Re: Fracking revisited : Tue Jan 14, 2014 11:40 pm
Ajw71 wrote:
Fracking will be good for the country. Ironically the people who complain most about prices of fuel seem to be the one shouting loudest when it comes to opposing a real opportunity to reduce fuel costs.
What real opportunity to reduce fuel costs? Even Cameron has stopped claiming that is the case.
Any gas extracted here can be easily exported so it will end up on the open market and so attract the same price as gas produced elsewhere in Europe or the UK. In the US it is not exported. That is good news for the companies who will profit from its extraction but the consumer will end up seeing little or no difference in the retail price as we will be buying it back form the market.
Your beloved market force in action there.
The only way we would see a significant price drop is if we used the gas produced directly and paid for it at or near cost. You might need a nationalised state run extraction company and Gas industry for that though.
Extraction costs here are also going to be higher than in the US and the British Geological Survey who identified the existance of the deposits in the first place have raised doubts about how much can actually be extracted.
Cameron seems to be basing his "dash for shale gas" on the basis of one biased report produced by the Institute of Directors sponsored by one of the fracking companies.
Interestingly the leader of East Cheshire council, a Tory council, has said there won't be any fracking in East Cheshire. I bet Osborne is pleased.
I think it would be great if we had another source of cheap energy but it's not going to be cheap and there are alot of risks associated with its extraction. Cameron is risking entrenching opposition to it by being to pushy IMO. Apparantly the UK and several other EU contries got proposed regulations relating to its safe extraction thrown out. Hardly going to convince people its own government is looking after their interests.