The prospect of keeping energy bills low and creating jobs has brought some UK tax breaks for the gas and oil industry this summer.
In July, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne infuriated environmentalists by announcing big tax concessions for the fracking industry in a bid to kickstart a shale gas revol-ution that could enhance the UK’s energy security – but also increase its carbon emissions.
The UK Treasury has set a 30 per cent tax rate for onshore shale gas production. (This compares with a top rate of 62 per cent on new North Sea oil operations and up to 81 per cent for older offshore fields.)
A British Geological Survey has further whetted industry appetites by revealing there could be enough energy resources locked away to supply the country for many years to come.
But have the real costs to the environment of squeezing every last drop of fuel out of the bowels of the earth been truly considered?
According to Greenpeace UK energy campaigner Lawrence Carter, the company in receipt of the tax break, Cuadrilla, has admited that drilling to extract shale gas may not lead to cheaper gas prices: “Instead we’re likely to see the industrialisation of tracts of the British countryside, gas flaring in the home counties and a steady stream of trucks carrying contaminated water down rural lanes.”
Hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, allows drilling firms to access previously inaccessible deposits of oil and gas. The controversial technique blasts water into rocks to open up cracks and free up shale gas.
Among the known negative effects of fracking are earthquakes, aquifer pollution, heavy metal contamination and increased truck traffic.
Fracking on a massive scale may well have brought energy security and driven down gas prices in the US and Canada but not without a huge environmental price.
The oil and gas industry was exempted, by an act of US Congress, from seven laws that were meant to protect communities near fracking sites, including the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
In some cases, residents who live near these sites have been able to strike a match to running tap water in their kitchens and watch it flare as the methane ignites. There have also been explosions.
Fracking has been banned in a number of countries, counties and regions including Cantabria in Spain and Fribourg in Switzerland. In the US, Vermont was the first state to ban fracking in May 2012. Numerous town bans and moratoria across New York State are listed and mapped by FracTracker.org and an up-to-date list of fracking bans worldwide may be viewed at www.keeptapwatersafe.org.
Among the known negative effects of fracking are earthquakes, aquifer pollution, heavy metal contamination and increased truck traffic
Another worry is that potentially carcinogenic chemicals used in fracking may escape and contaminate groundwater around the sites.
The process involves pumping a mixture of water, chemicals and sand at high pressure into the ground and exploding them to cause fracturing and release trapped gases.
Opponents fear contamination of underground aquifers by the explosion of chemicals shot deep below the ground to help free the natural gas locked in rock and shale.
An unnerving occurrence around some fracking zones has been the observance of earth tremors. Following a small quake in Blackpool two years ago, Prof. Richard Davies of Durham University Energy Institute led a study which “established beyond doubt” that fracking has the potential to reactivate dormant faults where fluid is pumped underground.
Science magazine reported another story in July on the growing data linking earthquakes to forced fluid injections into rock. These tremors may go unnoticed for the most part, but, Davies says, there is a long-term risk of wells leaking over time, polluting ground water and damaging the environment.
Britain’s National Trust and the Campaign to Protect Rural England also aired concerns that fracking could contaminate water courses and landscapes if gas leaks into acquifers.
Another worry is toxic sludge, a waste by-product of fracking. After sending chemical-laden water down the wells it comes back up as a hazardous waste sludge which has to be stored by injecting it into the ground. Removing it to other areas for storage only transfers the risk to other localities.
The drilling of research wells for fracking in West Sussex, on hold for a year over safety concerns until April, has awakened a protest movement which is set to spread across the country.
A US energy firm is currently contesting a French ban on fracking in place since 2011. Environmental and Energy Minister Delphine Batho is well aware that the cost of producing the gas does not take into account “considerable environmental damage”.
“We have to have our eyes wide open about what is going on in the US,” said the French minister, as business lobbies stepped up their campaign in favour of shale energy development.
The lobbies argue it would help reverse France’s industrial decline, raise competitiveness through cheaper energy supplies and lower unemployment.
French business lobby Medef is pushing for research drilling, so far blocked by the ban, but Batho continues to push for massive development of renewable energies.
Poland, thought to have the largest reserves of underground shale gas in Europe, is aggressively developing an industry which may divert massive amounts of water away from its large agricultural sector, raising additional concerns.
Large-scale fracking in Poland would relieve some of the EU’s dependency on Russian gas, although reserves may not be as high as originally reported by a US Department of Energy survey.
An environmental protest that led to banning of fracking in Bulgaria was dismissed as ‘a Russian plot’ to keep gas prices high.
Neighbouring Romania has given Chevron planning permission for exploratory drilling in the Vaslui and Dobrogea regions, although the sensitive coastline appears to be spared so far.