and did not go into the atmosphere, it is all the same.

What you find if you do the climate accounting is that, even though you will have some other emissions in the whole life cycle of transporting biomass to a point where you can use it with carbon capture and storage, that is vastly offset by the net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. That also gets over some of the issues that you will always have with residual CO2 emissions. Generally, it depends on land use, but, quite often in biomass production, you will have some residual CO2 emissions. Again, in most cases and in the cases you will use, those will be less than the amount of CO2 that you can capture where it is burned and stored. The limits on the reasonable use of biomass with carbon capture and storage to give you a net removal from the atmosphere are the availability of biomass itself. It is a limited resource. It competes with food and water. Nonetheless, there are places where it can be produced. A properly managed woodland system can be an asset to a landscape and in providing jobs. Taking the carbon away is much more secure than leaving it in situ. By and large, wood that is left lying around will turn into CO2, and it will do that within, at most, a century. A century is a blink of an eye for the climate. It will take about 10,000 years to remove all emitted CO2 from the atmosphere. We have to look at the permanence of carbon lock-up for those sorts of times in order to avoid passing problems on to future generations.

As I say, the UK is importing biomass from the United States at the moment to meet EU targets on renewable generation. There is no reason why we should not look at importing CO2 from Ireland. You may take the view that, in order to do that, it has to be subsidised, but we do subsidise land management in a lot of ways. Funding land management to provide CO2 removal activity is a reasonable way of doing that.

Mr McGlone: OK. Thanks very much indeed, Jon.

Ms Bailey: Thank you, Jon. I really wish we had more time for a much longer discussion with you.

Professor Gibbins: We can arrange that later, Clare. It is always welcome.

Ms Bailey: That is good to know. I completely hear what you say. Do you feel that it is more economically viable, less problematic and just as important to try to reduce carbon and head for net zero rather than focusing on the date, be it 2045, 2050 or 2100? It is all about moving towards net zero.

Professor Gibbins: The date is important when we get to net zero; as you know, the means are not so important. The amount of CO2 that we have emitted before we get to net zero is important, not the date. The climate science says that the ultimate warming you will see is a linear function of the cumulative amount of CO2 emitted. That is in the latest IPCC report. This is a bit of a plug. We had a lecture this morning from Myles Allen from the University of Oxford, who was involved in the IPCC report and was, in fact, quite influential in getting that cumulative carbon message across. He gave a lecture to civil servants and people from the UKCCSRC, and that will be available on our website.

What is really important is the cumulative amount of CO2 that is emitted before we get to net zero. That is important because, if it is more than the amount that the climate can tolerate in getting to an acceptable level of warming, we put the burden on future generations to either tackle the problem of climate change, which they do not want, or to take the risks of solar radiation management, which I would not want to put on anyone, although it may be the best of a lot of bad alternatives. Even with solar radiation management, they will have to take CO2 out of the atmosphere to stabilise the situation. That is an unwarranted cost to put on future generations. It is better to get on with it and do it now. If we are going to leave them with that problem, it is a good idea to develop the technology to the point of maturity so that it is available at a reasonable cost. It is really unfair on future generations to leave the development of carbon dioxide removal technologies until they are absolutely needed. It is not right. You have got to get the cost down now.

Ms Bailey: So, it is about getting to net zero as fast as possible.

Professor Gibbins: No. I said that what matters for the climate is how much CO2 is emitted cumulatively before we get to net zero and what we have to do afterwards. You could get there quickly, but, if you emit a lot of CO2 in getting there, there is a problem. You could get there slowly. It would not necessarily be reasonable to get there slowly, but you could get there slowly and still have relatively low cumulative emissions over that period. The science talks about the amount of CO2 that has gone into the atmosphere, and, because it is cumulative, net zero is only a point in the debate. When you get to net zero, you will find that the atmosphere has a certain amount in it, but, if it is too much, you can and you will have to pull it out again. That is the science. Most of the IPCC scenarios for warming of 1·5°C assume that we will pull CO2 out of the atmosphere in the second half of the century.

Ms Bailey: With our natural environment, Northern Ireland does not have the capacity to embed a lot of the technologies. We look at the CCC and take it seriously, and its trajectory for the UK reaching net zero involves a lot of technology, such as geoengineering, that Northern Ireland does not have the capacity to embed for a number of reasons. This may not be your area, but I assume that the Republic of Ireland is as hampered as NI when it comes to taking advantage of those technologies.

Professor Gibbins: Sorry, it is not technology that you need — everybody has the ability to use the technology — it is geology that is the problem. You need to have a sedimentary basin with sandstone layers in it that are porous and that hold CO2 in the pores. Those sandstone layers need to be sealed with mudstone, which is a slate-like material, or with salt layers. In the same way as you do not have natural gas and oil, you tend not to find that formation here. There is some off the south of Ireland, and Cork is being looked at as a possible CCS hub for the Republic of Ireland.

If you cannot access storage directly with a pipeline because a site is too far away, you can look at shipping CO2. That is being seriously considered. That is the way Norway is handling its CO2. It ships it from Oslo halfway up the west coast. Sweden is proposing to do a major cement plant retrofit by shipping the CO2 to the same point. It is possible; the issue is money. That said, you do not have the large industrial sources that merit capturing and transporting CO2. If you are looking at counteracting the effect of methane emissions, that is not a matter of CO2 capture; it is a matter of greenhouse gas or CO2 removal from the atmosphere to give you an equivalent correcting effect.

Ms Bailey: Thank you very much.

Professor Gibbins: It is probably easier to take the CO2 in the form of biomass to a point where it could be used, or you could use it in a biomass power plant in Northern Ireland and take the CO2 to a point where it could be stored. That is something to debate, and it could be cheaper. You have the ability to grow things, so, where it makes sense, you should at least consider managing the landscape to capture the CO2 in biomass and look very seriously at the permanence with which that captured CO2 is stored in the long term. The storage needs to be permanent. If the CO2 is stored for only 100 years, that just passes the burden to a future generation. Unfortunately, with warming, it is likely that CO2 that has been locked up in landscapes will disappear.

Ms Bailey: OK. Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Mr McAleer): Jon, that was extremely interesting and helpful. I thank you very much for your attendance and wish you a good day.

Professor Gibbins: Thank you.