This interview has been transcribed and edited for length and clarity.
Tim: I am Timothy Egan, the Canadian Gas Association’s President and CEO. We really appreciate this chance to chat.
MP Steve Baker: I am absolutely delighted to meet you.
Tim: First question is about local politics for you: you talk a lot about concerns in your constituency around hunger and poverty. There’s been a fair bit of talk about energy poverty in several places in Europe and now a little bit in North America as well. Do you think the hunger and poverty challenges in your constituency are related to energy issues or what is the cause? What do you think is going on?
MP: I wouldn’t have said it was the preeminent reason, but I would see it as a contributor. So, if I just were to step back — the previous chairman, who has just rotated out of the food bank, is a friend of mine at church. I’m well connected to the food bank and other people who run the food bank were at my church as well. So, I’ve understood there’s been a growing and serious problem of food insecurity in Wycombe [Buckinghamshire, UK] and partly because of the pandemic there was a big surge. Most of those people have moments of crisis, it is therefore a matter of really serious concern to me in the 21st century. We should better feed people. Sheffield Hallam University found Wycombe to be the most food insecure place in the UK and rather than argue about the method, I’ve accepted and leaned into that and said we need to do more. But what are the factors? I think because we’re so close to London, there’s a problem of very high living costs, but people in Wickham are not so well paid, plus high housing costs and energy costs will of course feed into it. If you’re a person on 20 something thousand pounds in the UK, then you’re going to struggle to make ends meet in Wickham. You’re just bound to. It’s an expensive place to live so anything on energy bills will concern me. I understand that we’re putting about 11 billion into renewables through energy bills right now in the UK with some of the biggest wind farms getting up to half a billion. I am very conscious in Wickham that people are not so well off…so we’ve got a bit of a problem now. The Prime Minister claims that the cost of renewables has been falling — he said that in an answer… in the House of Commons — but when [we] did the research — once you factor in the scale of the subsidy I don’t think you can sustain the argument that the price of wind has been falling — so we’re going to have to have a really serious conversation about energy poverty and what it means for people in constituencies like mine. But, knowing politicians, they’ll try to have it both ways… they’ll want action on food and fuel poverty but then they’ll also want net zero harder and faster and I’m afraid I think sometimes you have to accept you can’t have everything.
Tim: Recently, John Constable spoke before the House of Lords at some length about the cost of energy and the renewable subsidy and how much of the electricity cost in the UK it represented. We have a similar situation in Canada and one of the challenges is how do you tease this out to explain it to people and then to try to address it. What can you do for those who are suffering the most because the response of ‘provide assistance to them’ is often an easy response.
MP: If I may, pick up two threads there, the first thing I would like to see…is when bills go out, I would like to see a clear indication of what is tax, what is subsidy and what is actually the cost of the energy. That could be done with a pie chart or a stack bar chart or something that gives people a clear understanding…I would like to see that communicated with the public [so they know] what the cost of these things is. I think [that] would be a very good idea because we do need public consent and the second point about assistance — I mean, I’ve been making this point on the record when the UK looks at our future trajectory of debt, our budget watchdog — the Office for Budget Responsibility — does it every other year — they look at the long-term debt trajectory and they keep finding the public finances are unsustainable because of age-related spending and the coronavirus crisis has basically catapulted us forward about 20 years on that debt trajectory and that’s going to crystallize hard choices sooner. That’s why today we’ve got this vote going on with the national insurance bill because Boris [Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK] is facing waiting lists in the national health service of 10 million. [He] has reached for higher taxes but the point I’m making is all of these pressures on ordinary people can’t go on we can’t keep raising taxes we can’t keep imposing the cost of net zero and expect people to just wear it all. So, to your point about assistance, I mean the reality that politicians have got to face up to is that we are running out of other people’s money. That is the problem — tax is approximately in its historic limits in the UK and the debt trajectory is terrible…we’ve got to start asking serious questions about what it means to live within what we can afford.
Tim: The questions you raise are questions that are certainly occurring, I think, across the anglosphere, if I can put it that way, in Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand and the UK — very similar questions — and in all those countries, net zero was offered as this sort of necessary pursuit. As you noted it’s kept separate from the question of costs. What do you do to bring the two together? What do you do to help people understand the implications of net zero because on first blush it’s very appealing to a lot of people?
