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Energy White Paper

My Lords, I want to ask about two related areas in the White Paper. The graph on page 109 is alarming. It shows that by 2030 it is likely that we will be producing only about 10 per cent of the gas we produced in 2000. Even on the best case scenario for indigenous gas supplies, we will be importing the vast majority of our gas in the foreseeable future. Does that not cause a question to be raised about the dash for gas, as well as whether burning most of it in our power stations and thereby producing energy for essentially just one generation will be seen by future generations as rather short-sighted? Linked to that is the issue of carbon capture. Coal is out of fashion because of the absence of economic carbon capture technology. Can the Minister tell us a little more about where the problem lies? Is it in the separation of carbon dioxide from other flue gases, the transmission of carbon dioxide to a storage site, or the costs of actual storage itself? For all that it says, the White Paper does not come clean on where the problem is in this matter.