Fracking in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, as in other countries—and in particular the United States, where the industry is most advanced and extensive—induced hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has generated a considerable amount of controversy, and the process has not been carried out in the UK since June 2011. Serious questions about environmental safety and public health have led to the process being banned in France and elsewhere.

Fracking in the UK (illustration) is in its infancy; as a result, there are no reliable indicators of its potential productivity. According to a 2011 report of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, "Shale gas resources in the UK could be considerable—particularly offshore—but are unlikely to be a "game changer" to the same extent as they have been in the US, where the shale gas revolution has led to a reduction in natural gas prices." Nonetheless, industry estimates suggest shale gas in Lancashire alone could deliver £6bn of gas a year for the next three decades.

Background

The surge of interest in fracking in the UK can be traced to 2007, when Cuadrilla Resources was granted a licence for shale-gas exploration along the coast of Lancashire. Cuadrilla is an American-Australian-British affair, though close ties have developed between China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and one of Cuadrilla's backers. The company's first frac job was performed in March 2011 near Blackpool. Other companies, including Eden Energy, UK Methane Ltd, Coastal Oil and Gas, Celtique Energie, and IGas Energy, have since obtained exploration licences, with test drilling being carried out in Somerset, Glamorgan, Cheshire and other locations.

In September 2011, Cuadrilla announced a huge discovery of 200 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas under the Fylde Coast in Lancashire. The find alone is equal to the proven gas reserves of big energy-exporting countries such as Venezuela, leading to ridiculous claims by Lord Browne that Lancashire alone would be able to satisfy the UK's gas consumption "for 56 years", and sensational media claims that the find was "so rich it could meet Britain's needs for decades", that it had "the potential to do more for Lancashire than the cotton industry." (For comparison, the cotton industry in Lancashire employed, at peak penetration in 1811, 37% of the county, or 70,000 people; Cuadrilla believes fracking will provide 1,700 in Lancashire, current population 1.1m). The inaccuracy of such production claims stems from the fact that only a fairly small minority of the gas is recoverable, with Cuadrilla saying it would be happy if it could extract even 10–20% of it. The British Geological Survey, responsible for producing inventories of the UK's mineral resources, and far more cautious in its estimates, felt prompted, however, to re-evaluate its projections in light of the find, which Cuadrilla believes could provide 5,600 jobs in the UK, 1,700 of those in Lancashire.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has identified large areas of eastern and southern England as having the "best shale gas potential":

The main area identified runs from just south of Middlesbrough in a crescent through East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and the Cotswolds to Somerset and Wiltshire. It then turns along the South Coast and Downs, including most of Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and Kent. Shale gas sites are under investigation in the Sussex commuter belt, near Haywards Heath, the Mendip Hills, south of Bath, in Kent, Lincolnshire, south Wales, Staffordshire and Cheshire, as well as more sites near the existing find in Lancashire.

Coastal Oil and Gas, who are exploring southern Wales (mainly for coalbed methane, but also for shale gas), trumpet an estimate that puts a £70bn value on the region's shale gas. Celtique Energie reckon on as much as 14 Tcf of recoverable shale gas in countryside south of Horsham, West Sussex. February 2012 saw IGas announce a 4.6 Tcf of shale gas find at its Ince Marshes site, though it is again unlikely that more than 20% of it will be recoverable.

Environmental and other concerns

See also: Environmental concerns over hydraulic fracturing in other countries

In January 2011, a few months prior to Cuadrilla's inaugural fracking, a Tyndall Centre study recommended "a precautionary approach" to the activity until the growing number of environmental dangers were more fully understood and taken account of. Tyndall pointed to the US, where evidence increasingly suggests that fracking poses (amongst other things) a "significant risk of ground and surface water contamination", noting the UK's situation was further complicated by its high population density, meaning any wells associated with shale gas extraction will be relatively close to population centres. It also observed that the vast amounts of water used during the process "could put considerable pressure on [local] water supplies".

For people living in drier areas, in East Kent, for example, this last point has added another layer of concern about fracking and water supplies. East Kent falls within the Environment Agency's Southern Region, the third driest region of England and Wales, where "water is a scarce and often over-committed resource".

