As energy prices soar, what can be done to lessen the harm to families, businesses and an economy still reeling from the Covid pandemic?
It feels like the Government is fighting a rearguard action. Its energy price cap, its granting of licences for new oil and gas wells in the North Sea, and the announcement earlier this year of plans for eight new nuclear reactors, all feels like too little, too late.
It is a piecemeal and desperate response to a crisis largely of our own making, and only brought to a head by the Russian invasion.
Buoyed by politicians’ acceptance of green ideology, green billionaires have for years successfully lobbied our Governments and financial institutions to greatly restrict investment in fossil fuel exploration and extraction. They also persuaded ministers that nuclear energy is too dangerous and best avoided.
Now, when the wolf is at the door, rather than admitting their mistake, green fanatics not only want more of the same, but demand more of it sooner. At its annual conference last week, Labour – which looks increasingly likely to form the next Government – announced its intention to make the U.K. carbon-free by 2030.
Yet many have grave concerns about the reliability of renewables and whether they will be able to meet the nation’s needs. Even with the new nuclear reactors in the mix, things look far from secure – and those won’t be online for years.
So it is understandable that there is renewed interest in fracking. Liz Truss’s recent lifting of the moratorium on drilling for shale gas was applauded on the Right and by some on the Left. They believe that while fracking may not be the answer to all our energy woes, it would bring considerable benefits: cutting bills, improving our energy security and creating jobs.
But are they right? What is the evidence for these claims? Many supporters of fracking do not appear to have asked themselves that simple but vital question. Even when pressed, they seem uninterested in defending their position with facts, and are far more interested in endlessly urging that we should get fracking as soon as we can. But without considering all the facts, and without giving those with safety concerns a fair hearing instead of dismissing them all as misguided ideologues, it is not possible to come to a sensible and responsible decision.
There is no evidence that fracking would significantly reduce energy costs in the medium and long term. In the short term, while further exploration and initial drilling took place, fracking would not lower bills. Just because extraction companies are eager to drill does not mean the public and businesses will necessarily benefit.
Although it is estimated that there are large reserves of shale gas in the U.K., how much of it is cost-effective to extract is currently unknown. It is possible that considerable amounts of it will not be viable.
It is also hard to see the industry creating a significant number of jobs.
If supporters of fracking have evidence to the contrary, now is the time to provide it: about jobs, about lowering energy bills, and about reducing our dependence on gas imports. After all, it is them who support the construction of wells across the countryside, a very different proposition in the U.K. than in the far larger and less-densely populated U.S. It is them who support daily convoys of water tankers on already trashed roads. It is them who appear to claim there are only advantages, while disregarding doubts and public concern.
I often wonder, would they all be as keen if the drilling was right next to where they live, rather than hundreds of miles away?
And I am often reminded of climate change zealots when I challenge some fans of fracking, so intolerant of dissent many of them seem. It is hard to dispel the idea that part of them supports fracking simply because greens do not.
Looking at the bigger picture, the advantages which fracking enthusiasts assume are obvious seem much less certain. Cries of it is worth a try, and what is there to lose, become much less convincing when all things are considered.
Fracking in the U.K. must be viewed for what it is: part of a panicked response. The truth is, the benefits of fracking are highly questionable and its disadvantages not inconsiderable. And by the time it may bring any benefits, though that is not guaranteed, our needs could be more reliably met by ramping up nuclear power and investing in conventional offshore drilling, alongside the expansion in renewables which is coming whether we like it or not.
Supporters of fracking need to reflect on the wider issues and reconsider their unreserved support. It is particularly disappointing that those with inquiring minds who have challenged the orthodoxies and follies of our age, from the EU to lockdowns, and from Net Zero to identity politics, appear so incurious and accepting when it comes to fracking. It is good to have hopes and to believe in something, but that needs to be tempered with a healthy scepticism, something which in this case appears to have abandoned them.
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Fracking is certainly not a “panicked response”. We would already have been fracking by now, long before this Ukraine situation, if it had not been knocked on the head. Then your idea that by the time we get any gas from fracking we will have Nuclear plants running and more conventional gas from eg the North sea misses the point that we have 22 million gas boilers in homes in this country. They need gas. If it comes from the North Sea, Norway or from under our feet or from all of those then fine, but if the Ukraine situation teaches us anything it is that depending entirely on resources form outside of our own country while ignoring our own resources to placate environmental groups, who let’s face it are opposed to every energy there is (except wind and sun) is not very bright. But it is actually worse than not being very bright, it is pig headed dogma. It leaves us exposed to having no gas, when political situations occur ——There are risks to all energy production, but you cannot power industrial society on wind. Try asking Germany how their 35,000 wind turbines are working out for them, or… Read more »
“Supporters of fracking need to reflect on the wider issues and reconsider their unreserved support.”
