‘UK shale Eldorado just off the M62’, declared the Financial Times, reporting a huge gas find below Cheshire. Shale gas is natural gas trapped in beds of underground shale; it can be released by hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, which means pumping water, sand and chemicals into the shale under high pressure. That much we know for sure — but we also know that Eldorado, the city of gold lost in South America’s rainforests, turned out to be one of the world’s great myths.
Had the FT forgotten, or was it issuing a coded warning? Either way, it provided a reminder that the scale, viability and dangers of the ‘shale gas revolution’ are still surrounded by forests of myth and counter-myth.
That the stuff exists and can be exploited has been triumphantly established in the US, where the development of ‘shale plays’ such as Barnett in Texas and Marcellus in the northeast since 2007 has brought gas prices tumbling and encouraged Americans to think themselves the carbon sheikhs of the 21st century. As for the UK, the combination of the Cheshire find by IGas — much larger than first estimated, and ‘most likely’ to be around 100 trillion cubic feet— with the 200 trillion already claimed by Cuadrilla in Lancashire, could meet the nation’s gas demand for years ahead. But how many years? And at what risks? Here’s a brief guide to the great shale debate that has just kicked off in earnest, now that a Lib Dem-driven 18-month moratorium on fracking has expired.
First, confirmation is awaited from the British Geological Survey as to whether UK reserves really are a lot bigger than previous guesses. Greenpeace is eager to suggest IGas and Cuadrilla might be bluffing — while other sources say offshore shale gas finds may dwarf anything so far claimed.
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