Howarth quizzes O'Brien on Clean Coal Technology, Energy and Climate Change

10.58.55am BST (GMT +0100) Fri 24th Apr 2009

• David Howarth (Cambridge, Liberal Democrat): ' . . WILL the Government now apologise to all those environmental campaigners who have been treated almost as if they were a terrorist threat over the past couple of years for putting forward a proposition that the Government now appear to be on the brink of accepting?'

Many of us who have long supported carbon capture and storage as the best option for an interim technology to get us through to a more renewable energy supply system will welcome the announcement. However, we have also long been worried about the Government's dithering on the issue, which we suspect might have something to do with the fact that the closest rival of carbon capture and storage is nuclear. Will the Government now apologise to all those environmental campaigners who have been treated almost as if they were a terrorist threat over the past couple of years for putting forward a proposition that the Government now appear to be on the brink of accepting?

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State, Department for Energy and Climate Change; North Warwickshire, Labour): I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman means by various environmental campaigners, because people in the green movement have all sorts of views on the issue. There are some in the green movement who have been strong advocates of carbon capture and storage and there are others who have said that under no circumstances can we have coal power generation in this country. As with other groups of people, there are differences. However, we need electricity generation for the future in which we ensure a base load of nuclear and a clear component of renewables. The problem of intermittency needs to be addressed and that can be done by having the flexibility that gas and coal-powered generation with carbon capture and storage can provide.

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