UK Government: Shale Gas Is In Britain’s National Interest

We as a Government believe that shale gas fits into the potential energy mix in the United Kingdom. Even as we move towards a less carbon-intensive future, oil and gas will undoubtedly remain a vital part of our energy system for many years to come. In that context, the Government are committed to ensuring that we maximise economic recovery of UK hydrocarbon resources, both offshore and onshore. We see it as in our national interest to maximise returns on our indigenous resources. We are moving to a situation where we are net importers of gas, and there is a multi-billion-pound benefit to the UK economy from optimising our resources. We are keen for that to happen. --Charles Hendry, The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, 3 November 2011

Tim Yeo, the former Environment Minister who is now chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, told The Times that the moratorium should be lifted. He argued that shale gas would help to reduce Britain’s growing dependence on imported gas. “Shale gas can transform the UK’s energy independence,” he said on the eve of a debate about the process in the Commons today. “It gives the UK the chance to be as independent over its gas supplies as we were at the end of the last century thanks to the North Sea. On balance, the risks are still worth taking.” --Tim Webb, The Times, 3 November 2011 There is real potential in the shale gas reserves which have been discovered in the UK over the past few years – and work is ongoing to properly assess the scale of these reserves. People must have the confidence that whilst the discovery of shale gas may bring many benefits, real concerns about its exploration and production need to be addressed properly by the Government. --Tom Greatrex MP, Labour’s Shadow Energy Minister, Labour Party, 2 November 2011

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Pro- and anti-shale drilling groups came face to face in London this week, as renewable-energy advocates and shale-gas supporters debated the environmental and economic issues surrounding its extraction. Benny Peiser, head of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, told the Shale Gas Environmental Summit that the UK cannot afford to squander its potentially vast shale-gas resources by choosing not to develop them. He said Cuadrilla Resources discover of 200 trillion cubic feet (cf) of shale gas in northern England not only proves the UK's unconventional potential, but it could also have enormous economic benefits for the country. In tough economic times, these arguments are likely to prove popular with the public. --Helen Robertson, Petroleum Economist, 3 November 2011 The policies put forward to deal with possible global warming have been myopically obsessed with reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, even at the expense of inflated fuel bills and lower economic growth. A compromise solution like gas that reduces emissions while providing cheap energy would avoid some of the harm such policies might otherwise cause. It would also buy us some valuable time to see if this climate change fuss is really all it’s cracked up to be, and it would reduce the cost of importing energy into the UK. No wonder greens are quaking in their boots. --Rob Lyons, Sp!ked, 3 November 2011 Although hydraulic fracturing always causes microseismic events (i.e. low magnitude earthquakes) I’ve never heard of large magnitude earthquakes being caused by hydraulic fracturing. Indeed, on a theoretical basis, there are reasons to believe that production of gas from shales could actually reduce the longer-term risk of larger magnitude earthquakes. The magnitude of the events at Blackpool was very low — so much so that a passing train would be more noticeable. -- Quentin Fisher, Leeds University, The Engineer, 3 November 2011