Renewable Energy Development Agency (Establishment) Bill (Hansard, 7 June 1988)

§ Mr. Frank Cook (Stockton, North)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish an independent agency responsible directly to Parliament for the research, development, application, demonstration and monitoring of clean renewable sources of energy together with ways and means of proving and improving techniques of energy efficiency and fostering their positive adoption. I arrived at the House today in a horseless carriage. Had that arrival been 150 years earlier, it would have had to be by steam-driven omnibus. Fifty years later it might have been by a bone-rattling car propelled by a spluttering internal combustion engine and accompanied, perhaps, by an attendant on foot with a red flag and a spotty dog. In whichever case, it would have been considered hazardous, unreliable, troublesome and very expensive. Today's horseless carriage, however, is considered quite safe, relatively reliable, comparatively clean and almost cheap.

The transformation between then and now was no accident; it came about as a result of investment in applied research and positively driven development, often motivated by the need of the military to react to some threat, either perceived or imagined. In the case of the infant transport technology, the allocation of such resources brought it from its stumbling beginnings to the effortless means of movement that we use today. Other technologies, particularly in renewable energy, have not had the same military-led stimulus and support.

Despite this lack of positive encouragement, some renewable sources of energy have established themselves as economic—or as near to being so as to brook no argument. In this category I would place direct biomass combustion, anaerobic digestion with added feedstock, small and medium-scale wind turbines, passive solar building design, tidal power, conventional geothermal from aquifers, photovoltaic small units, solar water heating and mini-hydro schemes. Other forms as yet less well established but still worthy of the commitment of the resources are the large-scale wind turbine, biomass gasification, hot dry rock, large-scale photovoltaic and, of course, wave power.

I travelled, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) and the hon. Members for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) and for Erewash (Mr. Rost), to Tofteshallen, in Norway, to witness wave power being tamed to deliver electricity. We went by "sometime machine"—an aeroplane. It used to be called a sometime machine because it could only fly sometimes; initially it could not fly in fog or snow, in ice or rain, at night or in high winds. We flew that day through the most miserable winter weather and in the dark, and were able to do so because the sometime machine had been developed as a result of the quest for military dominance.

Having arrived at Tofteshallen, we looked upon two exciting applications of wave power, although there are others. Built into the cliffs there was the multi-resonant water column. Of semi-tech scale and hideously noisy, built of base steel as a prototype, it roared and vibrated as if in agony, as waves rising and falling inside the large metal cylinder alternately drove and drew the column of air through the Wells turbine that sits atop its steel stack. 739 All this din and drama produced electricity somewhat unsteadily but at 2.5p per kilowatt hour—cheaper than our best stations.

Immediately adjacent was the tapered channel—known as Tapchan. This computer-designed chute collected waves rolling in from the Atlantic and funnelled them from its gaping mouth to its ever-tightening throat. The waves, as if rejoicing in the opportunity to display their natural vigour, surged even faster landward up the concrete course, crashing against the solid terminus with a booming sound and spurting leap into the air, to come down as a spectacular dowsing shower into the landlocked lagoon that formed the gullet. This brilliant, inspirational and rhythmic rainbow display at the seaward gatherpoint contrasted starkly with the very placid character of the same lagoon at its innermost point, where water was smoothly siphoned from the still surface to be passed in the steadiest of streams, again through a Wells turbine and again producing electricity at less than 2.5p per kilowatt hour and in relentless style.

Both of these demonstration stations draw heavily on British technology. The Wells turbine was developed at Queen's university, Belfast, and the conceptual designs were British-born too. Both were built, together with the access road to the site, for a total cost of £1.2 million equivalent. And while the Norwegians were doing that, we were spending £2 million—almost twice as much—to produce a report centimetres thick that told us that our wave technology was not viable and was unworthy of development.

The Norwegians have hydroelectric capacity in abundance producing power that is dirt cheap for the consumer, so why should they go to such lengths to prove and improve our technologies? The answer is simple and twofold: jobs and export potential; jobs for a work force trained in the basic skills needed for a shipbuilding industry and the North sea oil and gas field requirements—industries that in Norway are declining and face the possibility of extinction by the turn of the century, jobs that are not just the high-tech, white-coated-boffin type, but the basic skilled manual jobs of the City and Guilds variety that every industrial community in the north and south of England, Scotland and Wales pleads for every day; export potential in the markets around the world among nations that recognise the benefits of renewables more readily than we in the United Kingdom do—not just Third world countries but nations such as the United States and Japan, export potential of equipment that is not the apparatus of technological dominance and high-tech imperialism but more the source of power that Third world peoples can understand readily, manage independently, operate safely and afford more easily. Export orders have already been secured by Norway for both types of wave-powered generator, and a tenfold increase in scale to 10 megawatts is planned for the multi-resonant water column.

Clearly, as inventors and innovators, we lead in renewable engergy, and that is acknowledged worldwide. However, as developers we present a portrait of unsurpassed indolence and neglect. Hence the need for the agency that I propose. It is needed to turn the undoubted promise of renewable energy and improved technological efficiency into reality. It is needed simply because the current framework is not up to that task.

Since the inception of the energy technology support unit we have laid out through its offices something like 740 £150 million on a 1986 base on renewable research and development—that is, on all renewable R and D. At first this sounds a lot of money, but we need to put it in perspective.

Since 1958, on the same base, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has expended £16.3 billion on nuclear R and D. To assess this clearly, we can view it as £1 spent on renewables for every £1,100 spent on nuclear. And £8.7 billion of that £16.3 billion was channelled through the Department of Energy. It is interesting to note that in the same period nuclear stations in the United Kingdom have delivered a total of 700 billion kilowatt hours. Ipso facto, in crude mathematical terms, the Department of Energy has expended 1.25p of taxpayers' cash on United Kingdom nuclear R and D for every kilowatt hour ever produced from United Kingdorn nuclear stations—a figure not accounted for in today's costings. In fact, the current rate of spend on nuclear R and D, even if we write off all previous investment, is estimated at 0.35p per kilowatt hour delivered. That is a hidden subsidy of major proportions. I do not decry such expenditure; what I criticise is the fact that more was not spent earlier on forms of energy transfer that are potentially safer, cleaner, cheaper and more efficient.

But cash is not the sole criterion. There are another three important reasons why a new agency is urgently needed. First, despite some excellent research work administered by the ETSU, renewable energies are entering a new phase, in that many forms are close to commercial viability, as I have already stated. However, businesses, Government Departments and the public generally know little, if anything, about them. Research work, together with its problems and solutions, needs to be promoted positively and disseminated widely. The ETSU is not geared to achieve that end.

Secondly, there are many institutional barriers to progress in respect of renewables. They include the well documented failure of the Energy Act 1983 in relation to electricity tariffs, the unfair levying of water and general rating charges on renewable energy installations, and the failure of statutory building regulations to reflect the promise of passive solar heating and the potential benefits of the most modern energy efficiency measures.

Thirdly, given that the ETSU is part of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, and that, following privatisation, renewables are destined to rival nuclear power, there is an unavoidable clash of interest. As the Energy Select Committee argued in 1984, the ETSU's formal status——