MP: Well, the idea, even if one were to set aside climate change — which we can’t — of basing the lives of billions of people on burning a finite resource would obviously be, in the long run, madness. On top of that, [it] has to be said, climate change is real, carbon dioxide is a contributor, human-emitted carbon dioxide is a contributor, [and] we should take action. I’m not challenging the science, so what I think we have to say to people is this is a conversation now about how we decarbonize. Now, there are people who do want to talk about the science. I find it very interesting — I do think sometimes the science is very badly misrepresented — I think that’s very clear. But… every time someone pivots from my questions about cost, back to why we need to do something, we should call that out. Talking about the science is about why and I’m not challenging why we need to do something, and actually I’m not challenging what we’re going to do, which is go to net zero. I’m not challenging those things…[but] let’s talk about how, because if there isn’t public consent for this enormous set of changes in our lives — the way we insulate and heat our homes, the cars we drive, the food we eat, the extent to which we can travel — it will affect our work as well — it’s so transformational in our lives. If there isn’t a serious public debate and public consent then I think we will have a terrible political rail. Right now in the UK and no doubt in Canada — you told me that there’s basically a political consensus that it should be done, the only question is how hard and fast — I think if you give no one a choice at the ballot box, you just store up trouble for later. That’s when you say ‘how are you going to do it?’ Well, I think we need to write the articles, we need to have the tv appearances, we’re going to need to have the debates in parliament, and just put before the public — this is what it’s really concretely going to mean in your life to do this — is this really what you want?
“[I]f there isn’t public consent for this enormous set of changes in our lives — the way we insulate and heat our homes, the cars we drive, the food we eat, the extent to which we can travel — it will affect our work as well — it’s so transformational in our lives.”
Tim: Well, we’re certainly in a very similar debate right now and in fact we’re in the midst of an election campaign1 and the parties are all tripping over one another to say how committed they are to achieving net zero, but there is no conversation about how. In the UK, the Prime Minister seemed very much on track to phase out natural gas as part of his [plan]. You and others have spoken to the challenges that represents — we followed that very closely as you can imagine. I was intrigued by how you managed to push open the conversation and make people realize that this has enormous cost implications for homeowners. How did it come about that the PM was focused on gas and how did you manage to succeed in pushing back?
MP: I wrote an article first for The Critic magazine, which is a monthly news magazine, and then I wrote for the Sun, which is a wide circulation tabloid newspaper — a very good one — and just pointed out the facts. I pointed out that the government plans to ban your gas boiler by 2035, saying you’ll be spending 10,000 pounds to heat your house [and] you’ll also need to spend thousands of pounds more on insulating, putting in new, bigger radiators, bigger pipes, perhaps under-floor heating — it’s an enormous undertaking — and, by the way, you might not be able to do it because you’re in a flat — so it was putting the facts before the public and we found that it was an open door. Once a popular newspaper had written up just what it was going to cost real people and actually say ‘on a cold night when the wind isn’t blowing, when you haven’t got gas, you could well find yourself shivering in the dark under a duvet’ — that’s the sort of image — and it’s pretty unarguable that if we’ve got unreliable electricity and no gas heating and we force people to spend all this money…it’s very clearly a reduction in living standards. I think that’s why the door opened. Once we [said] it in the Sun, I think it’s fair to say that the Telegraph also very much picked up on the cost for everyday people. What I find is people are always very wary — they think I’m going to be a climate change denier — which, of course, is a smear that I’m occasionally labeled with. But, it’s not true — I’m saying yes, I accept climate change science and we should do something. Basically, [I’m where] Bjorn Lomborg and Michael Schellenberger are — I know both — so…we should act — but it’s setting before the public something that matters in their life, that’s what’s made the big difference and the newspapers have been willing to get alongside that. I think from there we’ll end up having a serious conversation about what is done.
