If you want Fracking, vote Leave

Letter published in the Daily Telegraph - 10 June 2016 - Fracts of Life

SIR – The four biggest economic drivers for the development of shale gas all have the potential for leaving the country and the average person in the street more financially secure.

These are: better energy security; improved balance of payments resulting from lower gas imports; tax revenue (to replace that which used to come from the North Sea and car fuel taxes) and, finally, economic growth, with new jobs, especially in northern areas where they are most needed.

The economic difficulties that experts from both sides of the debate seem to be predicting if Britain leaves the EU will make it almost impossible for the Government not to fast-track shale gas in order to bolster the economy. Consequently, a vote to leave the EU is a clear vote for shale gas.

Moreover, Britain’s excellent environmental regulations are to a large extent the result of sustained EU pressure. Take away that oversight, and any government with its back to the economic wall might reasonably exempt the shale gas industry from some of them, for the sake of the country, but not the countryside.

Everything is on hold until the EU referendum day. Only then will it be clear that Brexit equals Fraccess.

Shale Gas and Brown-field sites

The planning process is now complete in Kirby Misperton and its various disparate advocates have withdrawn to make their plans; Third Energy to plan their fracking tests, other companies to prepare their next proposals, and the opposing groups to demonstrate and disrupt. Green leafy Yorkshire, they say, is to be industrialised. Yet that was not the professional balanced judgement made by North Yorkshire’s planning officers.

            While it is true that modern fracking techniques use technology that is much more environmentally-friendly than ten years ago, and could access over 200 km² of land from a single location, using smaller pumps and more environmentally friendly fluids, anxieties remain. 

Surely, however small the impact of a fracking location would be on countryside, it behoves us to ensure they are, wherever it is possible, located in already industrialised brown-field sites. These are scattered around the countryside in surprising numbers, spread wide enough to enable all of the target rocks to be accessed. 

It would be better to have a well-pad in an existing light industrial estate where lorry traffic is already planned for than in a virgin leafy dell.

Public Engagement in the Shale Gas Debate - A note to the Prime Minister

More than 60% of British land might be subject to shale gas licensing according to today's Guardian.

Hence, there is a sizeable population of the UK who would and should be concerned about the implications that shale gas exploitation may have for them.

The main issues are all concerned with the environment and its protection, either for its own sake or for our own sake. They can be categorised as:

• Global (i.e., the effect of burning fossil fuels on the climate).
• Regional (e.g., earth tremors).
• Local (e.g., noise, transport inconvenience, water pollution, water availability, air pollution, social unrest, cost of housing).

There would also be benefits from shale gas at all of these levels, but often the debate centres around the threats rather than the benefits, which is only natural because most people prefer a ‘precautionary principle’ approach to assessing unfamiliar opportunities.

Unfortunately, sources of information are limited in availability, relevance, quality and trustworthiness. This results in opinions being formed on hearsay and based on anecdote, followed by a polarisation of views and the almost immediate inability of people with different views to debate the merits of shale gas properly.

For example, almost all of the ‘solid facts’ that are offered to me about the water pollution caused in the USA by shale gas exploitation on investigation turn out either not to be true or to be irrelevant to Europe. The much vaunted flaming water in the film Gas-Land turned out to be gas that existed in the aquifer long before shale fracking was ever carried out in the USA, and what was worse, its makers knew that when they mispresented it as being caused by fracking. How are we, therefore, to judge these disparate and sometimes contradictory pieces of information? One standard answer is to ask an expert – but which one?

Among the experts; the industry, environmental campaigners, politicians, lobbying groups such as Greenpeace, journalists and even scientists, all have their own agenda. They are driven by different desires and have their own natural biases. But what if you are not in any of these groups? What if you are a ‘normal’ person who just wants sufficient reliable evidence to make up your mind? How can you do that? You can pick an expert, but then you know what they are going to say before they tell you. One is forced into an unbalanced position without wanting to.

There are several blogs including this one and Frack-land that seek to provide balanced comment supported by scientific evidence, but frankly it is not enough. We desperately need information.

• It is clear that we cannot know whether there is sufficient economically feasible gas under the UK until we drill and frack many more wells than we have (at least 10 and probably 20).

• It is clear that we cannot know what the environmental risks are associated with drilling and fracking those wells until a comprehensive study is carried out on the first 10 to 20 wells in the UK.

In my view we should not freeze in the on-coming head-lights of shale gas. We should not dash for that gas either. We should walk into the gradual development of shale gas carefully, making high quality, relevant and useful measurements as we go, and making all results public.

In the UK (and elsewhere in Europe) we need:

• Reliable, relevant scientific data on all aspects of shale gas and coal bed methane (CBM) production.
• An independent body of sensible people to oversee shale gas development as well as to commission and analyse such studies.
• A database of all the scientific data, analysis and reports that is fully accessible to the general public (which is something that I have already asked the Prime Minister to provide).