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    The Independent: Shale gas has considerable potential. But the Government must be sure that environmental risks are addressed

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Shale gas has considerable potential in the UK but the Government must be sure that environmental risks are addressed. Opponents point to possible links to earth tremors, and water and air pollution.

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The Independent: Shale gas has considerable potential. But the Government must be sure that environmental risks are addressed

2014 is all set to be the year when fracking really gets going in the UK. Not in terms of any meaningful shale gas production; that will not happen until the next decade, if at all. Rather, with regards to preparing the ground with the issuing of dozens of new exploration licences and – as The Independent reports today – with a sharp increase in the compensation available to local communities.

The Government – and George Osborne in particular – is convinced that shale gas has the potential to be the saviour of Britain’s beleaguered energy industry, where both prices and the risk of blackouts are on the rise. Hydraulic fracturing – which releases natural gas by blasting a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into the rock at high speed – has the potential to herald an era of cheap and plentiful energy, reducing our reliance on, often volatile, foreign regimes and creating thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of tax revenue in the process.  MORE

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