Let’s start fracking the riches beneath our feet
It seems almost providential. Just as our North Sea gas supplies run out, we find we are sitting on vast subterranean reservoirs of the stuff. Locked in the rocks under us is enough natural gas to keep our homes heated for perhaps another 50 winters. Getting at that resource would not only boost the British economy, it would also mean that we no longer had to import natural gas – some of it from unsavoury regimes, some of it fracked – on ocean tankers.
Domestic shale extraction, in other words, is one of the few things that might raise net revenue while reducing net CO2 emissions.
You’d think eco-campaigners would be delighted. Here is a relatively safe and hygienic local energy source that would ease some of the pressure on our countryside. To generate the same amount of power as 10 fracking wells, you’d need to cover 435 times as much land with solar panels, or 750 times as much with wind turbines.
So who is objecting? Two very different constituencies. Some on the Left instinctively dislike both hydrocarbons and private enterprise. Never mind that, having spent 40 years complaining about the decline of coalmining, they now oppose creating new jobs extracting a cleaner fossil fuel – jobs which are, by any definition, safer and more pleasant than in the pits. This isn’t about logic; it’s about a vague sense that we shouldn’t be rustling about in the skirts of Mother Gaea.
The second constituency is broader, composed of people who, though they have no principled objection to fracking, don’t want it near them. This constituency is cross-party, and a dozen or so Conservative MPs are now threatening to oppose legislation that would facilitate exploratory drilling.
It is important to stress those last two words. The proposal currently before Parliament is not about fracking, simply about the right to extract a sample and send it to Aberdeen for analysis. Actual fracking, if any shale oil or gas is found, would still require full planning permission.
No one likes disruption, of course, even in the form of passing lorries. The energy companies recognise that the process involves a temporary nuisance and offer, as compensation to
‘This isn’t about logic; it’s about a vague sense that we shouldn’t be rustling about in the skirts of Mother Gaea’
local communities, one per cent of any revenue generated plus, if the site is fracked, £100,000 for each well.
It’s worth stressing, though, that at the end of the process, the installation is roughly the size of a garage, and can easily be screened by trees. It is far less intrusive than, say, the pylons which we take for granted even in some of our loveliest countryside.
Local people are, obviously, free to accept or reject a company’s offer. But it seems perverse not to allow them to find out whether an offer might be made. Britain is about to join the global economy as a fully independent state. Let’s not ignore the bounty that nature has placed beneath us.
Earlier this week, a coalition of 11 think-tanks published a draft UK-US free trade deal. Our treaty – and it is a full treaty, not just a proposal for a treaty – would provide for the mutual recognition of goods, services and professional qualifications. Instead of imposing common standards, EU-style, we would effectively agree to trust one another’s regulators.
Britain and America form a natural market sharing, as they do, the English language, the common law and congruent business norms. Each nation is the other’s chief investor. As you’d expect, a free trade agreement is popular – backed by 64 per cent to 67 in the United States and by 67 per cent to 69 here.
Critics have, therefore, taken to raising fears about “an American takeover of the NHS”. In fact, Britain will retain total control of its healthcare system. The only change made by our proposal would be that, if services were contracted out – for cleaning, say – US firms would be allowed to bid on the same terms as British ones.
That right is already enjoyed by EU providers. It seems that the Left’s real objection is not to trade but to Americans. FOLLOW Daniel Hannan on Twitter @DanielJHannan; at telegraph.co.uk/opinion