The Telegraph: Fracking gets go-ahead, but how much shale gas do we actually have?
Since there is only one company, Cuadrilla Resources, which has actually fracked in the UK, it would, admittedly, be a rather modest revolution to start.
Still, people are getting very excited. The Institute of Directors proclaimed that “if we are even half as successful as the shale gas revolution in the US, then this will be a great boost to Britain.”
It feels like a moment to look at what we actually know about the resources supposed to support this fledgling industry, whereby the new technology of fracking – aka hydraulic fracturing – is used to eke gas and oil out of shale rock.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has not yet reached a figure on how much of the stuff – greasy black rock which leaves your fingers dirty if you touch it – the UK is sitting on, and how much gas and oil it contains.
The Government has commissioned the British Geological Survey to come up with an estimate of the shale gas in the ground, which is due early next year.
However, as Ed Davey, the Energy Minister, flagged, this will not reflect the reserve – the amount of gas which can in practice be produced economically from that resource. “Until more exploration work has been done, a significant number of wells fracked and production patterns established over time, it will not be possible to make any meaningful estimate of likely economically recoverable resources of shale gas in the United Kingdom,” he said. MORE