On July 28, the UK government launched its biggest ever onshore energy car boot sale – approaching half the land area of the British Isles with its population of 60million or so souls.
The area offered for licensing is actually some 37,000 square miles out of 88,745. It is a staggeringly large proportion of Britain to offer in such a manner. Why the rush? Why not 10%?
This round represents a colossal management and administrative challenge; one that will prove far more complex than the North Sea, mark my words.
Moreover, the 14th Landward Licensing Round is underpinned by very little geological knowledge with the arguable exceptions of studies carried out by British Geological Survey across a chunk of the north of England (Bowland Shale) some of sunny Sussex and a portion of Scotland’s Central Belt.
To offer acreage without preliminary geologicals is in my view fundamentally wrong. But perhaps there is an unsaid reason for this; Government wants the industry to pay for all of the expensive stuff. After all, austerity Britain is bust.
I am, however, prepared to accept that a considerable amount of environmental assessment work has been conducted via the SEA process, thankfully.
The massive area offered shockingly includes parts of National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and World Heritage Sites. Why? There is no valid reason for this.
I see that Friends of the Earth for one will set about raising hell. Rightly so.
OK, the London Government says that applications will only be accepted for these areas in “exceptional circumstances and in the public interest”. And anyone hunting for unconventional gas (or indeed oil) and who may at some point in the future wish to frack even an exploration well, will have to cross additional environmental hurdles.
But is that enough?
Naturally, when making his announcement, our latest attempt at an energy minister, Matthew Hancock, sought to protect the Cameron Administration’s hide by claiming that measures in place or being devised “will protect Britain’s great national parks and outstanding landscapes”.
And equally naturally, he rabbited on about thousands of new jobs and massive economic benefit without hard facts to call upon. Not surprising really. We don’t yet have a tight hydrocarbons industry onshore UK though we do have a modicum of conventional production.
However, the latter has always been very low profile – almost to the point of being invisible. It is a minor employer.
Without doubt, if shale gas ever gains traction here, it could become a sizeable employer. But will it ever get that far in view of the opposition that has barely started? And there are currently around 130 protest groups – apparently.
I have come to the view that we ain’t seen nuttin’ yet protest-wise.
The Great British Public will not tolerate large scale shale gas extraction; or at least not based on technologies currently available now or 10 years hence.
I’m quite sure that many people will have clicked Google, looking for pictures of shale gas extraction in the US. There are loads out there and they are not pretty. Huge swathes of land are already pock-marked with drill pads and damaged from massive use of water tankers during intensive fracking operations.
And I’m quite sure that a growing number of people will disbelieve assurances issued by this government agency and that trade body seeking to tell us that large scale fracking will not harm water resources. I don’t buy that. The jury is out in the US and they know it.
By the way, there are more 300million people in the US, but it is a vast land – over 3.7million square miles – much almost devoid of human habitation. And we are 60million people packed into less than 90,000 square miles.
Imagine the reaction if the onshore hydrocarbons extraction industry is remotely allowed to get away with in the crowded UK, what it has done in the US.
And yet that seems to be what Cameron is prepared to do in his panic to find so-called cheap energy.
Of course, one can bet one’s last guinea that Tory heartlands will make sure that the corporates don’t get anything like their own way in the leafy Home Counties for example; while ignoring the plight of the working class proletariat in the “desolate” north when Big Energy muscles in.
The 14th Landward Round is three years late. It was delayed because of the uproar over earth tremors in the Blackpool area thanks to Cuadrilla carrying out fracking operations on a shale gas exploration well.
Since then, a bunch of energy ministers have come and gone and the pleasure of standing in the line of fire from the media fell this time to Hancock.
Hancock will be long gone by the time the UK onshore quest for shale gas really gets under way; that is five to 10 years off. But it could be 20 years before anything like the 1,000 or so wells per annum required to produce significant volumes of gas becomes remotely possible.
By that time any assurances given today will have no value whatsoever. Britain will be a very different place to what we know today. Our children will be the inheritors of today’s screw-ups. Let us not forget that.
The closing date for the 14th Landward Licensing Round is October 28.
Recommended for you
