Energy Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Viscount Ridley

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Grand Committee

[Viscount Ridley]

My Lords, in the United States, shale gas has displaced coal. I should, by the way, declare my interest in coal even though, once again, I am speaking against it and in favour of its greatest competitor, gas. There has been a massive displacement of coal by shale gas, which brings me on to the next point. The effect of displacing coal with shale gas in the United States has been to cause the fastest drop in CO₂ emissions of any western country. They are down to the levels they were at 30 years ago and down to the per capita levels they were at 50 years ago. These are extraordinary achievements and suggest that we have, in shale gas, a technology for short-term reduction in carbon dioxide emissions—not all the way down to 50 grams or anything like that but a good chunk of the way—that could be achieved and combined with affordability. The counterfactual to building a huge amount of offshore wind capacity and other industries is to allow the development of gas in this country. We know that the numbers would be much lower in terms of the cost to the consumer—it would be much more feasible and much more affordable. To throw away the flexibility of going for that possibility would be a potential mistake.

[Lord Deben]

I am sure that the noble Viscount knows this, but in the calculations that the climate change committee has made, it fully accepts the need for using that shale gas in the amounts that we generously expect will be used. We are not throwing it away, we are including it as one of the portfolio.

[Viscount Ridley]

Would the noble Lord accept that the figure that came out last week for the amount of shale gas under the UK is far higher than was assumed when his report was written? I went to talk to Cuadrilla at one point last year. I said that the 200 trillion cubic feet that they were talking about under Lancashire was being ridiculed as a very high number and asked whether they stood by it. They said, “Privately, we think it is much higher. It is about 300 trillion cubic feet but we dare not say so because people will not take that seriously”. Then an independent consultant, Nick Grealy, said 700 trillion cubic feet and everybody laughed at it. Now, the British Geological Survey has said there is 1,300 trillion cubic feet. This is the largest find of shale gas ever on the planet. The shale rock we are talking about, the Bowland shale, is in places 10 times as thick as the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.

I went to see shale gas extraction in the Marcellus shale in 2011 because I had heard about it and thought it was interesting. You could hardly find these well pads—they are tiny and hidden among the trees. There was a flock of wild turkeys running across the road on the way to one. I asked somebody for a calculation of just how much energy can come out of a small area when you are drilling for shale gas. The answer is that about 25 acres of well pad in Pennsylvania can produce as much energy from shale gas as the entire UK wind industry produces at the moment.