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Draft National Policy Statement for Fossil Fuel Electricity Generating Infrastructure (EN-2)

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. I am happy to suggest that the Minister might like to include an answer to that in his reply. It is not for me to answer that. I have one question for the Minister before I come back to CCR. The question arises because it is clear from our information that a great deal of attention was paid to storage. That is an essential part of the whole process. In many parts of the world—there are already examples of this—the storage is going into what are called deep saline aquifers. The maps showing the availability of such geological formations around the world show them to be onshore. The vast majority of those that will be available will be onshore. My question arises from paragraph 4.7.1 of EN2, which states that applicants will need to demonstrate, ""that a suitable area of deep geological storage offshore exists for the storage of captured CO2 from the proposed combustion station"." Why? Why does that have to be offshore? If the deep saline aquifers are appropriate for the storage of imported gas, as the noble Lord made clear in his opening speech, why are they not equally appropriate for the storage of CO2? I simply do not understand. Paragraph 4.7.8 of EN-2 states: ""The captured CO2 is compressed, transported, then stored securely and permanently as dense phase CO2 in deep geological formations. The Government has made its view clear that at present only storage projects offshore are to be considered"." I ask: why only offshore? How long is "at present"? When will people using this technology be allowed to consider onshore storage, which may be very much nearer to where the plant is used, rather than piping it all to the coast and offshore? Perhaps the Minister may answer that question.