The move has prompted warnings that rapid expansion of this source of fossil fuels could bloat UK emissions of carbon dioxide at a time when it is attempting to reduce them to meet both international and national targets.
“The advent of shale gas is definitely incompatible with the UK’s stated pledge to help restrict global warming to 2 °C,” says Kevin Anderson of the University of Manchester, UK, whose report last October on the expansion of fracking in the US estimated that it increases rather than reduces emissions.
Others say it could help reduce emissions overall, provided the shale gas replaces coal currently used to generate energy. “In principle, if it helps with displacement of coal it could be helpful,” says Bob Ward of the London School of Economics. Ward points out that per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated, shale gas produces less than half the emissions of coal.
“In 2012, 23 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gases came from burning coal, so the shale gas could help us get off coal quicker and help reduce emissions in the short term,” says Ward. But he believes that the need to decarbonise completely by 2030 should be the objective, making shale gas useful only as a stop-gap.
Shale gas has the potential to provide jobs, energy security and economic growth, but it should be used alongside carbon capture and storage to limit its impact on climate change, says Simon Buckle of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, which recently produced a report on shale gas and climate change.
The financial sweeteners announced today are aimed at local councils, which have the final say in approving drilling projects. The UK prime minister, David Cameron, said that councils allowing drilling could keep 100 per cent of the business rates they collect from shale gas sites instead of the usual 50 per cent. He said that this could generate as much as £1.7 million a year for a typical site.
Separately, the UK Onshore Operators Group, set up to exploit land-based sources of fossil fuels, announced that drillers would make £100,000 available to communities around each new drilling site, and give them a further 1 per cent of revenues from successful extraction activity.
Already, the concessions have prompted the French energy giant Total to earmark £12.7 million for exploring two shale gas sites in Lincolnshire.