Why? Your article seems entirely devoid of ‘wider issues’ and simply an arbitrary hit piece on an energy extraction method used perfectly safely since the 1920s that has benefitted the US massively (before Comrade Biden and his Red Army poisoned the entire energy supply).
The only reason someone would object to fracking is if they were a Wahhabiist member of the Green cult or they have investments in the renewable energy scam.
It has been stated that known shale gas that is available in the US North East great shale formations that these contain enough recoverable gas to fuel the whole US economy at current levels for over 200 years. This is not something the eco extremists want to hear. They will do and say anything to continue the eco narrative that oil & gas is finite and about to run out. Let the industry thrive in UK if you really want to find out the true potential.
Both sides of the argument seem to be immersed in the usual emotional language with very few FACTS on hand. As usual the first casualty of war is the truth.
“As energy prices soar, what can be done to lessen the harm to families, businesses and an economy still reeling from the Covid pandemic?”
Er no, it was Government reaction/policies together with MSM hysterical hyperbole that has got us into this nothing to do with a disease.
I think even those in favour of trying fracking don’t know whether it will be part of the answer to the fuel problem and know that any problems resulting from it need to be monitored, but that should not prevent us from trying it. Our past successes have resulted quite a few times from people trying something that many have been opposed to.
I am unsure why increasing the supply of a commodity won’t reduce its price in the marketplace. It did so in the USA. Why is the UK exempt from the laws of supply and demand?
As to whether there is sufficient gas under our feet to make a difference, it might be sensible to actually try to extract it before retreating in fear at the alarmists’ exaggerated predictions.
“There is no evidence that fracking would significantly reduce energy costs in the medium and long term. “
What?
The US fracking revolution provides ample proof that fracking reduces energy costs and that proof has been available for more than a decade.
To say that this is profoundly ignorant would be to significantly understate the case.
Forgive me, perhaps I did a poor job of skim-reading this article but I can’t actually find where the author outlines why fracking isn’t a sound idea which is a bit ironic given that’s what he accuses fracking supporters of. The only clue is a subtle nod to nimbyism.
As usual I will comment before reading the thoughts of others.
It’s Carp. A wholly negative appraisal of a massive subject. Is the author BBC or ex BBC?
We need fracking, we need coal, nuclear particularly, oil and gas. Renewables should be abandoned immediately which would save taxpayers thousands.
A lamentable piece of writing worthy of a poorly educated 16 year old who has been indoctrinated in a crummy state school.
Somebody needs to get a grip.
I thought the argument about fracking in the UK was more about energy security than cost.
It was never a solution in itself, just part of a move to diversity of supply when faced with the obsession about green energy and its unreliability.
Agreed.
No-one in their right mind would suggest it is a silver bullet.
But then everyone in their right mind knows silver bullets don’t exist.
And everyone in their right mind would be in favour of meeting our energy requirements through a mix of hydrocarbon sources. Eggs, baskets, etc.
Read this with an open mind, but there seems to be a lot of assertion going on here without any real substance.
‘There is no evidence that fracking would significantly reduce energy costs in the medium and long term.’
You do not understand how commodities markets work – a thing called market sentiment. They are underpinned by futures trading. The idiot in the White House just had to cancel the Keystone pipeline and gas and oil prices went up, but no supplies were interrupted. Traders however priced in the fact that future supplies would not increase or transport costs reduced as previously anticipated.
Similarly, restart of exploration and fracking in the UK means traders will price in increases supplies in the future. It also reassures the market that fossil fuels are back in the agenda.
As for whether these deposits in the UK are viable – nobody knows. Yes they do. Gas & Oil industry work on a 20 year investment cycle. They will look at future pricing, future estimated demand, future estimated supplies, future likely prices, current cost of extraction, investment needed and make their calculations. Since there was an interest in fracking it suggest extraction is economically viable.
When I was a child, North Sea oil was not viable, but then oil prices increased, future prices were… Read more »
Hear bloody hear. Cheers, JXB!
What will relieve the electricity supply problem is start building coal fired power stations now to replace the useless windmills that replaced the coal powered stations we had which provided over 50% of demand and most of base load.
What will help bring gas prices down is by how much the amount of gas from fracking in the UK increases the supply in comparison to demand. That cannot be known and will not happen until substantial output is achieved but likely more gas going onto the market is better than less or none.
