The shale revolution

Shale, what is it good for? How about fuelling Britain’s energy needs for decades to come? The Sunday Times reported yesterday (£) that the reservoir of shale gas
discovered in the North West could — depending on how it extracts — supply us with energy for up to 70 years. And we devoted our leader in this week’s magazine to the wider potential of this resource. Here is that leader, for CoffeeHousers:



Economies of shale, The Spectator, 11 February 2012

The weather conditions of the past week could not have been better conceived to show up the inadequacies of Britain’s — and the rest of Europe’s — energy policy. A vast anticyclone extending from Siberia to eastern England has brought snow as far south as Rome and temperatures of minus 40˚C to Eastern Europe. With North Sea gas production in sharp decline, never has Europe’s position on the end of a long gas pipeline originating in Russia been so exposed.