MP: That does appear to be the case, yes. I’m always reluctant to do too much claiming of glory but it does appear that if we hadn’t written in the Critic and the Sun, we would have just bobbled forwards, banning gas boilers very quickly and all the rest of it with its complacency. This is the problem that happens in politics when all the front benches agree, and all the main parties agree, complacency sets in, then scrutiny quits and costs are being forced on the public. The new extension of high-speed rail in the UK is another classic — all the main political parties agreed on it. Some of us said ‘it’s not going to be worth the money and by the way the costs will escalate extremely quickly.’ It’s all come to pass — the costs are wildly running out of control but there’s not been real scrutiny because the parties are all in, complacent in approving it, so I fear a repetition of that. But, what I do say is the public are not false, the newspapers are not false, and if politicians are brave enough to ask the questions: How is this going to work and how are we going to deliver? This is what it’s going to cost people — where will the costs fall? Can those people afford it? I think then, that newspapers and the public sphere will awaken in Canada as it has in the UK.
Tim: Well, I’m a bit more pessimistic about the situation in Canada. You have a much more robust and diverse media than have we and it’s difficult to get a story. I think many of the media outlets in Canada would be more along the lines of the Guardian on this sort of thing, so less likely to pick some stuff up.
MP: Far be it for me to lecture your own politicians, only a few of whom I have met, and I thought I’ve liked them all but I’m afraid my own experience in politics which is very often uncomfortable is that sometimes somebody within the political sphere’s got to push up against, as it were, the inside of the balloon and make a fuss… Yeah the Guardian hates me but I can work with that — I can work with their condemnation and scrutiny and loathing to get my story out and I’m afraid it’s going to take a brave Canadian politician to be willing to step into the lion’s den and say ‘Actually, you guys say you care about war and energy poverty, let’s talk about what your net-zero policy is really going to mean.’
Tim: Have you triggered much support from other backbenchers in the in the government markets?
MP: I’ve organized two groups of backbenchers and I’ve said to my colleagues I didn’t want to organize the third because it’s an awful lot of work so that is with my colleague Craig McKinley… I don’t know how many people are on it… but I have to say it’s not going to be a majority in parliament…Nobody should be under any illusions we are not going to be winning any votes in parliament over this. With the main political parties aligned it’s going to be much more like the experience with coronavirus, that we’re going to be a small band of outliers asking really quite tricky questions but reasonably and that I think will open up a public debate but we’re not likely to overturn an 80-seat majority in our parliament.
Tim: Back to the specifics around energy, hydrogen is another big part of the conversation in the UK on the emission reduction agenda. Canada also has a hydrogen strategy and industry is trying to work with government on it. What are your thoughts about the hydrogen opportunity in the UK? Do you have any advice for other countries that are exploring it, because I argue the UK’s in many respects, well advanced on that conversation.
MP: I’m actually enthusiastic about hydrogen. I’m an aerospace engineer and I can see the potential for hydrogen in aircraft and of course in cars. The speed of refuelling and the range — all that — I could be really enthusiastic for hydrogen. The problem is, of course, where’s it going to come from because anyone following this conversation will know that hydrogen’s not available free in abundance. I’m very concerned that if we go for hydrogen from natural gas that’ll be not at all carbon neutral, if we go for hydrogen from green hydrogen from the electrolysis of water that’s just so expensive. Using wind to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen and all the losses that are inherent along that process of going from wind to fuel cells — it’s just so fantastically expensive so occasionally someone will flirt with nuclear fusion but it does seem to me that until we’ve got the kind of abundance which new fusion seems to offer it does feel to me like I I’m just not sure where the hydrogen is coming from. My advice is to be realistic. I mean, yes, hydrogen but where’s it coming from? …An energy company came to see me and suggested that the government should enable a five per cent hydrogen blend in our gas system in order to create enough demand for hydrogen, to incentivize the big petrochemical companies to look how they could more efficiently produce it. That is an attractive suggestion but I still am pretty pessimistic that hydrogen can be produced cost effectively.
Tim: One of the cheapest ways to produce hydrogen now is directly from natural gas. The UK has always been a significant natural gas producer, you have enormous natural gas resources available, [but] fracking is incredibly controversial in the UK. Do you see an opportunity to develop those domestic resources?