‘Supporters of fracking need to reflect on the wider issues and reconsider their unreserved support.’
I just did that and my re-consideration considered the following 2022 summary of the pros and cons of fracking by the LSE:
‘“It is widely recognised that the open and liberal nature of the UK’s gas market means that the market price – the National Balancing Point (NBP) – is unlikely to be influenced by shale gas development.”
‘UK fracking might produce between 90 and 330 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas between 2020 and 2050. Using future demand figures from National Grid, they calculated that could represent between 17 and 22 per cent of projected cumulative UK consumption over that period.’
‘…onshore production of unconventional oil and gas, at its peak, could create between 16,000 and 32,000 jobs (direct, indirect and induced) under a high activity scenario with production of 120 to 240 bcm of gas over 20 years from up to 360 wells.’
‘UK production of shale gas could meet between 17 and 22 per cent of UK cumulative consumption between 2020 and 2050, stated that “should the UK wish to have a shale gas industry its role will be to mask… Read more »
I have no idea if fracking is the solution, a solution or no solution at all.
But I know this. If the market for energy were a free market, then the market would decide for me.
As it turns out, the energy sector must be yet another sector that is for all intents and purposes captured and centrally planned.
Government shouldn’t be deciding what the right energy mix is. It should focus on calculating the externalities in order to put the appropriate tax on each form of energy and let the market decide.
But we live in times when Government decides what is the right food for us to eat and how much. It is out of control.
The economic illiteracy of the author is exposed by a number of statements, but a common fallacy he repeats is to criticize producers of services and goods because “they don’t create many jobs”.
Quite. Since jobs are a cost any production with few jobs = high productivity.
We must go Green because it will require more jobs to produce the same output as fossil fuels, thus increase costs and create low productivity.
Increased costs = makes us poorer. High productivity = High wages; low productivity = low wages.
But then, that’s basic economics and economics and Net Zero are strangers.
Personally, I’d rather have a fracking site near me than a bank of ugly great bird-killing windmills.
And fracking would be part of our energy mix ….. just as the Eco nutters insist that inefficient renewables must be part of it.
Millions lived with coal mines literally under their houses, with iron & steel works and coke ovens literally next door.
How ever did they survive?
Indeed. And fracking immediately fills the space it leaves after what it takes out of the ground. Coal mines leave huge voids.
Fracking is about security of supply as well as cost-reduction and job-promotion.
If fracking doesn’t provide these things, how come American gas is half the price of ours; they don’t have to import LPG and they have created thousands of fracking-related jobs?
I think the author raises some valid points, like the, very biased, one here does too.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/01/1027822/fracking-boom-jobs-industry/
Greenacres nails it anyway.
I am in favor of fracking where it makes sense, incl. where it poses little risk and is not intrusive, just as I am fine with offshore wind farms but totally opposed to onshore ones in most locations.
Besides, there is no shortage of fossile fuels, not even of gas.
There are current shortages in some countries, because these countries egged on a war and reacted to its outbreak with, deliberately in the case of LeftGreen nihilist ideologues, suicidal sanctions.
Just the fact that the 2 direct parties to this war were willing to end it in April but one party wasn’t allowed by these countries to do so proves that and tells one all else one needs to know about this.
So fracking is really just about (more) autarky (and money going to a different kind of well-connected and well-placed beneficiary, of course), not about price or supply.
The latter are non-issues for countries with governments acting in the national interest and with a focus on successful diplomacy by capable diplomats.
But they are for countries and their… Read more »
I share in all the other comments made and would add that I dispute the assertion that the “crisis” was brought to a head by the Russian invasion. I think it’s more accurate to say it was out reaction to the Russian invasion. It’s a bit like Covid and lockdowns.
Well not in this Country. Only 5% of UK gas demand is Russian, so it is not gas or gas prices but 30 years of lunatic, incoherent energy policies: including but not limited to, closing coal fired power stations providing just over 50% of demand and most of the base load, replacing them with windmills that don’t; making the grid gas dependent because it needs to continually back up wind power; price caps; windfall taxes; banning fracking; reducing liquified gas storage (because we won’t need it); making further extraction of offshore oil & gas too expensive by regulation; discouraging investment in energy supply with Net Zero policy.
Exactly. Great post.
and not starting to replace our ageing nuclear reactors 20 years ago
None of the logical arguments matter, the ecolunatics will prevent fracking in this country because there is not the political will to bring in the mounted police.
I’d rather have fracking next to me than the hundreds of bloody turbines I can see in every direction.
