Labour favours “green gas” after election

If Labour wins the next election it will make a song and dance about “green gas” as a cheap and green source of heating. That’s according to the party’s Shadow […]

If Labour wins the next election it will make a song and dance about “green gas” as a cheap and green source of heating.

That’s according to the party’s Shadow Energy Secretary Caroline Flint, who gave a speech yesterday describing green gas as a “big overlooked area” in energy policy.

Ms Flint said: “If we are elected next year, we will ask the Committee on Climate Change, with National Grid, to report by the end of 2015 with advice and recommendations for the policy and regulatory reforms needed to maximise the potential for the development of green gas.”

She said “greening” the gas network could improve energy security, cut carbon emissions and be a solution to waste management as landfill space declines.

Ms Flint told the audience at the Gas Industry Awards: “It could do all of this using the existing infrastructure – the gas grid – which has already largely been paid for by consumers. It doesn’t require new heating systems in people’s homes or new network infrastructure.”

The Labour MP’s Don Valley constituency is home to the first commercial biogas plant connected to the grid at Hatfield Woodhouse.

The £8 million plant in Doncaster processes crops like maize to make 12,000 cubic meters of biomethane. This is injected into the National Grid. The grid operator expects to hook up another 80 plants like this in the next four years.

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