Energy: Fracking

Baroness Worthington Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Worthington (Lab)]

My Lords, what an interesting debate we have had. I start by addressing the question put to us: should every serious environmentalist now favour fracking? I have read the report and found it very interesting, but I was left with an overriding impression that it was an excellent report in arguing against coal but not as persuasive in arguing in favour of fracking. In fact, I take issue with the title because, really, this was about gas, not about fracking and, as anyone who has studied the subject will know, fracking is as much about oil extraction as it is about gas. Certainly in the US it has led to a big increase in oil production. That has had interesting geopolitical consequences—I do not doubt that—but it is not an environmental move forward if you are starting to argue that oil is somehow a benign, low-carbon substance that we should move towards. So it is partial in its coverage of the issue of fracking by omitting to reference the fact that it is as much about oil as it is about gas.

I find myself in an interesting position whereby I support what the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, has said. I am very glad that he made the point that there is no way in which you can present shale gas or fracking as a panacea. You can point to the fact that it could have great benefits but you cannot say that it is the answer to everything. When I hear the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, speak with such passion for this subject—almost as much passion as he has for arguing that climate change is not real and that renewables are not worth it—I always wonder why that is. It must, I suppose, be a personal interest in the technology or an excitement about it. However, it is nice that we are having a debate in which the framing of this is that shale gas is needed to reduce carbon dioxide. Clearly, that is true; gas can have a significant bridging effect in helping us to tackle climate change.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

I am still not quite clear what the position is of the Labour Opposition on the development of resources of shale gas.

[Baroness Worthington]

If the noble Lord had given me a moment, I was going to come on to that. We have a very clear position: it has a role to play but we need a seasoned, mature and rational debate about that role. There is no point in overhyping it and claiming that it is going to be this great, wondrous change in how we use energy in the UK. We can all look to the US and say what an amazing experience they have had over there. When I was in Washington recently, I read an excellent book called The Frackers—I have been wracking my brain but I cannot remember the author—which I recommend to everyone. It is an inside account of how the fracking industry grew up in the US. I was left feeling admiration for its energy and enthusiasm, the amount of risk it was prepared to take and how many setbacks it went through. That these wildcat prospectors brought about a massive change in the US is absolutely true.

Do I think it could be replicated in the UK or Europe? Absolutely not. I am afraid that the conditions here could not be more different to those that led to the fracking revolution in the US. One can argue that they have helped to develop new technologies, which is absolutely right—horizontal drilling and fracturing are now new tools in the extractive industry’s toolbox—but will they be able to deploy them in the UK at scale and have the kind of impact that they have had in the US? I doubt it. There are very different factors: the way in which the US treats land rights, and it being an isolated market, meant that prices could plunge rapidly there, which they will not in Europe. We are connected to the global gas network and we have prices set for us on the global market in a completely different way to the US. I recommend reading the book, because it brings a dose of realism to the whole debate.

As to whether environmentalists could be persuaded to endorse fracking, it has a potential role to play. The key is for the industry to be upfront about why people are potentially opposed to it. It is often not about the pollution, the water or taps that might catch fire, but more to do with local objections. Again I find it ironic that we have a nation which cares deeply about what happens in its backyard. That is why onshore wind has been held back and why in the past we have seen great opposition to incineration in local communities. There will be the same reaction to fracking, I am afraid, and unless the industry is upfront and honest about that, it will be missing the point.

Perhaps this reference will not work very well in the House of Lords, but I heard recently that Bez from the Happy Mondays is now standing as an anti-fracking candidate. That says something about what popular public opinion thinks about this technology. Whoever was responsible for its PR has done a disastrous job; it is not the Government who are holding it back. The Government have given fracking tax exemptions and changed local planning to try to encourage it, so there will be money flowing. I am not saying it is bribery but it is encouragement. I still think there is going to be a great deal of unhappiness and opposition to this, and we have not even started. We have one or two test wells that have been sunk yet here we are talking about this as if it is a huge contributor of change in the UK. I severely doubt that.

As the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, pointed out, population density is important. In answer to the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, in those areas of the US where population density is higher, there is great opposition. In the north-eastern states, where there is a huge reserve, some states have imposed an outright ban; others have taken it very slowly. This is because the population there are capable of standing up and objecting to it. They are largely wealthy, middle-class citizens who do not want to see their local environment disrupted. The noble Lord, Lord Borwick, said something that catches the point of this. Although these rigs may be temporary, an awful lot of them are needed because they are temporary. The fact that the industry has to keep disrupting people and moving on will mean that this will be slow to develop, if it develops at all.

Another thing that quite a lot of people will cite as a reason for their opposition is that the industry has been slow to acknowledge that it is still a fossil fuel, particularly if it is oil based. Even if it is cleaner gas, it is still a fossil fuel. The industry needs to be much more upfront about how this new influx of gas will be compatible with our climate change targets. That will have to be through embracing carbon capture and storage. I would love to see the shale gas industry acknowledge that its future will lie with carbon capture and storage and that all of the engineering expertise we have for extracting things out of the ground can be redeployed to putting it back underground so that we can make it safe. If that were part of the narrative, then we would see much less opposition than at the moment.

We have to be very cautious. This is not going to be fast. It could be 10 or 20 years before we really know. I am sure it is true that the UK could play an important leading role in the EU in establishing rules and regulations, but I hope that that is not the case. I hope that Poland moves ahead with this because, let us face it, Poland needs gas more than we do. I also hope it happens in China because, as the report rightly says, China has a huge demand for coal and we need to do everything we can to wean it off that polluting source of energy, not only in terms of carbon emissions but also in terms of human health.

However, the report fails to point out that China will develop nuclear power in a way that we in Europe can scarcely imagine. There are already 20 nuclear reactors in operation and 28 more are under construction. There will be 150 gigawatts of nuclear power in China by 2030. That is where the revolution will come from and I hope that that will happen alongside all the other things that China is doing.