George Osborne's plan to deliver cheap energy by fostering a fracking revolution has been dealt a severe blow after an influential cross-party group of experts said any boom in shale gas production would be "unlikely to give the UK cheap gas".
A nine-month inquiry chaired by former energy minister Charles Hendry, concludes that it is far too early to estimate the volume of shale gas contained in UK rocks and harder still to know how much of that it will be commercially viable to extract.
Further complicating the picture, developers in densely populated Britain could find it difficult to secure planning permission to extract the gas, which is produced using the environmentally unpopular practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. MORE
