Is gas extracted from coal or shale a welcome addition to Scotland's energy mix and is it desirable to drill for it in Scottish communities?
These are questions that need to be urgently addressed, following news that a drilling operation has been given the go-ahead in a Scottish village.
“Fracking”, as the extraction process is called, involves the injection of water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into coal or shale to extract gas from it. Ingenious it may be, but it is also highly controversial.
For one thing, there is the small matter of the earthquakes it causes: last week, a report by energy company Cuadrilla Resources revealed that fracking operations were the “highly probable” cause of two tremors felt by people outside Blackpool in April and May this year.
Those seismic events did not cause any damage, and industry insiders insist earth tremors as a result of fracking are very rare, but they will leave those living next to fracking sites wondering what the future might hold.
Then there is the risk of ground water contamination due to the chemicals used in extraction.
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency does not regard fracking as high risk, but with alarming reports about its consequences from other parts of the world, particularly the US, there is understandable anxiety about it in the UK.
Those who favour the use of fracking argue that it could help provide a cheap form of energy to fuel power stations into the future and is cleaner than coal.
This may be true, but cleaner than coal or not, gas is a fossil fuel and the exploitation of this new energy source will add to global warming at a time when Scotland is very publicly committed to decreasing the environmental impact of energy generation. In a report on shale gas in May, MPs warned that developing the industry could damage Government efforts to boost renewable energy generation.
The same month, First Minister Alex Salmond announced that the Scottish Government’s renewable electricity target for 2020 had been raised to 100% of Scotland’s own electricity demand, in fulfilment of an SNP manifesto pledge. “By then we intend to be generating twice as much electricity as Scotland needs -- just over half of it from renewables, and just under half from other conventional sources. We will be exporting as much electricity as we consume,” he said, adding that this would help “secure our place as the green energy powerhouse of the continent of Europe”.
On the one hand, Scotland’s renewable energy generation is rapidly expanding, as highlighted over the weekend with the transfer of a Pelamis wave power device to Orkney, but Scotland’s claim to be a green energy powerhouse sounds a little hollow if new forms of fossil fuels are being developed with the same avidity as renewables.
Is fracking really what Scotland needs? A proper public debate is required.
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