As has been widely reported this morning, the UK government has reversed its position on fracking, and will no longer support its use.
This is excellent news for a number of obvious reasons. First, there's little evidence fracking really works in the UK. Second, it would have caused considerable harm to communities. Third, we do not need more carbon burnt. Fourth, the secondary pollution risks from fracking, and most especially to water courses, are very high. For these and other direct reasons the change of mind is good news.
There is another reason to also think it good news. This is from the financial and policy perspective. The evidence is that just because a process does not work does not prevent funds pouring into it in pursuit of promised yields that will never materialise. This may already be true in the case of much US fracking. I am certain it would have been true in the UK. And there would have been a reason for that. The carbon lobby could use fracking as an argument that ‘of course we need investment in new energy sources, but not in alternative and sustainable energy because fracking can meet our needs'. As a result it was a massive, and I suggest, deliberate distraction that worked well with a government that had no love for anything green.
In that case the end of fracking is even more significant than it seems. Everything that unblocks the routing of money to the energy systems we really need is welcome. The failure of fracking can be seen in that light.
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The protests against Caudrilla’s activities in Lancashire have certainly paid off. Considering how wonderful the Tories thought that fracking was before this is a remarkable U turn. In the US they have not had the same problems finding suitable sites and have made money but at what environmental cost! (and probably as you say a lot of investment was made that came to nought that could have been used for renewables.
I agree this is good news but note fracking has been suspended, not banned. Johnson is such a liar I am sceptical. Is this just a ruse to win votes in the north west that would be over turned if Johnson gets back in?
I note your cynicism
It may be justified
PLEASE – this is not yet a win and a stop to fracking. This is a well timed electioneering PAUSE, that can be stopped and fracking recommenced as it was before. Stop giving Johnson the publicity that he wants. Let’s welcome the PAUSE but we have not yet won the battle. Listen to Andrea Leadsom on the TODAY programme.
Point accepted
But I would suggest politically hard to reverse this
Aye, politically hard for you, me and other decent folk to reverse — but not Johnson and Cummings.
I completely agree. This is not being done because the Johnson government gives a fig for environmental problems or official reports from any commission or committee, however well founded these reports are.
This is pure electioneering at its most cynical, intended purely to try and get votes in the area. They’ve not said they’re stopping it, merely pausing it. If the lying conman Johnson wins a majority, the moratorium will be dropped like a stone. What would you expect from an administration of libertarian hard right ‘free enterprise’ fanatics who want to turn the UK into their idea of paradise?
And now I see (3rd November) they’ve suddenly discovered that the UK can afford to increase benefits at the rate of inflation, at a cost of £5billion per annum. So, whilst an election is in the offing, austerity is suddenly forgotten.
coal, oil & gas production in the UK have been steadily declining for some time now,
fracking was a last throw of the dice in the extraction of fossil fuels within the UK’s borders,
even if someone was sceptical about the damage co2 emissions might be causing it’s impossible to ignore the energy security of the UK,
https://www.iea.org/media/freepublications/security/EnergySupplySecurity2014_UK.pdf
not all that long ago we exported oil and gas,
now we import over 30% of the oil we use and a whopping 55% of the gas,
this trend for importing energy is only going to increase, we have no more indigenous fossil energy sources to fall back on,
when you look at the total primary energy source graph you can see how tiny the renewable part of it is,
even if you couldn’t give a fig about climate change you’d have to conclude that energy supply is a matter of national security and reliance on fossil fuels is an increasingly risky strategy,
even people on the far right of the political spectrum must see that an indigenous energy generating policy using sustainable technologies is the only rational way to escape the corner that we are rapidly painting ourselves into,
the IEA site is really quite a good source of information about the current global energy situation,
their recent report on the potential for offshore wind energy shows the UK being ideally situated to take advantage of this resource,
https://www.iea.org/offshorewind2019/
also I saw a positive story about making bio-gas with anaerobic digesters, using the whey from the production of Wensleydale cheese to make a million cubic metres of bio-gas a year,
https://www.wensleydale.co.uk/blog/producing-energy-from-cheese/
if you’re going to invest in gas for energy then the potential for bio-gas has to be considered,
these guys seem to be getting it done!
https://www.advantagebiogas.com/index.php
Matt B says:
“…fracking was a last throw of the dice in the extraction of fossil fuels within the UK’s borders,…”
England’s borders perhaps.
The resource will not go away. Future generations may be needful of it. We aren’t. It makes sense to leave it where it is.
But Johnson is just fishing for votes with this announcement. Guaranteed.
I rather suspect that in the future people will wonder why we ever burnt carbon
“I rather suspect that in the future people will wonder why we ever burnt carbon”
I doubt that that will ever be considered mysterious, but why we continued to burn such a valuable concentrated source of complex hydrocarbons when we knew what else we could us it for will puzzle future historians.
“I rather suspect that in the future people will wonder why we ever burnt carbon”
I recall (imperfectly) reading – perhaps 50 years ago – a spoof piece from the fourth or fifth millenium (i.e. well in the future, in the atomic age) that science had found there was this carbon containing mineral that could be dug out of the ground and oxidised directly – having carefully extracted pure oxygen from the atmosphere, and with massive precautions to handle the waste products (putting nuclear power stations to shame) – to produce heat and thus power.
