§ Lord Hardy of Wathasked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the estimates for the saving of carbon dioxide from the use of coal-mine methane and from wind power, both at the present time and at the end of the decade. [HL3464]
§ Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleCarbon savings from individual renewable energy technologies and coalmine methane are not available at present. There are no reliable figures of the amount of coal-mine methane vented at present upon which to base any estimates of emissions savings, although work on this has been contracted. It should be possible in future, once the 91WA renewables obligation is in place, to calculate the carbon savings by renewable energy as each renewable energy certificate will be assumed to have resulted in a saving of 0.12kg of carbon. The emissions savings resulting from coal-mine methane use are not as well defined, but for each kWh generated would be expected to be considerably higher.
We have estimated that 10 per cent renewables electricity by 2010 will lead to around 2.5 million tonnes of carbon savings a year by 2010. We have no equivalent figure for coal-mine methane as it is not clear how far the industry would have developed by then.