The new energy minister calls shale “the holy grail” of energy policy. He’s probably right. It’s a mythical object that no-one’s found, and over time just has increasing comedy-value.
The new energy minister calls shale “the holy grail” of energy policy. He’s probably right. It’s a mythical object that no-one’s found, and over time just has increasing comedy-value
Today, new energy minister Matthew Hancock has lined up behind the rest of the men in the coalition government to don his cheerleader outfit and start thumping the tub for fracking.
Astonishingly large swathes of the British countryside are now laid open to the drillers’ rigs, as the government’s new map today shows. It’s an obsession that’s starting to seem more than slightly unhinged.
What’s worst about this bizarre fixation with trying to force through the least popular energy source since nuclear power is that if the government were genuinely concerned about the problems fracking purports to solve, there are many other things it should do first.
Mr Hancock claims that “shale gas can reduce carbon emissions by reducing the amount of coal that we burn”.
First, the jury is still out about whether shale gas is lower carbon than coal – as Carbon Brief set out. Second, even if it was lower carbon, drilling shale gas won’t just magically replace coal. That’s like saying if I make some toast, you will automatically stop eating cornflakes. The decision about coal or gas is down to prices and regulations.
If the government wanted gas power stations to run more than coal, it would increase the carbon price. The chancellor froze it at this Budget. Or it could use regulation – but it explicitly gave a loop-hole to old coal power stations so they can avoid the new Emissions Performance Standards. And just this month it’s introduced a new subsidy worth a billion pounds to a 2 Gigawatt big coal plant, which could see old coal run for another 15 years. So it doesn’t really seem to want to do anything about coal at all.
Mr Hancock also claims “that shale gas has the opportunity to increase our energy security”.
Well, yes, if we fracked half the country, then we might make a small dent in what we import. But again, if the government were serious about energy security, then why on earth is its strategy for energy efficiency so pitifully weak?
Last week, health and poverty groups lined up to slam the government’s new proposals for tackling fuel poverty – the UK has some of the worst-insulated homes in Europe and some of the highest levels of fuel poverty. We’re wasting vast quantities of energy through leaky roof and walls every year. DECC projects that from now to 2030 the UK’s gas use will not fall at all.
And if energy security is such a problem, why is the UK among thecountries coming out against ambitious EU-wide energy efficiency targets for 2030? It makes much more sense, and is much cheaper, to cut demand rather than try to maximise supply.
Mr Hancock calls shale gas “the holy grail” of energy policy. Here he’s probably right. It’s a mythical object that no-one’s found, and over time just has increasing comedy-value. Far better to focus on what works.
The first focus of UK energy policy needs to be an aggressive focus on energy efficiency. Then decarbonising electricity, through a rapid expansion of renewables. Gas is a transition fuel through the 2020s. But shale gas is not needed to do that. Among Labour supporters, only 19 per cent want fracking, with 44 per cent opposed.
There’s no sense, or parliamentary seats, in ripping up the beautiful British countryside pursuing a futile dream.
Simon Bullock is a senior campaigner at Friends of the Earth
30 Responses to “Fracking for shale gas: Hancock’s half-truths”
Mike Stallard
I am not surprised, but I am shocked by this article.
Friends of the Earth is a big lobbyist in Brussels and is making a lot of money out of our taxes. The wind doesn’t blow all the time and when it doesn’t, the vast wind farms produce nothing. The sun, in Britain, doesn’t shine at night nor does it shine strongly in winter when electricity is needed more than ever. Add in a lot of very rich people making a lot more money out of our taxes through generous subsidies and – bingo! – we have just the sort of money making racket that the Labour Party ought to be deriding.
I thought that Labour was the party of heavy industry? Or has that changed too?
Poor people? Who do you think is paying out all the subsidies, building all the wind farms and solar panels if not the poor people who cannot afford to pay for accountants to gain tax avoidance?
Cole
And who do you think is lobbying for this fracking – and tax breaks for doing it? That would be a bunch of Tory donors and cronies.
Labour the ‘party of heavy industry’? I don’t think there’s much of it left.
Norfolk29
Solar panels on every suitable roof would be cheaper if there was a reasonable FIT, or the level of prejudice against them was removed. Relaxing the rules on small wind turbines (up to 5Kwh), which are effective during the UK winters could take millions of houses and small factories off the National Grid within 5 years. The trouble with the Green party and FOTE is that they are against, against, against, and never for, for, for. Why not?
Leon Wolfeson
No, they really would not. They make no economic sense by the time you’ve looked at the dirty production costs, the MASSIVE costs of handling it on the grid (both in grid upgrades, and the massive amount of gas backup we’d need.
The FIT we have is massively excessive, too.
And given wind’s terrible safety and noise pollution record…and that they generate *negative* energy during winter storms in many cases!
Going “off-grid” in that case would be simply pulling the plug as it’d be unaffordable.
Leon Wolfeson
The problem is not popularity. (I’m pro-nuclear, it makes sense)
It’s that it won’t lower bills, and is likely to cost the taxpayer a vast amount. As well as despoiling areas.