The DECC dismissed the Tyndall Centre study's concerns because Cuadrilla had assured it there was no appreciable risk of adverse environmental impacts from fracking. Cuadrilla voluntarily suspended its operations just a few months later in June, however, after fracking activity caused two small earthquakes in Lancashire, one of 2.3 magnitude and the other of 1.5. The company's temporary halt is pending DECC guidance on the conclusions of a study being carried out by the British Geological Survey and Keele University. Campaigners have pointed to a possible conflict of interest regarding Keele's involvement in the study, since Cuadrilla runs a summer programme for some of the university's geology students.

Cuadrilla commissioned an investigation into the seismic activity, which concluded that the tremors were probably caused by the lubrication of an existing fault plane by the unintended spread of fracking fluid below ground. Cuadrilla's estimates of how far up along faults fracking fluid could migrate during such incidents reinforced concerns among campaigners in Balcombe that, if accidental lubrication of an undetected fault line could and did occur there, it might result in disastrous contamination of the area's water table.

Even as Cuadrilla began fracking, it emerged that the effects (at least those less immediately obvious than earthquakes) of its activities, as well as the company's estimates of how much gas it could extract, would be kept secret for four years. Six months later, a leaked series of letters between government officials and Cuadrilla revealed that the UK's fracking industry will face only minimal regulation; for example, companies were not being expected to monitor, measure or analyse the polluted liquids that come back up the boreholes, liquids that must be disposed of elsewhere. A heavily criticised 2004 study by the US Environmental Protection Agency—which concluded fracking posed "little or no threat to drinking water", a conclusion that was the likely basis for fracking's controversial exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005—operated within this same narrow framework: complete inattention to anything other than the injection phase of the fracking process. The leaked correspondence also showed, amongst other things, that the government had thus far looked into neither the issue of fracking and climate change, nor the effects of the industry on renewables. According to The Guardian, even Cuadrilla wants better regulation of the UK fracking industry, but the Energy Secretary Charles Hendry is not in favour.

In September 2011, with licences having been granted to two energy companies for exploratory drilling in Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset Council voiced concern that, should the test drilling yield a significant find of shale gas, any subsequent fracking could contaminate Bath's famous hot springs. Similar worries about future fracking have been aired in the Vale of Glamorgan. Industry assurances about its forthcoming plans were tarnished in January 2012, though, when Cuadrilla Resources came under fire for its categorical denials of plans to frack near Balcombe after documents from parent company AJ Lucas materialised appearing to indicate the complete opposite.

In arguing its case, Cuadrilla claims that only three chemicals—a polyacrylamide lubricant commonly found in cosmetics, hydrochloric acid, and a biocide used to purify drinking water—will be used in the UK, compared with the hundreds that can be used in the United States, and that it has invested in more expensive, better equipment than that used by companies operating in the US. The company also relies heavily on industry analysis of a European Climate Foundation report, though the analysis is rejected by the ECF itself.

Opposition

According to Cuadrilla's communication advisor, "Gasland [the US feature documentary about shale gas] really changed everything. . . . Before that, shale gas was not seen as routinely controversial." There are now a number of protest groups, which range from the nationwide, like Frack Off, to the local, such as Ribble Estuary Against Fracking, NO Fracking in Sussex and The Vale Says NO. Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has proposed two early day motions on fracking, both calling for a moratorium.

See also

• Hydraulic fracturing
• Shale gas
• Environmental impact of the oil shale industry
• Gasland, a 2010 documentary by Josh Fox exploring the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing
• Eddy covariance, a method to directly measure emissions of gases displayed by hydraulic fracturing into the atmosphere
• Cost of electricity by source

External links

• E-petition calling for a ban on fracking in the UK
• Gasland trailer
• Fracking Hell: The Untold Story by Earth Focus and the Ecologist Film Unit
• DECC's FAQs on shale gas
• British Geological Survey's information about shale gas
• In-depth Guardian coverage of shale gas and fracking
• Cuadrilla Resources website