The political earthquake in Downing Street has delayed publication of a review into the scientific evidence around fracking for shale gas, which had been expected earlier this month. In the face of an urgent and intensifying energy crisis, that delay can only be bad news – or so the vocal media and political supporters of shale gas development would have you believe. (The Sun has published at least 14 editorials this year calling for UK fracking – one every fortnight.) Just this week, the Conservative leadership candidate Liz Truss suggested we should lift the UK’s ban on fracking as part of “doing all we can to lower the cost of energy for consumers”. But the case for fracking as a response to the energy crisis is about as solid as the final days of Boris Johnson’s premiership – and we don’t need a scientific review to tell us why. With soaring energy bills and inflation overwhelmingly being driven by record-high gas prices – and with renewables four times cheaper – it’s tough to argue that fracking is the answer. Even shale gas executives have not been prepared to claim their industry could cut energy bills. Even if energy security is our overriding concern in the short term, then there must be serious doubts over the potential for shale gas to come to the rescue. UK shale supporters keep saying fracking could make the UK self-sufficient in gas for 50 years – but they conveniently ignore evidence there’s far less gas available. Scientists from the British Geological Survey (BGS) – which is behind the government review – wrote in a 2019 peer-reviewed paper that the “maximum” amount of shale gas under the UK was 10 times lower than the level usually cited by fracking advocates, which had been estimated by the BGS in 2013. According to that best-case scenario, fracking would not produce enough gas to meet even 1% of UK demand for more than three years. After an immediate start, we would still have to wait until the late 2020s for more than 5% of UK demand to be met by domestically produced shale gas. The problem with UK shale gas as an answer to the energy crisis is that it is too uncertain and too slow to offer rapid respite. In contrast, millions of UK homes could cut their bills by up to £250 a year under this winter’s energy price cap – with no change in comfort – simply by changing a couple of settings on their boiler to reduce the heating “flow temperature” and turn off hot water “pre-heating”. It’s hard to believe there isn’t a major government-backed effort to inform the public about this easy opportunity to save money – it took me less than a minute to adjust my boiler.
Guardian 20th July 2022 read more »
The Good Law Project announced this morning it was supporting the community group, Protect Dunsfold, in its bid to challenge a government decision to allow exploratory drilling for gas on the edge of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Drill or Drop 21st July 2022 read more »
