In last week’s budget Chancellor George Osborne announced a generous new tax regime for shale gas in an effort to introduce the North American shale gas boom to this country. This will include a new shale gas field allowance as well as technical planning support (i.e. how to get round the democratic planning process) during the exploration phase and proposals to allow local communities to benefit from shale gas exploration. This, despite the population density in the USA being 1/8 of the population density in the UK, so fracking plants will be a lot nearer a lot more people.
So how will fracking, if it goes ahead, affect us here in Nottinghamshire? John Hess, the BBC East Midlands political editor has written rather a nice blog that shows exactly where the gas fields in the East Midlands are and what they can produce. The main area of interest is an area called the Widmerpool gulf which runs from Melton Mowbray in the east to Ilkeston in the west. Now if you go to Googlemaps and search for Widmerpool, it is near a village called Plumtree and according to Wikipedia farming land around Plumtree is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. A quick phone call to the Duchy of Cornwall office confirmed this. They were also rather interested in why I was asking. A document from British Geological Survey (based at Keyworth in Nottinghamshire) and DECC shows the relative positions of shale gas and coal bed methane (CBM). Coal bed methane is nearer the surface but if you drill a bit deeper then you may reach shale gas. Already Dart Energy, an Australian company has licences to drill for CBM in seven areas in the East Midlands. A quick glance at the planning page of Notts County Council shows a granted application for an extension of temporary coal bed methane extraction near Retford in the north of the county and local company Alkane energy are proposing to drill for methane in coal fields on the Notts/Derby borders.
Many experts in the field saying that not only will shale gas not be in full production until 2035 but that it is quite frankly unaffordable, not only in the UK, but in Europe as well. Even BP say that shale gas will only play a small role in energy production. The trouble is that the Energy Bill 2012 is introducing Emissions Performance Standards (EPS), which means that coal fired power stations must comply with decarbonisation objectives and they can only do this with carbon capture and storage (CCS). But CCS is not ready yet in Europe with private sector and public sector being cautious, so without money research and development can’t proceed, although George Osborne has announced Government funding for 2 projects in the recent budget. EPS levels have been set so they don’t impact on gas fired power generation. The problem is of course that the more we invest in gas the less we are likely to invest in renewables and investing in renewables should be a top priority. Regardless of whether or not fracking goes ahead the Gas Generation Strategy contains plans for up to 40 new gas fired power stations. As gas prices rise, this will obviously impact on consumers. The crux of the argument in favour of shale gas is therefore that it is being sold as a panacea for increasing gas prices and a justification of building all these new power stations when, as I have said, we should be investing in renewables and energy efficiency..
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