Fracking

The Church of England has had some surprisingly good press recently. Who knows how these things happen, but the media seems to have decided to stop attacking its homophobia, and to start praising its social vision. The change at Lambeth Palace seems to have prompted this shift, which is a bit ironic, as Justin Welby is far more involved in the sexually illiberal side of Anglicanism than Rowan Williams was, but never mind. It has also been prompted by persistently hard economic times: the Church’s involvement in deprived communities gradually wins it more attention. Maybe it has insights that normal political bodies lack. Would you believe it? Some of the

The fracking debate has been brought to a new heat by David Cameron’s message to Home Counties nimbyists and eco-crusties that he wants ‘all parts of our nation’ to share the shale gas bounty, not just lucky northerners. But the argument is proceeding in almost total ignorance of how the controversial extraction technique works and how soon it’s likely to happen. So I asked one of Britain’s top energy executives this week whether shale is really the game-changer it’s fracked up to be. It certainly looks that way in the US, he said, because gas-based energy costs have been cut by two thirds, energy representing 10 per cent of all

George Osborne believes in shale; this week’s tax cut announcement was another clear profession of his faith. But plenty of people and some powerful groups stand in his way. Least among all of these are residents’ organisations in rural England. I’ve written about one such campaign in this week’s edition of the Spectator. I found a perfect storm of predominantly middle class anxiety and anti-politics. What might concern Osborne and the proponents of shale is that their project is seen as being highly political, even elite. This is an age of profound anti-political sentiment, which gives the campaigners an appeal that spreads far beyond the standard environmental concerns about shale and

George Osborne is taking the ‘global race’ to a new level today. The Chancellor is not just allowing Britain to enter the fracking revolution by unveiling a shale gas allowance, he’s also offering the most generous tax breaks in the world for the exploitation. The allowance will mean shale production income will be taxed at 30 per cent rather than 62 per cent. Osborne’s own MPs should be delighted that the government is keen to support an industry that could keep energy bills down and create thousands of jobs. But Peter Lilley – who wrote in the Spectator recently about the need to get a move on with fracking –

One great advance for the environment is shale gas, though for some reason Greens do not see it that way. It will make us — and has already made America — far less dependent on high carbon-emitting sources of energy. It is lucky for those trying to extract it in this country that it is in places like Ellesmere Port and Blackpool where there are not many spoilt, rich people to complain about damage to the landscape. The problem is that successful extraction requires quite a lot of ‘frack pads’ each covering an area larger than a football pitch. These attract little attention in enormous, dull, empty areas of the

Great news on the fracking front. A company called IGas says it’s sitting on a huge shale gas reserve deep below Cheshire. Given the company’s ‘most likely’ estimate of 102 trillion cubic feet of gas, and a potential extraction rate of around 15 per cent, that could fulfil five years of UK gas demand, which runs at three trillion cubic feet per year — half of it currently imported. The other leading player in this field, Cuadrilla, has already claimed reserves of 200 trillion cubic feet in Lancashire, so all told (and subject to lots of caveats) that could be 15 years’ worth of fuel to keep us going until

Arguments over the potential development of UK shale gas resources are too often characterised by rhetoric and hyperbole on both sides. Some of the wilder claims need to be challenged and we need to separate the facts from the ill-informed speculation. That is why I am one of a cross-party group of MPs and Peers who have come together to set up the new APPG. Members include MPs who are in favour of developing a domestic shale gas industry, MPs who are opposed, and MPs who simply want to better understand the truth. The intention is to cut through the rhetoric and get to the facts. Much of the excitement

The head of the company seeking to exploit shale gas reserves in Lancashire today pleaded with the government to make up its mind about the future of the unconventional energy source. Giving evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee this morning, Francis Egan, chief executive of Cuadrilla, said his company was desperate to get the go-ahead to explore how much shale gas was available in the area around Blackpool. Sounding a little exasperated, he told the committee: ‘We’ll give you the data as soon as you let us start. We know the geology is good, we know the gas is there, and we know it’s a mile thick.