POLL: Is it time for Britain to frack?

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Do you agree? Is now the time to frack? Let us know by casting your vote below.

Is it now time to frack? Let us know by casting your vote below

Fracking enjoys widespread support in Britain, according to a new survey.

Research carried out by the research group Populus for UK Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG) found that 57 per cent were in favour of the controversial tachnique which extracts shale gas from the ground.

The poll quizzed 4,000 people and found that 16 per cent were opposed, with just over a quarter (27 per cent) undecided.

The poll shows that the public would like to see the government use both shale gas and renewables to meet the country’s energy requirements.

Do you agree? Is now the time to frack? Let us know by casting your vote below.

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117 Responses to “POLL: Is it time for Britain to frack?”

  1. MrJonathanHornby

    Talking of evidence yo mention elsewhere – where is the evidence that gas will reduce carbon emmisions? This has been debunked

  2. itdoesntaddup

    I have made no claim about the impact of fracking on gas prices. What it clearly would do is reduce our import bills for expensive LNG, and increase the taxes raised, and increase GDP and jobs. Whether it would have an impact on prices of itself depends on how successful it turns out to be: with high recovery rates and low enough costs we could become a substantial gas exporter, and domestic prices would be lower (as they were when we were a net gas exporter), but if success is more modest, then price effects are likely to be small – although increased supply from elsewhere may lower prices anyway.

    I do suggest that if we ended subsidies and quotas for expensive energy from windmills, biomass, solar, tidal etc. and allowed a proper competitive market, then power prices would be lower. Supply would be met from existing nuclear, coal and CCGT plant, all of which can produce much more cheaply than the subsidised sources, and which don’t require us to double the investment in the grid to try to keep it from becoming unstable. The policy to impose high cost energy is what causes fuel poverty.

  3. itdoesntaddup

    Page 22 here: http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf

    GHG emissions from energy supply can be reduced significantly by replacing current world average coalfired power plants with modern, highly efficient natural gas combined-cycle power plants or combined heat and power plants, provided that natural gas is available and the fugitive emissions associated with extraction and supply are low or mitigated (robust evidence, high agreement). In mitigation scenarios reaching about 450 ppm CO2eq concentrations by 2100, natural gas power generation without CCS acts as a bridge technology, with deployment increasing before peaking and falling to below current levels by 2050 and declining further in the second half of the century (robust evidence, high agreement). [7.5.1, 7.8, 7.9, 7.11, 7.12]

    In comments during the IPCC press conference on AR5 Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the report said:

    We have in the energy supply also the shale gas revolution, and we say that this can be very consistent with low carbon development, with decarbonisation. That’s quite clear.
    But it is important to understand that the shale gas revolution has a
    different impact in mitigation or baseline scenario. In a baseline
    scenario if you have an additional supply of fossil fuels this will not
    help in the end, because if somebody deploys gas so other parts of the
    world might increase coal and in the end you’re back in the business as
    usual scenario, and shale gas will not help. But gas can be very helpful as a bridge technology in mitigation scenarios, and this has been explained in the energy supply sector.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpugsLBs3Gw#t=53m41s

  4. itdoesntaddup

    What on earth makes you think that drillers aren’t liable for clean-up costs and environmental damage? Of course they are – it is a requirement in law that they be properly commercially insured before a licence will be granted to drill. Much more to the point, environmental regulations are designed to make such events rare and limited in scope when something does go wrong. There have been over 2,000 onshore oil and gas wells drilled in the UK to date, and no serious problems have arisen at any of them.

    I agree with your last sentence – but it applies to windfarms, not oil and gas.

  5. itdoesntaddup

    I have told you before that when safe new nuclear capacity is a cost competitive alternative it will have my full support. I am only interested in lower cost of energy so that we can abolish energy poverty. I have no interest in promoting one technology over another for any other reason.

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