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Energy Bill

I have listened with great interest to the agricultural nature of this debate, but I think that it is now recognised that methane from abandoned coal mines is in fact biomethane. Those are not discrete pockets of methane lying there to be tapped but are the result of biological activity on the environmental coal faces. Here we have a considerable potential source of energy that, at the moment in this country, is hardly being tapped. To compare that with the position in Germany, the Germans have for some years given significant support to their coal mine methane industry, with the result that firms have invested substantially. I do not have a figure, but I have always been told that that is making a significant addition to the energy requirements of that country. This is not a carbon-free source; on the contrary, it is clearly carbon; but at the same time, it is a source of energy. It is a source that in effect utilises the coal without the deleterious consequences of burning the coal which, as we discussed the other day, until we have a proper economic carbon capture and storage process, gives rise to substantial emissions. Why are the Government so chary of giving support to what is at the moment in this country a fledgling coal mine methane industry? I have pursued this on an all-party basis with the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, and other noble Lords who, sadly, are no longer with us. We got enormous encouragement from Mr Michael Meacher, who was then the Minister—not at Defra. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will put me right. He was not shouted down, because they do not do that, but the civil servants sitting with him made it absolutely clear that there was no way that he could be allowed to support the coal mine methane industry in this country. We should be able to have an effective coal line methane industry. If not, why not? My only other point, following up the points made by my noble friend, is that when the Liverpool Garden Festival site was prepared, it was on the site known in Liverpool as the Cassy, otherwise the cast iron shore. It had been the dumping ground for waste of all kinds over centuries. When it was covered up to build the Liverpool Garden Festival on top of it, the methane generated by that waste was sufficient to provide a supply for 20 years. I am sure that the same happens elsewhere in the country, but the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, is right to say that methane could be an important addition to our armoury of energy sources—one which would be significantly less damaging than burning coal and which could, I believe, make a significant contribution to our well-being. I should like an answer from the Minister to the following question. If he cannot give it today, perhaps he will be kind enough to write to me. Why cannot the Government provide the same sort of support to the coal mine methane industry in this country that the German Government have given to their industry in that country?