The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has ordered a scientific review of the impact of fracking.
The announcement comes as the government prepares to publish its energy security strategy later this week.
It follows pressure from a small number of Conservative MPs for a lifting of the moratorium on fracking.
The operation was suspended in England in November 2019 after fracking at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in Lancashire caused a series of earthquakes.
They included a seismic event measuring 2.9ML, the UK largest induced earthquake. The British Geological Survey (BGS) received nearly 200 complaints of damage to property from that event.
Since then, ministers repeatedly said they would not lift the moratorium without compelling new evidence that fracking could be done safely and sustainably.
Today, Mr Kwarteng said:
“Unless the latest scientific evidence demonstrates that shale gas extraction is safe, sustainable and of minimal disturbance to those living and working nearby, the pause in England will remain in place.”
He said fracking in England would “take years of exploration and development before commercial quantities of gas could be produced for the market, and would certainly have no effect on prices in the near term.”
But he said:
“There will continue to be an ongoing demand for oil and gas over the coming decades as we transition to cheap renewable energy and new nuclear power. In light of Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, it is absolutely right that we explore all possible domestic energy sources.”
The review announcement follows a U-turn last week by the shale gas regulator, which had required Cuadrilla to plug and abandon its Preston New Road wells by the end of June 2022. The order was then lifted and the company now has until June 2023 to produce “credible reuse plans” for the wells.
The review, to be carried out by the BGS, is due to be completed by June 2022.
In a letter to the BGS, Mr Kwarteng made it clear the review would be desk-based and not involve any drilling or seismic monitoring. The BGS was asked to investigate:
- new developments in the science of hydraulic fracturing or new techniques that would reduce the risk and magnitude of seismic events
- new techniques that would be suitable for use in fracturing in UK geology and high population density
- how seismicity caused by fracturing compares with other forms of underground energy production, such as geothermal and coal mining, or surface activities such as construction
- Whether safe thresholds for these activities remain the correct ones and that any differences are justified
- how geological modelling has improved since the moratorium in November 2019 and whether ministers could be completely confident about modelling of seismic events
- whether there are other sites, outside Lancashire, which might be at a lower risk of seismic activity
- what level of confidence government would have in an assessment of seismic activity in these areas
Reaction
Claire Stephenson, of Frack Free Lancashire, which campaigned against Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road operation, said:
“Carrying out a review of fracking seems entirely futile, after over 10 years of attempts in the UK to make an industry. Cuadrilla tried – and failed – in Lancashire, to frack on a commercial level. The seismicity that was produced by fracking at Preston New Road, and previously, Preese Hall, is unable to be controlled nor mitigated. This is unacceptable to communities who are forced to endure this dirty industry.
“Our community and local democracy in Lancashire said no to fracking, yet this was overruled by the central government, who decided they knew best.
“Aside from the major climate risks, such as uncontrollable methane leaks that come with fracking, it will not make any difference to the current energy crisis. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, that humanity is on a “fast track to climate disaster” and accused some governments and businesses of “lying” and those countries who are upping their fossil fuel production are the ‘truly dangerous radicals’.
“The government should be focussing on renewable and quick-to-launch energy sources like wind power, instead of listening to noisy climate change denying backbench ministers who are stuck in the past with outdated energy sources.”
Susan Holliday, from Preston New Road Action Group, said
“It seems ridiculous that the government are spending more money and time doing a review on fracking. They should be concentrating on sustainable energy which has a future, rather than throwing more at fossil fuels which should be being phased out.
“Attempts to frack on the Fylde Coast has shown that it cannot be done here without causing seismic events. The geology around the Preston New Road site has not changed since the moratorium was introduced.
“If this review suddenly decides that fracking can be done safely, it will lead us to question how a desk based review can suddenly over ride the evidence that was gathered at Preston New Road. We have lived through the seismic events caused by fracking and know the impacts. Can the people doing the review say the same?”
Friends of the Earth energy campaigner, Danny Gross, said:
“We don’t need a review to know that fracking is not the answer to our energy needs. The idea that shale gas extraction will significantly lower energy bills or improve energy security is pure fantasy.
“Fracking has been deeply unpopular with communities that have faced the prospect of shale gas extraction. They have stopped fracking once and, if necessary, they’ll stop it again.
“Energy efficiency and developing the UK’s vast renewable power potential are the best ways to deal with the energy crisis and bring down soaring fuel bills – and this must be the focus of the government’s upcoming energy review.”
Stephen Bowler, chief executive of the would-be fracking company, IGas, said:
“This is a significant development by the Government and we welcome the opportunity to demonstrate how shale gas can provide safe, secure and affordable energy for the UK.
“With Government support to rapidly accelerate the development of this strategic national resource, the IGas Board believes it can make this vital, indigenous supply of energy available to British consumers and businesses in a short timeframe.”
IGas has abandoned two shale gas exploration site in Nottingham. One, Tinker Lane, failed to find the Bowland Shale. The other, at Springs Road, Misson, was refused planning permission last year and is due to be restored.
