Let’s say that the experts are wrong, and fracking can produce gas for us now when we need it – shouldn’t we get cracking with fracking?
FACT: Even according to the industry’s own best-case scenario, fracking would produce only 5% of UK gas needs over the next 5 years.[i] And that assumes no issues with planning, a dismantling of the current regulatory regime, and support from communities. A more likely scenario, according to Mike Bradshaw, professor of global energy at Warwick University, is that “it would require up to 40 wells in different locations to arrive at a basic reserve estimate. That could take five or six years to complete.”[ii]
Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is on record as saying, “Even if we lifted the fracking moratorium tomorrow, it would take up to a decade to extract sufficient volumes – and it would come at a high cost for communities and our precious countryside”. Bear in mind that the UK spent the best part of a decade attempting to get a shale industry off the ground with policy, media and political support from the highest levels. And failed. Repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of stupid.
[i] Factcheck: Why fracking is not the answer to the UK’s energy crisis – Carbon Briefhttps://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-why-fracking-is-not-the-answer-to-the-uks-energy-crisis/
[ii] https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/10/could-u-k-fracking-wean-europe-off-its-addiction-to-russian-gas/