UK fracking won’t fill the energy gap
B. McPherson Fracking hype in the UK may be just that. Laws have been changed to make it easier for petroleum corporations to shatter the shale beds to extract the oil or gas held in the rocks. People have been told that the sacrifice of land and water to facilitate this extraction is for the common good, that it will make the UK self-sufficient in natural gas. Prices will remain as is or be reduced. A credible report from the University of Sussex challenges that assertion. Published in The UK’s Global Gas Challenge, the report points out that the year 2000 was the last year that the UK was self-sufficient in natural gas. As the fields in the North Sea diminished their productivity, the UK gradually increased its dependence on foreign suppliers. Now about 50% of the natural gas that the UK uses comes from Norway and Qatar. The US has led the world in fracking to obtain natural gas. Canada has followed suit. There has been a large increase in the supply of natural gas, b...