Partial ban in England for shale fracking; moratoriums in Scotland and Wales

UKOOG disagrees with the Environmental Audit Committee on the merits of fracking for shale gas 

The government has committed itself to an outright ban on shale fracking in national parks, sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs), following a call from the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) for a moratorium on the practice.

Joan Walley MP, Chair of the Committee, said: ‘Ultimately fracking cannot be compatible with our long-term commitments to cut climate changing emissions unless full-scale carbon capture and storage technology is rolled out rapidly, which currently looks unlikely. There are also huge uncertainties around the impact that fracking could have on water supplies, air quality and public health.’ 

Walley added that: ‘We cannot allow Britain’s national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty to be developed into oil and gas fields,’ she added: ‘even if a national moratorium on shale drilling in the UK is not accepted there should be an outright ban on fracking in such special sites.’ 

The government responded positively to this point but rejected calls for an overall moratorium. Subsequently, the Scottish government said it would enforce a moratorium on granting planning consents for unconventional oil and gas developments in Scotland whilst further research and a public consultation is carried out. The Welsh Assembly then followed suit.

The EAC report warns that only a very small fraction of UK shale reserves can be safely burned if we are to keep global temperatures below 2°C, and that considerable uncertainties remain about the hazards fracking poses to groundwater quality, air quality, health and biodiversity. It also points out that continually tightening carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act will have significantly curtailed the scope for fossil fuel energy by the time shale gas is likely to be commercially viable on a large scale.

The representative body for the UK onshore oil and gas sector, UKOOG stated its fundamental disagreement with the main conclusion of the EAC report.

Ken Cronin, Chief Executive of UKOOG, said: ‘Calling for a moratorium achieves only one thing – increasing the levels of gas coming from outside the UK at a substantially higher environmental cost and with significant economic consequences. The government has already announced that the next shale gas sites will not only be regulated by the four different regulators in line with 17 EU directives, requiring up to eight environmental permits per site, but also will be overseen by independent academics. No evidence exists of a failure in the current multi-regulated arrangements.’

·       The University of Nottingham is giving people the chance to get involved with the debate surrounding fracking by offering a free online course on shale gas. Through a new four-week course: Shale Gas and Fracking: the Politics and Science, people will be able to study the politics, economics and the science of shale gas. The course is being offered by the University through ‘FutureLearn’ – an online platform offering free course content from the UK’s top universities. www.futurelearn.com/courses/shale-gas