“Gas has a key role to play to ensure our future energy supply is secure, affordable and as low carbon as is economically possible. It is used to heat over 80% of homes and by over 60% of the UK’s population for cooking. Whilst renewable sources of energy are increasingly producing a greater share of our electricity, gas still provides c.40%.
“UK shale gas resources can replace imports, reduce prices, boost the country’s tax revenues, and lead to job creation in areas where they are most needed to support the Government’s levelling up agenda.”
James Murray, editor in chief of Business Green, tweeted:
“spending time and money to review evidence on fracking tremors that has not meaningfully changed, not because Number 10 is seriously considering lifting the ban this side of an election to keep Jacob [Rees-Mogg] quiet.
DRILL OR DROP? 
I see that it is not just Tory MPs, but hey ho, let’s not let an opportunity for class warfare to go to waste. Might even be more Labour MPs in support if they feel a windfall tax could be applied!
So, as I have posted elsewhere, I suspect there may be a new traffic light system, more geological assessment, examination of new techniques and then, perhaps, a new area found for appraisal.
What new techniques might they be Fred?
There is no scientific basis for this moratorium ban, it is a political one. The British public need to loose this British entitlement to something they think they deserve or that they believe they are owed.
The basic principle is that those who shout loudest do not conduct the necessary science around drilling, stimulation and extraction.
Those who are not in the energy industry, don’t have the faintest idea what is going on. There has been onshore oil and gas production in the UK for over 50 years with not a whisper from locals. Now that those who travel the length and the breadth of the UK to cause up roar to a legal operation, is unjust. Once the seismic is determined, and that it is proven that 10% of the gas volume in place can flow, then the pipelines will be constructed, the rigs will come down and the locals will get the benefit of locally produced gas.
And this, children, is the arrogant attitude of the industry which explains why only 17% of the UK public support them. 🤷
And, the majority do not have a view against them!
Goodness, a child would even be able to check the data. Especially the local ones who had their science education supported.
Same old tired and flawed manipulation.
Interesting how the methods haven’t changed.
However, the situation will be reviewed, the scientists reviewing will be discounted if they come up with anything that is disliked, past methods can not be changed as they were agreed-yet next season there will be 5 subs instead of 3-technology doesn’t advance with fossil fuels but it does with renewables etc. etc.
And, in place of serious comment, the Emoji will return to get down with the children!
Meanwhile, many will have received notification of their revised gas bills this week and will be hoping someone else will help to pay the increase. That requires taxation in UK to do. The taxation that applies over the horizon is used over the horizon to help pay bills over the horizon.
This new art form your are testing out is great Fred.
It’s like a mash up of stream of consciousness and surrealism combined with some sort of 60’s counter culture rambling. It’s good but don’t overdo the shrooms!
Such as bullet points 1 and 2, delayed reaction. After all, there has been so much successful fracking going on elsewhere to provide Europe with gas, it would be surprising if no new techniques had been found. Or, perhaps, there are some from Cornwall? Oops, that was just a case of too little to bother the cows, so maybe that will be the technique to be adopted? If the cows are happy and continue to produce their methane, then all okay? Canaries down the mines seemed to be acceptable. Lots of happy cattle in Texas.
Just think of it as a new opportunity for that Super Hero uniform to be brought out from retirement, and the BMW mobile to be fired into life!
IGAS shareholders seem to see an opportunity too. So many opportunities from one announcement.
AJL spent $0.9 million, in the first half of 2021, “largely to support the maintenance of the Group’s licences and the pursuit of strategies to overturn the moratorium.” and at the end of that time, in June 2021, the OGA ordered Cuadrilla to plug and abandon the wells.
Given that Cuadrilla and the BGS worked closely together at PNR, ‘Rabbits and hats’ is the phrase that springs to mind now….still it is almost Easter :-).
Not going to happen. Nothing has changed. This is a political move to appease a minority. After the IPCC report yesterday and Guterres warnings, any move to start up a whole new fossil fuel industry in the UK (which will have no impact on prices or supply) will be met with huge opposition not only from communities affected but by back bench MPs, environmental groups, NGOs and many more. Wrong time, place, wrong direction.
👏👏👏👏
IPCC intergovernmental report & Gutteres warnings? From which standpoint?, hahahahaha…. Get those mud huts, and manure fires burning…
We’d better have a chat sometime about what a bullet point is, but Fred, what is wrong with the old TLS? Cuadrilla helped design it and it seemed to do its job reasonably enough (although it didn’t stop the 2.9 ML. of course – maybe it needs tightening up a bit?)
Frankie say PNR already has the most 3D Seismic imaging of anywhere in the universe. How much more geological assessment can they do?
Do you not reckon that if they thought there were relevant new techniques they’d have been screaming about them from the rooftops to get the moratorium overturned? I note that you don’t say in Europe LOL. That dog isn’t going to run btw.
I find it hard to believe that even Boris Johnson would be daft enough to say “we ****ed it up on the Fylde but don’t worry other Tory shire seat. it’ll be just fine where you are. Just let us have a go!” so new appraisal areas seem unlikely without some serious scientific breakthroughs that don’t exist today (or we’d have heard of them already wouldn’t we?)
