It seems the new UK government under prime minister Theresa May is still determined to for fracking. It today gave the go-ahead for four exploratory fracking wells to be drilled in Lancashire, overriding a local decision not to approve the wells because of the noise and traffic they would create. It鈥檚 a bad idea for many reasons.
For starters, we already have far more fossil fuel than we can afford to burn.听 If we are serious about tackling climate change, we have to leave most reserves underground.
A recent study concluded that even if we stopped burning coal immediately, there is enough oil and gas in currently exploited reserves to take the world past 1.5 掳C of warming 鈥� the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate agreement, which will come into force in November. That鈥檚 just the reserves we are already tapping, not counting those discovered but not yet exploited.
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Countries that continue to encourage further exploration for fossil fuels, as this UK decision is doing, either don鈥檛 understand the implications of the Paris agreement or worse, don鈥檛 care.
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Inconvenient truths
The government鈥檚 says issues such as how shale gas relates to the Paris agreement are a matter for future policy decisions, not this specific local planning decision. In other words, it chose to ignore the inconvenient facts.
But then in the very next paragraph, it says 鈥渟hale gas exploration鈥� could help to achieve lower carbon emissions鈥�. A little later: 鈥渢he projects represent a positive contribution towards the reduction of carbon鈥�. Really?
It鈥檚 true that if shale gas were used to replace coal, it could reduce emissions and act as a 鈥渂ridge fuel鈥� to renewable energy. But shale gas is not going to replace coal in the UK, because the country is on course to meet its pledge to phase out coal by 2025, well before shale gas production begins in earnest.
鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty unlikely that there will be any substantial production of shale gas before 2025,鈥� says Simon Evans, policy analyst for the website. By contrast, coal use has already fallen by two-thirds this year alone compared with the same period last year, he says. In fact, .
Busting budgets
What鈥檚 more, while the independent body that advises the UK government, the Committee on Climate Change, has said that shale gas could act a 鈥渂ridge fuel鈥�, it said fracking would bust the UK鈥檚 emissions budget unless several conditions were met. One is that there must be very tight controls on emissions from fracking wells 鈥� controls that are not currently in place.
So as things stand, fracking will not help achieve lower UK emissions. The government is ignoring the truth.
And it is doing so to try to help create an industry that has no future. Shale gas will have to be rapidly phased out after 2030, the Committee on Climate Change has also concluded. That鈥檚 just over 13 years away now. Why invest in infrastructure that will have to be abandoned, and train people to do jobs that will have to be cut?
Secret agenda?
There are many other reasons why going all out for fracking is a bad idea. For instance, there is a risk of water supplies being contaminated by fracking wastes, as has happened in the US.
Former prime minister David Cameron promised that tighter regulation would prevent this ever happening in the UK, but it later emerged he had lobbied to prevent the EU imposing strict regulations.
Last but not least, fracking might not even be if gas prices remain as low as they are. So why is the government so gung-ho for fracking? If it has good reasons, it鈥檚 not sharing them with us.
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