Chamber and committees

You mentioned the storage scenario in summer, when there is lower demand for heat pumps and more capacity to store energy, but is the real issue not the fact that we need a basket of technologies with regard to electrification? The storage challenge becomes less of an issue if we are thinking about system-wide resilience across the entire year, with different balancing. However, I am also thinking of a situation in which someone with an air-source heat pump in their home is asking why they would also install a separate system that uses a different technology, such as hydrogen.

The focus is on project willow and Grangemouth, but I am also interested in Mossmorran. Nigel Holmes talked about the ethylene cracker at Mossmorran. Do you see hydrogen as part of that mix—whether it is blue or green hydrogen as fuel, or bioethanol as feedstock? Where does Mossmorran sit in that industrial complex?

Where is the incentive, then, to invest in more pilot projects? You will be aware of the H100 project in Leven, in my region of Fife, which is a proof-of-concept project. Are we at a point where we know a lot about hydrogen for home heating now? Is there a need to continue to look at those areas and do pilot projects, or have we now got quite firm conclusions internationally about the applicability of hydrogen for heating and where it does or does not make sense?

Thanks.

The session has been really enlightening so far. We have already had some discussion about sustainable aviation fuel and thermal generation as back-up, as well as the role of hydrogen in relation to that, but I want to return to the questions that I asked the first panel of witnesses about the hydrogen ladder or hierarchy. Do you think that there are particular sectors within that hierarchy on which it makes sense to focus investment? Are there sectors that face challenges? In particular, we talked about where domestic heating sits. I am also interested in what the international picture is in relation to some of those sectors.

I invite Jan Rosenow to answer first.

I want to go back to the issue of the export market to EU countries and the status of blue hydrogen in that mix. If blue hydrogen is going for export, will there be countries that want to buy it? Does it have integrity as a low-carbon form of hydrogen or are the market rules already shifting towards green hydrogen? How long will that blue hydrogen export market exist, does it have integrity now and will it continue to have integrity in the future?

All the witnesses are nodding; I will go to Simon Gill first.

Thank you very much—that is very useful.

I would like to go into a little bit more detail in this area. You will be aware that section 3 of the bill spells out the purposes for which ministers might use powers to amend both the EIA legislation and the habitats regulations. As you have already alluded to, the purposes, which are covered in sections 3(a) to 3(f), are pretty extensive, and I want to ask about a couple of them.

The purpose that is set out in section 3(b), which you have already touched on, is

“to facilitate progress toward any statutory target relating to the environment, climate or biodiversity that applies in Scotland ... including, in particular ... net zero”.

I am interested in getting some more thoughts on that, particularly in relation to the way that the habitats regulations currently operate, because I understand that a public interest test can be applied in that regard. I am interested in your thoughts generally on that purpose and on how the habitats regulations interpret other existential environmental concerns, such as climate change, and how that public interest test works. Does it work, or is there a case for reform? Is there an inherent conflict with what Governments are trying to do in relation to climate and nature?

On the back of that, I am interested in your thoughts on just transition. There are sectors of the economy that will have to change substantially, such as scallop dredging inshore and livestock production in areas where, if there was herbivore reduction, we could see large-scale nature restoration and woodland creation. There are difficult economic issues about how those sectors will transition away from what they are currently doing and take the jobs and skills with them—with people and with communities.

Is there enough of a focus? I think that one of the subject areas for targets that was dropped was citizen engagement, which, for me, is about just transition. There are some thorny issues in here around action and what prevents action. I am interested in your perspectives, looking at environmental change as academics, on where you see that societal change process and how you facilitate that—or is that more of a subject for colleagues in other departments?

Okay, but this is not a bill about environmental governance; it does not touch on environmental courts or other routes to justice. There is nothing in the bill on that subject—there are no powers in it around that.