Fracking in the UK

Two weeks is a long time in the world of 24 hour news and I’ve missed a few important developments in the world of climate science recently. However anyone who is reading this from the UK and keeps more than a cursory eye on the news will know that this week fracking was finally given the go ahead (again) and, if some people are to be believed, we are soon to enter a golden age of energy self-sufficiency and cheaper bills for all.

There has been an infuriating amount of rubbish written about the pro and cons of fracking over the past few months. Ever since it was initially banned in 2011 after allegedly causing a number of minor earthquakes near Blackpool it has been a highly polarising issue. On one side energies companies and their supporters have spoken at length about huge untapped reservoirs of gas and thousands of new jobs.  They have told us with surprising certainty how much gas is beneath out feet as we stroll for example, over the rolling hills of Lancashire (£6bn a year according to Cuadrillia Resources) and it would seem like madness in a time of economic uncertainty to ignore what may be our greatest discovery of natural resources since North Sea Oil was first barrelled. 

On the other side we have been warned of massive environmental damage, especially concerning the pollution of water, at of course the risk of more earthquakes. A picture has been painted of gung-ho engineers blasting open the ground in a search for gas regardless of the costs. In what has become a highly emotive debate almost everything that has been said needs to be taken with a very large pinch of salt.

Credit for this description of fracking goes to the very informative Climate Adaptation blog that brought my attention to it.

Firstly as a geologist (although not a very good one I admit) I feel I must try to clarify a few things. There is no way that Cuadrillia Resources or any other company with plans to exploit the shale formations of the UK can know how much gas is there with the certainty they have been quoted. Oil and gas exploration is one of the most difficult fields to be a geologist in. Until drilling has started there is no way of being sure your predictions are correct and the art of predicting where gas or oil may be lying is challenging at best. In the early 1990s geologists predicted up to £1bn of oil might be found underneath Windsor castle in Berkshire. A royally approved test well was dug, much to the outrage of the Mayor of Windsor who declared that the town would be turned into a ‘second Dallas’. In the end nothing was found, all the hype was for nothing and two year old me was deprived of the chance to grow up familiar with the sight of the nodding donkey’s head pump. Oddly enough a recent and highly amusing article in the Daily Mail made similar claims, declaring that shale gas could turn Blackpool into ‘Texas-by-the-sea’ due to the exploitation a reservoir apparently containing two hundred trillion cubic feet of gas. I wonder if we’ll be looking back on that in twenty years time thinking ‘where did they get that from?’.

I also feel that there has been an unfair assumption that fracking is by nature a reckless and highly dangerous activity. The same Daily Mail article reprinted a number of horror stories from the US including claims that fracking has made tap water flammable in some areas and suggestions that the iconic hot springs at Bath could be threatened by nearby test wells. The tabloids aren’t the only ones getting hysterical; most of the British environmental movement has hopped onto the anti-fracking bandwagon. As I outlined a few weeks ago in the piece on the IEA report on unconventional oil I am no fan of further oil and gas extraction but if we’ve going to have a proper debate on fracking in the UK then we should at least be fair minded in out treatment of both sides. It is very easy to bash energy companies but we must remember that unlike the US we have a greater level of regulation on oil and gas extraction and that fracking has only been given the go ahead on the condition of further ‘strong regulation’ on the process. We must be thankful that for once the government took time over the decision and that the temporary ban allowed for a detailed scientific review to be carried out.

So fracking is going to happen. Assuming for a moment it doesn’t cause all our rivers to run black and the ground to split asunder what does this mean for the UK? Well if there really is all that gas down there then there are huge potential economic benefits. Just as America is finding fracking has the potential to provide jobs and fuel security, the kind of thing politicians dreams are made of in times of recession and instability in the middle-east. It is by no means a long term fix but it has been suggested that it could be a much needed shot in the arm for the UK economy. Of course there are the environmental risks to content with, however good the regulations are and the fact that shale gas is still a fossil fuel. In an ideal world the money that is going to be spent to breaking open shale formations up and down the country would go on renewables instead but that it would seem is very wishful thinking.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Whatever happens it will be interesting to look back on the debate of the last year or so and see who was right and who should have done some more research.