Fracking ban means we're missing out on energy goldmine, says TIM NEWARK

Last year, our trade deficit in natural gas almost doubled from £2.6billion to £4.7billion, while in the US the domestic price of gas has barely risen because of their own huge shale gas reserves – and they don’t appear to be suffering from the earthquakes predicted by the fracking doomsters.

This weekend former Brexit minister Lord Frost and more than 30 MPs asked the Prime Minister to restart fracking in the UK to bring more prosperity, 75,000 jobs and real levelling up across the regions.

Brexit Opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg is also urging Boris Johnson to lift the 2019 moratorium on fracking in the UK to increase our energy independence, but the PM has so far
refused and energy company Cuadrilla was told to seal England’s last two viable shale gas wells at Preston New Road in Lancashire, near Blackpool, which would take millions of pounds to unblock.

With fuel pump prices hitting a record high of 148.02p a litre this weekend, it seems crazy to diminish access to our potential energy wealth that could bring down the cost-of-living crisis. Not only do high fuel prices punish drivers they add to inflation by pushing up delivery costs. For a country potentially rich in oil and gas, it is a ridiculous situation to be in. With gas prices having risen five-fold over recent months, British gas companies are enjoying a bonanza in profits which could translate into higher taxes paid to the UK government.

With foresight we could have been exporting British natural gas to Europe now facing higher prices thanks to tension in the Ukraine and Russian control of energy supplies to Germany
and their neighbours. Instead, we are throwing away this potential goldmine because of a handful of eco-campaigners spreading rumours of dire consequences. Head of the doommongering pack is environment minister Zac Goldsmith.

“People do not want largescale industrialisation of the British countryside,” he says.

“The UK is not Utah.” Former editor of The Ecologist, Goldsmith is a close-friend of both Boris and Carrie Johnson and so has the ear of the Prime Minister when it comes to environmental matters, but many Tory backbench MPs are furious at the impact this failure to exploit home-sourced energy is having on their constituents.

“Shutting these things down is a major mistake,” says Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, “and the biggest mistake we made is we went from being a net exporter of gas to a net importer of gas because different governments took a decision to phase out our domestic supply and we were wrong.”

In their letter to the Prime Minister, the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of MPs and peers said that the Bowland Shale formation of gas under Lancashire offers “at least 50 years of cheap and sustainable gas”.

Accessing that reservoir of energy would “improve our energy security, reduce our reliance on imported gas, stabilise energy prices, and achieve net zero without increasing the cost of living for already hardpressed working families.”

Fears of earth tremors have been much overplayed by opponents of fracking. It was an earthquake of 2.4 that led to the ban on fracking in Lancashire but that is termed minor by international standards and happens millions of times a year globally, more like a large truck rumbling by. With the improved use of seismic monitors, earth-shaking issues can be anticipated and reduced.

As for disruption in the countryside, it’s frequently the ecoprotesters that cause more mess and congestion according to Lorraine Allanson, a former farmer living in North Yorkshire in favour of shale gas bringing better paid jobs to her local community.

“The protests caused more anguish than the things they were warning against,” she observed. 

Much of the objection to shale gas is coming from anti-capitalist protesters who are using green arguments to shackle our economy and the current cost of living crisis is a sign of where this rush to Net-Zero can lead us if we are not more cautious.

“If our economy is to boom after Brexit,” says Lord Frost, “British industry needs a competitive and reliable source of energy which we hold in our own hands. Shale gas production achieves all this and more.”

As energy prices hit new highs, it’s time our PM listened to common sense and pressed the on-button for our prosperous shale gas future.