And being amused when I realised they were talking about burning coal (by the time of the piece a totally forgotten practice).
But knowing what we do now, I probably shouldn’t have been…
Sadly I think it’s just a stunt during the election campaign and normal service will resume when they get re-elected. Remember that the Tory election manifesto is being assembled by a lobbyist from Cuadrilla.
In order to make Fracking viable the US has disrupted conventional oil production in Venezuela, Iraq, Kuwait, (blaming the Iraqis) Iran, and Saudi Arabia (blaming the Iranians)…..and doubtless elsewhere too.
If lives were costed, fracking is very expensive indeed. Obscenely so.
The danger of contaminating water sources is very real. Maybe the risk is calculable, but the trade-off is not worth it if it goes wrong. Oil is optional. Water isn’t.
No contest. Of course Johnson is lying, for electoral effect.
Environmental issues aside, if the US experience is anything to go by, fracking doesn’t even make sound commercial sense. While the early investors managed to extract quick profits, the industry has become significantly less profitable, with resulting bankruptcies – https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2019/08/15/26-us-shale-oil-firms-file-for-bankruptcy.
The future for investors is not looking good. “The messages coming from energy analysts, the financial industry, and the fracking industry all lead to the same conclusion: The U.S. shale industry has been a financial disaster for investors, with producers piling up huge amounts of debt despite extracting copious volumes of oil from disappearing sweet spots. Now, shale companies are under mounting pressure to pay back that debt by producing oil from lower tier acreage. If past performance is any indication, this approach is a major long shot.” (https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-08-14/bleak-financial-outlook-for-us-fracking-industry).
With far less available land and much more rigid planning controls, one wonders what the ‘true’ balance sheets of UK frackers really look like. Seems to me to be some sort of Ponzi scheme.
Of course, irrespective of its commercial characteristics, fracking is an ecological disaster. One can only hope and pray that public opinion will hold the Tories to their tactical U-turn. It would be scurrilous to suggest that this decision has anything to do with the fact that potential fracking sites have been identified in Sussex, Hampshire and Kent.
Of course it was political
But the finances of fracking are, I agree, dire
It won’t be back
What seems not to be mentioned when the whole issue of racking is discussed, is whether there are any economically worthwhile reserves of hydrocarbons doen there. The (apparent) success of the fracking industry in the USA, weich seemingly has achieved energy independence (it hasn’t, in fact) has beguiled successive UK governments with the promise that vast reservoirs of hydrocarbons are down there waiting to be brought up to the surface of an energy thirsty UK. Well, yes there may well be the gas and perhaps oil down there. But the contrast between the geology of the rocks bearing the resources in the USA and in the UK may be sufficient to make fracking in the UK far more expensive than in the UDA, In North America, the gas and oil bearing srata are for the most part roughly horizontal or gently dipping, little affected by folds and faults. These structures enable the actual drills to extend considerable distances underground in order to extract the resources. In the UK, I do wonder if the gas and oil bearing rocks are much more disturbed by fractures, faults and folds. These structural conditions make extraction more difficult, because the drills could only extend limited distances before reaching rocks lcking any oil/gas. Now exploratory fracking has been going on for some time now, without any triumphant announcements that vast amounts can be brought up to whet the appetite of a revenue hungry government; on wonders why. Is it because they are finding the gas is not there, or is there in only limited quantities, or is too difficult to exploit cheaply? Do they not want to admit thiese possibilities, which would mean the end to any capital investment to continue the fracking? Might they even be secretly pleased that the government is suspending permission to frack, thereby letting them off the hook, leaving the government and anti frackers to carry the blame for the failure of the whole enterprise?
There may not be reserves enough to make most US fracking viable even in its own limited terms either
I am among those who believe that Johnson’s suspension of fracking is purely cynical, and that if he gets his way in the upcoming election it will be reversed on December 13th. However, I am optimistic enough to believe that he will not get his way. I applaud the recent decision by Calder Valley Greens to stand aside and give Labour a clearer run in that marginal seat, and hope that it will not be the only example of its kind.
So, it has absolutely nothing to do with the “earthquakes” then?
Thought not when our once beloved coal mining also produced earth tremors of a similar unpredictable magnitude.
We had better train up the manufacturers and installers of those batteries quickly to store our energy from renewables instead of relying on Putin’s gas.
Waggle says:
“We had better train up the manufacturers and installers of those batteries quickly to store our energy from renewables instead of relying on Putin’s gas.”
Ab-so -fuckin’- lutely.
And it isn’t down to Putin the bogeyman, but if that’s what it takes to get some sensible energy policy in the UK let’s pretend him some extra heads and some tusks and horns.
@ Waggle
“So, it has absolutely nothing to do with the “earthquakes” then?”
I couldn’t work out if this was sarcastic or in favour of fracking, so I’ll err to the former.
However, to provide a perhaps less tongue-in-cheek response:
I certainly do not want any earthquakes from fracking on the Fylde, not with Heysham 1 & 2 just up the coast. It’s a (very bad) accident waiting to happen…