FRACKING has been a political hot potato in Scotland for years now.
The subject of lobbying from both environmentalists and the oil and gas industry, it is also one of the few issues to shake the unity of the SNP.
Despite a lack of significant internal dissent over many major issues, it has been fracking which has seen the leadership facing grassroots rebellions – although SNP conferences have generally been persuaded to back the Government’s ‘wait for the evidence’ line.
Meanwhile Nicola Sturgeon faced uncomfortable questions over an unminuted meeting in January 2015 with the billionaire boss of chemicals firm Ineos, Jim Ratcliffe, which took place even as her government was announcing a moratorium on fracking. Mr Ratcliffe later revealed that his firm, which owns the Grangemouth petrochemical plant, had received assurances the SNP government was not opposed to the controversial technique for extracting natural gas trapped in shale rock deep underground
But now it appears all this angst may be unwarranted. Scotland’s geology does not permit the kind of mass extraction which has been carried out in other parts of the world, according to Heriot Watt University’s chief scientist professor John Underhill. Tectonic events 55 million years ago make extraction via fracking impossible except in small quantities, he says.
This is good news for those who fear fracking’s effect on public health or on the environment. But it is disappointing for those who saw the technique as a potential new source of wealth for Scotland, or at least a way to offset the decline in North Sea Oil revenues until new technologies are developed to allow access to oil reserves which currently cannot be economically extracted.
The debate so far has focused on whether fracking is safe, with alarming but disputed stories from America suggesting it could cause everything from earthquakes to flames coming out of our taps. It has considered whether extraction would despoil the landscape.
Ironically, all of this may have been built on sand. The intensely polarised debate of the past few years starts to seem ludicrous, hilarious even.
But there is a serious side to this issue. Already the UK is dependent for 55 per cent of its gas needs on imports.
And the elephant in the room for those who talk about novel extraction methods for coal, oil or gas, is climate change. Green lobbyists insist we should not be leaving existing fossil fuel reserves in the ground, let alone seeking out new ways to exploit them.
The truth is there is no panacea. For the foreseeable future, Scotland needs a balanced mix of energy provision, including both nuclear and renewables. We also need to explore pragmatic solutions - from electric cars to storage heaters, allowing more effective use of fluctuating power from renewables. Simply put, the Scottish Government needs to be sure we can continue to light and heat our homes in the future. But fracking, it seems will not offer a contribution to that effort.
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