MP: Do I see an opportunity? Yes, I absolutely do see an opportunity. One of my exquisite frustrations is that a constituent of mine, an engineer, claims that he’s got a drilling bit which can deliver shale gas without fracking. He, I think if I’ve understood correctly, argues that when you put the drill bit through, if it’s lubricated then the lubricant closes up the fissures in the shale so he’s got a drill bit that doesn’t require that kind of lubricant. As a result, when it goes through the shale, the gas immediately just starts flowing without any need for the frack job that’s controversial — you just drill the hole, out comes the gas. I’ve tried to present this to ministers because he’s of course got a regulatory impediment. No one’s going to invest in the final development of that drilling head … until they know that they can use it. So, he’s stuck in a catch-22. I’ve tried to get in to see ministers to present the possibility and ask for the regulatory change but they’re really not interested. That tells me that whatever the opportunity for secure, plentiful inexpensive gas supplies in the UK, ministers don’t want that gas. They want to leave it in the ground and I do personally find that very alarming. If we’re going to do hydrogen we need gas — we need our own gas for short-run energy security needs. There are all sorts of opportunities to use that gas and use it well and to improve the well-being and security of the British people. I’m alarmed actually that ministers don’t even want to take the meeting to hear about how it could be done without fracking and if they don’t want to do it without fracking then I don’t see them embracing the controversy of the frack even though it’s a very a very small seismic impact. I once interrupted a briefing in parliament here — a seismologist was explaining that a typical frack job is like dropping a carton of orange juice from waist height — and I stopped her to say ‘sorry did I really hear that correctly, a carton of orange juice from waist height?’ So, it does seem to me if that’s broadly true, then we’ve just got to make sure that fracking is done safely in relation to whatever geological features underground make it more difficult and we’ve got to be getting on with it. But, of course, everything’s propagandized — you see the taps with gas leaking out and all the rest of it, but we should have political courage to get through the propaganda and secure the energy supplies for the prosperity of the people that we set here to serve.
“There are all sorts of opportunities to use that gas and use it well and to improve the well-being and security of the British people.”
Tim: Yeah, it’s been fascinating here. We have extraordinary gas reserves in many places across the country and in places where conventional resources have been developed. And to the benefit of local communities, there’s much more openness to fracking because they understand the value proposition of developing the resource, whereas in those regions where there’s been no development of the resource the idea of fracking is just sort of anathema. So, I sense the UK is more like those latter situations in Canada.
MP: I have seen thoughtful Members of Parliament who I respect, be very fervently against fracking because that’s the democratic pressure that they are under and it feels a bit like this ship has sailed and that seems a pity. But, that’s why I’m quite enthusiastic about my constituent’s proposition for a drilling equipment that doesn’t need a frack because we’ve all got to accept that holes need to be drilled in the ground and if it can be done without fracking through the shell, then that seems to be quite exciting.
Tim: We’ve taken a lot of your time, is there anything else you’d like to comment on for our readers or for this piece?
MP: What I would say to readers is that the conversation that you have now is absolutely existential to our prosperity. Even though there are people enthusiastic to have detailed conversations about the science and…the tuning of climate models and how that makes a difference to even the sign of feedback mechanisms, but there’s no point having that conversation because it doesn’t capture the public imagination. So, I would say to people who want to have any kind of success in this conversation, to just let that go. They need to have the conversation about how it’s delivered because actually I dare say that politicians in Canada are not much better than politicians on the whole in the UK. They don’t tend to think through the detail of how something’s going to be delivered whether it’s the benefit system or healthcare reform or whatever. We tend to say what we want and why we want it and we might complain about what if we don’t get it, but as an engineer…I really care about how things are done. So, my advice would be to anyone who cares about prosperity and energy to have the conversation about how, and to be ruthless in refocusing the conversation on how, because that will expose the wishful thinking of people who have not considered the incompatible policy goals they have, dealing with energy poverty plus net zero, for example. That would be my main thing. It might be that it’s elected people who’ve got to be brave and have the conversation and my advice to them would be you can be brave as soon as you’re reasonable. The vast majority of electors will want their elected representatives to stand up for their prosperity so you can safely do that. …In politics you have to accept you’re not going to be able to satisfy everyone.
“[M]y advice would be to anyone who cares about prosperity and energy to have the conversation about how, and to be ruthless in refocusing the conversation on how, because that will expose the wishful thinking of people who have not considered the incompatible policy goals they have, dealing with energy poverty plus net zero, for example.”
Tim: I really appreciate your having taken the time, and hope we have another occasion to speak. Thank you.
- This interview took place on September 14, 2021, prior to the federal election held on September 20, 2021.