New Scientist: Embracing shale gas may help cut emissions

THIS book will anger many environmentalists. In it, Dieter Helm argues that they, and green-minded political leaders, have wasted two decades in counterproductive efforts to curb climate change, and he calls for climate crusaders to get behind the much-hated new fossil fuel, shale gas.

A University of Oxford economist with a distinguished pedigree on climate change, Helm is no closet sceptic. He is adamant that action to halt global warming is urgent. But he says that the dogged installation, especially in Europe, of expensive and poorly performing wind turbines and solar panels has done more harm than good.

Far from kick-starting a renewables revolution, he says, it has diverted cash from research and design needed to produce genuinely carbon-reducing energy technologies. Worse, it has pushed up energy prices and driven industries to relocate. "What exactly is the point of reducing emissions in Europe," he asks, "if it encourages energy-intensive industry to move to China, where the pollution will be ever worse?"

The most urgent need is to banish coal burning, he says. Any other fuel is better. And the clear choice for the immediate future is natural gas, especially shale gas.  MORE