Official Report 309KB pdf
The paper that the clerks are circulating suggests a two-phase approach to the energy inquiry. The first, fact-finding phase would end at the Christmas recess. After Christmas, we would have more formal evidence-taking sessions.
The paper outlines a good and useful range of visits. We should endeavour to take up all the offered visits, which should involve some or all of us, as the convener said. Christopher Harvie and I recently made trips to offshore oil facilities, so I would be happy to see other facilities with which I am less familiar.
Given that I have no head for heights, I might try to avoid anything that involves going up high, although I am afraid that that might be unavoidable.
It would be worth while when visiting Dounreay—if we can go there—to consider examining the decommissioning of nuclear power stations as a possible source of income. We have enormous expertise in that area and, whether we are in favour of or against nuclear power, we can make something of that.
That is an interesting point.
If a group visits the European Marine Energy Centre, I suggest that it should also visit the Dounreay facility in Caithness. The locations are merely a short ferry journey on the Atlantic apart. It would be useful to visit both locations because of the current effort in Dounreay to redirect skills into the renewables functions in the Pentland Firth.
We will certainly try to ensure that we link visits geographically so that we do not end up going all over the country on different days. Rob Gibson's suggestion is sensible.
I have recently been offshore to look at what is going on in the oil industry. It might be helpful for the committee to hold one of the three proposed round-table evidence sessions in Aberdeen, where there would be an opportunity to hear from oil and gas interests and from some marine renewables interests, both local ones and those from further north, which tend to use Aberdeen as a base.
That is an interesting suggestion and we will certainly investigate that option for one of the formal evidence sessions after Christmas. We have to bid for such visits.
I suggest that you consider inviting the North Scotland Industries Group to attend one of the round-table discussions, perhaps the imperatives one.
If you give the clerks more details about that suggestion, I am sure that it can also be considered.
That is appropriate, because the energy decisions that are now being made in Brussels tie in with our inquiry. It is the best possible timing to pick up on the decisions that Europe is making and to think about what Scotland could do to take a lead.
Domestic energy saving in households would be one issue to examine in Germany, as household use accounts for almost 50 per cent of our total energy consumption. It would be worth seeing the passive house in Germany and the industrialised building places that build them.
The clerks will be happy to take on board specific suggestions from members when they develop the programmes—once we have got approval to undertake the visits.
In Scandinavia, in addition to the energy efficiency side, there are interesting developments in energy generation. It would be interesting to examine new-generation nuclear and, if we are in the right part of Scandinavia, offshore carbon reinjection, which is part of the carbon capture and storage option at the Sleipner field in Norway. Those are useful suggestions and we could use them to cast the net more broadly.
Did EDF take it over?
Yes.
Why do we not go to France to see the bosses?
If we are going to Scandinavia, it would be useful to investigate how Norway husbands its oil resources and has used them to reinvest in renewables technologies, for instance. Stephen Boyd made the valid point that in Scotland a tiny proportion of the funding of Pelamis and all these other things that have now gone abroad—Wavegen in Inverness and so on—came from commercial operations. I would be interested to see how the financial model works in Norway and whether the state sector, from its oil funds, funds the development of renewables and so on.
We will take all those suggestions on board. There are also other options. It might not be possible to visit everything that we want to visit, particularly in Scandinavia, but if we want to get factual information and discuss how things are funded there may be an opportunity to take video evidence. We must ensure that we get the most out of the funding that we may or may not get from the Conveners Group and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.
That concludes the public part of the meeting. I thank the members of the public who attended the meeting and hope that they found it interesting.
Meeting continued in private until 12:47.