Telegraph: Britain's energy security at risk due to slow pace of fracking, firms warn
Public fears about the environmental impacts of fracking are making it harder to drill new wells, leaving Britain at risk of power cuts, energy firms have warned.
Companies attempting to win drilling rights to tap Britain’s billions of barrels of shale oil and gas warned that their attempts were being frustrated by officials in Government and protesters.
Appearing before a committee of peers in the House of Lords, the companies’ executives warned that there was a risk the country’s vast reserves of shale oil and gas might go untapped.
Experts say there is enough shale gas under parts of Britain to meet the country’s needs for decades – however campaigners fearing health ill-effects of drilling wells have frustrated attempts to exploit the reserves.
Francis Egan, the chief executive of Cuadrilla, which sank a well in Balcombe, west Sussex in September, said that “physically we could drill tomorrow” but he said the “planning and permitting” process was slowing progress. MORE