As Pressure Mounts, Chris Huhne Signals Approval Of Shale Exploration

It doesn't take a degree in economics to realise that if the Government is genuinely concerned about rising energy prices and fuel poverty, it should immediately abandon the fatuous and massively subsidised wind-power experiment and instead dash for gas. The truth, in any case, is that the Government's whole carbon-reduction plan based on hugely expensive "renewable" energy is on life-support and will soon have the plug pulled. --Dominic Lawson, The Independent, 25 October 2011

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The Secretary of State may be aware that north of my constituency a find of 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas has been announced. That will make an enormous difference one way or another if it is genuine. Would he like to comment on that and the difference it might make to prices in future? --John Pugh, MP for Southport, House of Commons, 19 October 2011 If it transpires that the early indications we have received from Cuadrilla about the size of the find under Lancashire are correct, there will clearly be an impact on gas prices within the UK. We have already seen that gas prices in the United States are half of those in the UK and the rest of Europe and are even lower than the prices for gas in the Far East. This is a very important development and all our policy framework is designed to make sure that we can provide affordable, clean electricity at the cheapest possible price to British consumers in the long run. –-Chris Huhne, House of Commons, 19 October 2011

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Huge reserves of a controversial natural resource linked to a possible economic boom in neighbouring Lancashire could be located underneath Yorkshire and the Humber. Chief executive Hugh Mackay told Insider Europa was adopting a "watching brief" to assess the government's appetite for shale gas and how best to exploit the company's licence for a giant Humber Basin field. --Insider News Yorkshire, 25 October 2011 A huge reservoir of natural gas trapped in shale rock deep beneath Ohio holds the promise of a fresh supply of cheap energy and thousands of new jobs. Environmental groups cheered on Oct. 14 when Vancouver, Wash.-based Baard Energy announced it was switching gears from coal to natural gas to produce diesel and jet fuel at a proposed refinery in Columbiana County. Environmental advocates called the switch a victory in the fight against climate change. --Spencer Hunt, The Columbus Dispatch, 24 October 2011 The science on climate change and man's influence on it is far from settled. The question today is whether it makes sense to combat a potential climate threat by imposing economically destructive regulations and sinking billions into failure-prone technologies that have their own environmental costs. The earnest people going to Durban next month may think so. The rest of the world is wearier and wiser. –-Editorial, The Wall Street Journal, 25 October At its meeting on 24 October members of New Forest District Council passed a motion by 47 votes to 5 which called on the government to abandon the CO2 emissions targets set by the government’s Climate Change Committee, and instead go no further or faster than other Western nations until a world-wide agreement including all major industrial nations has been agreed. --New Forest District Council, 24 October 2011

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