Prime minister renews his support for exploiting shale gas as MPs
call for moratorium and anti-fracking campaigners protest in Westminster
David Cameron has rejected calls for a moratorium on fracking from senior MPs, including his former environment secretary Caroline Spelman, saying the US shale gas revolution can be repeated in the UK.
The prime minister’s renewed backing for increasingly controversial
shale gas exploration comes at the start of a pivotal week for the
industry, with key votes by parliament on Monday and Lancashire County Council from Wednesday.
Monday also saw the revelation in the Guardian of George Osborne’s instructions to cabinet minister to make “personal priorities” of dozens of interventions to fast-track fracking, including the delivery of numerous “asks” from shale gas company Cuadrilla.
“I want to see unconventional [shale] gas properly exploited in our
country,” said Cameron, during a visit to Hampshire on Monday. “I think
there are good reasons for doing this. We want to have greater energy
security, we want to keep prices down, we also want to tackle climate
change.”
“The most important thing that needs to happen is for some
exploratory wells to be dug and all would see local communities are
benefiting from it,” added Cameron, who has previously said the
government is “going all out”
for fracking. “I think it’s only then that we will see that people in
this country see that it works in America and it can work here.”
Opponents of fracking argue that high-pressure fracturing of rocks to
release gas risks health and
environmental impacts and will undermine
the country’s climate change goals. Lord Nicholas Stern has dismissed the idea that fracking will cut UK gas prices as baseless.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside parliament on Monday to
oppose law changes aimed at easing fracking, such as removing the right
of homeowners to object to fracking under their properties. John Ashton,
until recently one of the government’s top climate change diplomats,
told the crowd that the government-industry fracking drive was not just
an attack on the environment but also on democracy.
The environment audit committee report
published on Monday calls for a temporary ban on shale gas exploration
on the grounds that it is “inconsistent” with the UK’s stated climate
change targets. The EAC report also concluded that, by the time any
fracking industry was able to produce significant gas, legal limits on
carbon emission would be too strict for it to be burned and that “an
extensive range of uncertainties” remained over water and air pollution
risk.
The Labour
party will also force a commons vote on a ban on Monday unless 13
regulatory issues it sees as loopholes are closed, including fracking in
nature reserves and drinking water catchment areas.
The EAC’s call for a fracking ban has split academic experts, with
some seeing its report as showing “refreshing integrity” while others
dismissed is as “ill-informed”.
“Shale hydrocarbons are becoming a textbook example of how to develop
England backwards,” said geologist and carbon-capture-and-storage
expert Prof Stuart Haszeldine, at the University of Edinburgh. “The
government has imposed development from the top, to help companies,
against the wishes of residents, and whilst unresolved conflicts and
uncertainty remain with scientific and health evidence. Even though it’s
possible that drilling, fracking, production, and borehole sealing can
be achieved safely, residents need to feel included, not excluded.”
“Public trust in regulations is absolutely essential if shale is to
play any significant role in the UK,” said Prof Jim Watson, at the UK
Energy Research Centre and who has previously warned against fracking hype.
“This may not require a blanket moratorium, but it may mean delays to
licensed shale gas activities to allow such monitoring to be carried
out.”
Prof Paul Ekins, at University College London and whose work recently showed three-quarters of existing fossil fuel reserves are unburnable
if climate change is to be tackled, said he supported a moratorium
until it was clear fracking was consistent with carbon emission targets
and environmental protection. The should be clear policy ensuring the
gas replaced more polluting coal and confidence that leaks of methane, a
potent greenhouse gas, could be stopped.
However, the proposed moratorium was opposed by Prof Michael
Bradshaw, at Warwick Business School: “It will do nothing to resolve the
current stalemate over the question of developing the UK’s shale gas
potential. What is required is a precautionary approach that judges each
drilling application on its merits and monitors its impact, which, in
time, will result in a much more informed debate than we currently
have.”
He said: “The real problem is that David Cameron’s statement that:
‘This government is going all out for shale’ appears to have thrown
caution to the wind.”
“All fossil fuel production involves risk to the environment, and
that is managed,” said Prof David Manning, president of the Geological
Society of London. But he said large shale gas production would need
carbon capture and storage technology to be rolled out to bury
climate-warming emissions.
Quentin Fisher, professor of petroleum geoengineering at the
University of Leeds, said: “It is disappointing to see [the EAC] putting
the ill-informed views of anti-fracking groups ahead of evidence-based
scientific studies. In particular, the report totally overstates the
dangers of shale gas extraction such as groundwater pollution, health
risk and geological integrity.”
But Prof Kevin Anderson, a climate change expert at the University of
Manchester, said: “Numerous reports have conveniently sidestepped how
the UK government’s enthusiasm for shale gas is incompatible with its
international commitments on avoiding “dangerous climate change”. It is
therefore refreshing to witness the integrity of the EAC in putting
science and maths ahead of short-term political goals.”
