Blogs and Briefings
What the frack?
Connect’s Andrew Smith hears what shale gas reservoirs might mean for global energy supplies
10 November 2011
“FRACKING DID CAUSE TREMORS IN BLACKPOOL”
“SHOULD FRACKING BE BANNED IN THE UK?"
These aren’t the headlines the companies involved in shale gas exploitation wanted to see as they kicked off the debate about what shale gas or other unconventional gas supplies might mean for the UK energy market.
The link between hydraulic fracturing techniques used to extract gas from shale beds and a very small tremor in Poulton Le Flyde near Blackpool has, however, drawn attention to the sector and led to a debate about what the development of new gas reserves might mean for the UK.
The difference between conventional and unconventional gas supplies can be summed up fairly simply: conventional gas will flow out of a well once a well is drilled, whilst unconventional gas supplies need extraction through a range of different techniques. In the case of shale gas, this is through hydraulic fracturing, which means injecting water, sand and other chemicals at high-pressure deep underground to break up the shale bed and to release the gas.
The use of shale gas in the USA has been a game changing event for the US energy market over the past decade. A country that was increasingly worried about its growing dependence on gas imports has now seen that balance shift and has now become a net exporter. The resultant fall in gas prices, as well giving a boost to energy consumers, has had environmental benefits, allowing a switch from ‘dirty coal’ power plants to more efficient gas plants.
The Foundation for Science and Technology, which aims to provide an opportunity for leaders of the science, industry, regulatory and political communities to debate policy issues, held a lively meeting last night to ask what the development of shale gas reservoirs might mean for global energy supplies.
The effect is likely to be significant. The exploitation of shale gas reserves in China and India should stabilise world energy prices and reduce the growth in carbon emissions associated with their economic rise, by enabling a switch from coal to cleaner gas.
Even though it is unlikely that the UK will enjoy the same ‘gas revolution’ enjoyed by the US, significant potential reserves have been discovered in areas such as the Bowland Shale in Lancashire, South Wales and parts of Oxfordshire.
One of the key barriers to the exploitation of these reserves will be winning over public opinion and ensuring an appropriate regulatory structure.
Persuading the public that a technique shown to contribute to ‘earthquakes’ is safe is clearly not easy, but the tremors caused by shale gas extraction were barely perceptible and no worse than tremors that have occurred as the result of mining operations in the past.
The industry consensus is that shale gas exploitation offers potentially huge benefits to the UK, both in reducing our need to import gas and allowing us to reduce carbon emissions by filling the gap between energy produced by renewables and energy demand with cleaner gas rather than coal and oil.
If the UK is to take full advantage of shale gas, it is clear that the industry needs to do more to communicate to both the public and regulators how safe hydraulic fracturing is when undertaken in a properly regulated way. We desperately need a more high profile debate about what new indigenous sources of gas could mean in terms of the UK’s energy security and the price of energy in the UK.
