Thursday, September 08, 2022
Fracking hell
As we wait for the long overdue statement on how the UK Government plans to tackle the cost of living crisis, one proposed meausre stands out, the reintroduction of fracking. Now nobody is disputing the need to find alternative sources of energy but this proposal falls down on several levels.
As the new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng said months ago when he was business secretary in the previous government, fracking will “take years of exploration and development before commercial quantities of gas can be produced for the market and will certainly have no effect on prices in the near term”. It is not a short-term fix.
What it does do, assuming that it can be got to work on a sufficient scale, is extend the reliance on gas, when we should be developing other long-term sources of energy, such as tidal, solar, wind and even nuclear.
We also need to be looking to meet climate change targets, not go backwards. Fracking extracts a greenhouse gas; it adds to global warming at a time when we want to cool things down. It is also environmentally damaging, polluting huge amounts of water at a time when rainfall levels are in decline and droughts are going to become more common.
But the key phrase in the Minister's statement is when he says that “community consent” would “lie at the heart of our energy policy”.
As the new chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng said months ago when he was business secretary in the previous government, fracking will “take years of exploration and development before commercial quantities of gas can be produced for the market and will certainly have no effect on prices in the near term”. It is not a short-term fix.
What it does do, assuming that it can be got to work on a sufficient scale, is extend the reliance on gas, when we should be developing other long-term sources of energy, such as tidal, solar, wind and even nuclear.
We also need to be looking to meet climate change targets, not go backwards. Fracking extracts a greenhouse gas; it adds to global warming at a time when we want to cool things down. It is also environmentally damaging, polluting huge amounts of water at a time when rainfall levels are in decline and droughts are going to become more common.
But the key phrase in the Minister's statement is when he says that “community consent” would “lie at the heart of our energy policy”.
Previous attempts at fracking led to minor earthquakes in Lancashire, the equipment used is very intrusive and concerns about the process in communities is very high.
The more I think about this announcement, the more it seems like a PR exercise to make us think the government is doing something, when they know that the chance of it actually happening is very slim.
So, let's put the press releases to one side for a change and start developing realistic alternatives to gas, that will help keep the price down in the long term and reduce our dependence on foreign powers.
So, let's put the press releases to one side for a change and start developing realistic alternatives to gas, that will help keep the price down in the long term and reduce our dependence on foreign powers.