If this is any more than kicking the can down the road I shall be extremely surprised. Still it gives you hope Fred, and hope is a truly wonderful thing. Just don’t bet any money on it.
By the way the Beemer is still going strong thanks Fred. It’s so clean burning that I was allowed to enter London’s new ultra low emission zone without charge last week! Isn’t German technology simply wonderful!
Ahh, the old Fantasy Football Managers emerge.
Makes me wonder why with so much more knowledge than the scientists and the fossil fuel companies, why there has not been a race to sign them all up!
Nope, delayed, “we’d” not have heard of them before. The real managers may have, the fantasy ones would not.
Maybe there is a cunning plan to search out an area that is not a Tory shire seat. There must be an odd one here or there! Seem to recall that there are a few Labour MPs quite keen on fracking also. Maybe it will just be called geothermal, and then a bit of shaking is okay?
I’m sure your Beemer will be fine, until the Russian diesel is banned. Good job you managed to get one before the German car industry runs out of energy. Yep, that German technology that has been undermined by placating protest groups will now just have to get their energy supplies re-organized-again. Never mind, they can always re-call that queen of organization-Ursula!
Yes Fred we’d have heard about them because if they’d found any it would have been commercial madness to keep quiet about them.
Even you might have heard about it!
My real worry here is that this review will be carried out by BGS.
BGS has shown in the last few years how it supports certain areas of work in fracking, CCS, and nuclear waste:
1 In 2018 the BGS website stated “The BGS has worked with the wider geoscience community to identify two preferred geological locations. The first research field site will be in the Thornton area (Cheshire) and will focus on shale gas and carbon capture and storage (CCS). The second research field site will be in Scotland and will focus on geothermal energy”.
In 2021 three years after their major planning application for boreholes at Ince Marshes in Cheshire, BGS declared the land there was “not suitable”. Now BGS has been given approval by planning officers, not the planning committee, to move to the secure Thornton Science Park, just up the road, but subject to far less scrutiny.
• https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/residents-were-not-consulted-admits-13912671
• https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/energy-research-centre-cheshire-delayed-18709210
• https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/cheshire-observatory-relocate-ground-inspection-21342608
2. In 2021 BGS signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Radioactive Waste Management Limited. This states “The Parties intend to work together at strategic, technical and operational levels, in an open and transparent way, informed by rigorous science, to progress delivery of the UK GDF”.
As nuclear energy will be a major part of government proposals, the nuclear industry will just want to dump and forget its current nuclear waste, and get on with producing more. We could even import it from other countries !
• https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/894657/MoU_BGS_and_RWM_v3.0_BGS_FINAL_for_signing_270520.pdf
• https://www.theengineer.co.uk/boreholes-nuclear-waste-drilling-sheffield/
• https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Study-puts-case-for-deep-borehole-disposal-in-Slov
3. in 2015 Michael Stephenson published “Shale Gas and Fracking, the Science Behind the Controversy”
People do not have to be in the industry to know when their house shakes. Nor do they have to be in the industry to understand that Cuadrilla not only helped design and agree the regulations but stated they would frack within the regulations “A senior executive at the fracking company Cuadrilla privately said this summer it did not expect to cause earthquakes that would be serious enough to force it to halt operations.” They went on to say they would manage the risk! So everyone can understand that Cuadrilla failed and now want to widen the goal posts.
And people don’t have to be in the industry to understand how many wells and sites will be required either and the disruption that causes.
Let us not forget the moratorium states that fracking can only go ahead if it can be done safely and with minimal disturbance to local communities.
People can also understand when well respected experts such as Professor Jon Gluyas, Professor Al Fraser, Professor John Underhill and others say that fracking will not work in the U.K. because of U.K. geology and the type of shale in the U.K.
I could go on about the over estimate of the resource, how fixed surface development and infrastructure will significantly limit fracking opportunities and then there is the BGS Nottingham University study with such disappointing results, but I’ll stop there.
And then of course you do not have to be in the industry to understand the very real warning issued by the IPCC yesterday.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/11/fracking-firm-boss-says-it-didnt-expect-to-cause-such-serious-quakes-lancashire
The Great Green Lie: Wind & Solar Aren’t Saving The Planet, They’re Wrecking It
The Greens, Foe, XR are lying to you too… 😉
Wind isn’t green, solar isn’t green, wave. We are yet to see, ding dong? Oh there the gas meter company at my door, I better let them in to read the meter! #homeproducedgas #keepcalmandfrackon
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/04/02/the-great-green-lie-wind-solar-arent-saving-the-planet-theyre-wrecking-it/amp/
So, 5 well pads with 16 wells per pad to supply 3m homes, KatT-even when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. (See statement from IGAS.) And, if you don’t like gas then just convert to hydrogen and then power buses, trains and other motor vehicles-excluding BMW 3 liter diesels. Of course, if LNG imports are preferred-and they currently are-then perhaps look at the impact upon emissions by so doing and the impact upon global pricing by following that preference and ignoring what is/maybe available locally. (I note UK is looking to open number 4 LNG terminal.)
5 well pads. Hardly the extensive industrial development that would be required from renewables as wind turbines, solar farms plus the odd nuclear power station for back-up.