Perhaps the author should examine the impact on US gas prices, significantly reduced by fracking.
Plus the naivety of the short term authors view, is typical of what got us into this mess in the first place.
And one of his arguments against fracking is that it won’t provide as many jobs as people think.
Facepalm.
More straw men arguments in this article than the Scarecrow World Cup finals. If I may paraphrase his case:
1 – Fracking in the future won’t reduce energy bills today.
2- We don’t know if fracking will be cost effective
3 – We don’t know if it will create many jobs.
4- You wouldn’t want a fracking site in your back yard
And he then tries to argue that those in favour of fracking should prove their case right now. Before a single pipe is in the ground.
So, my questions to him are:
“Why wouldn’t you want private enterprise to explore new energy sources, which could improve energy security, reduce costs, provide jobs and local income streams? And,
What risks are you taking by allowing research and exploration to take place?”
Fair play to the Daily Sceptic for running this piece, but it’s all a bit of a Johnny Nash – “There Are More Questions than Answers”
I was planning to write roughly the same thing: The main criticisms of fracking in this article is a tired old ad ignorantiam: We don’t yet know what future benefits – if any – fracking might bring (trivially, because we simply didn’t try it), hence, we shouldn’t try it. This combined with a little fear-mongering, the “would you want …” bit.
In the early 19th century, scientists and experts insisted that intransparent walls must be built alongside railways as people simple wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of something moving at the breakneck speed of about 25 km/h (15.5mph) without going mad and serious doubts were raised by the same people if passengers would at all be able to survive travel inside something moving that fast. Everything anti-fracking I’ve read so far always reminded me of this example.
I absolutely don’t claim any expertise on this topic. But the only way to find out if fracking will help with anything is to try to make it work. Hence, arguing against trying this based on our necessary ignorance about the future benefits is disingenious.
A strange article.
I appreciate few people want a fracking operation next door. The answer is for any works to be carefully sited and controlled. There are a lot of low impact boreholes and pipelines across the UK, and fracking can be the same. Certainly less impactful that wind turbines and solar farms.
Given Britains wealth of other hydrocarbons (remember the industrial revolution, anyone?) It is overwhelmingly likely that there are large, frackable reserves of gas and oil. They will provide lower prices, energy security, and high paying jobs. For evidence of this simply look at the UKs oil or ( historically) coal industries. Or the USA today.
The disruption from fracking is the period, maybe two months, whilst the well is being dug and the fracking process carried out. Once that is done, the site is landscaped and the well head is about the size of a Portakabin, which can be low profile hidden by the landscaping and causes no harm to birds, bars and insects. Compare with wind turbines, solar arrays.
Very strange article – very light on facts and an unpleasant undertone of ad hominin running throughout. I’m happy to hear strongly argued alternative viewpoints, but this this didn’t make the grade.
‘Fracking is Not the Answer’
The former head of Cuadrilla was recently reported as saying much the same thing. But did he accept a bribe to say it? In these totally Gates corrupted times, that’s the first thought that occurs.
Hydrocarbons are (and always have been) the solution.
Shale is hydrocarbons.
Ergo, it is part of the solution.
Can it meet all our requirements single-handedly? No, of course not.
Does this mean it should be disregarded? No, of course not.
Strange article.
Lovely hydrocarbons are solar power in a bottle. Their discovery and use made an inhospitable planet hospitable.
Nuclear is of course the way forward. But until then – h y d r o c a r b o n s .
I’m loving the hydrocarbons in a bottle thing, I’m going to steal it!
Lumps of coal are solar batteries.
Someone has successfully built using the original patents, a Tesla generator. For proper, clean, reliable renewable electricity this has to be the way to go. Doing so would then free up oil, gas etc for applications where they are the only viable option.
The answer is always in the middle. We need both nuclear *AND* hydrocarbons, as the grid needs both baseload *and* dispatchable generation.
Exactly correct. It’s just that nuclear takes a while to set up. So, in the meantime, let’s get the stuff under our own feet that’s not gone away (to paraphrase Maggie). And now, the stuff under our own feet is worth a lot more to us than it was in the seventies and eighties. That’s market forces for ya, something which Maggie understood.
Frankly, for any issue in life it makes little sense to me to reject an idea because one or more of the issues related to the solution are that it’s not a “magic bullet”.
And, unless the gov’t is investing tax revenues into a fracking project, it’s “other people’s money” to explore, produce, and perhaps benefit from the project.
North Sea oil & gas was no ‘magic bullet’, but within a decade it made a huge difference to the UK.
And… the Government gets sovereign royalties on fracked gas and oil.