§ Mr. GallieTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what publicly-funded bodies are currently carrying out research, within the United Kingdom, into alternative uses for coal.
§ Mr. EggarResearch into alternative uses of coal funded by the public sector in the United Kingdom is mainly undertaken at British Coal's coal research establishment—CRE—near Cheltenham and at its Point of Ayr coal liquefaction pilot plant, north Wales. Work in recent years has focused principally on coal liquefaction, the production of chemicals from coal by prrolysis, coal gasification and carbonisation undertaken at CRE. Both British Coal and my Department are contributing to the £41 million Point of Ayr project with additional public sector funding from the European Commission.
Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, research into alternative uses of coal is undertaken at a number of universities with funding from the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, Science and Engineering Research Council and the European Commission.
A substantial amount of research into alternative uses of coal has also been undertaken by the private sector in the United Kingdom with European Commission funding over the past few years. This includes work by British Gas on producing a synthetic natural gas from coal and work by British Steel on coal carbonisation.