Boris Johnson opens door to UK fracking in response to Ukraine battle

Boris Johnson has paved the way in which for a possible lifting of the ban on fracking because the UK prime minister attracts up a brand new vitality technique in response to the battle in Ukraine.

“Everybody would anticipate the prime minister to take a look at all our choices,” a Downing Avenue spokesperson mentioned on Wednesday when requested about whether or not the moratorium on the extremely controversial use of fracking within the UK may very well be lifted.

Johnson has requested ministers to take a recent take a look at whether or not fracking may assist meet UK home demand for oil and fuel because the nation seeks to close out all Russian oil imports by Christmas.

The prime minister’s stance represents a swift change in perspective on the prime of presidency after Kwasi Kwarteng, the enterprise secretary, argued on Sunday that these calling for a return to fracking “misunderstood” the scenario.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has been accountable for a fuel growth within the US lately and includes pumping water, sand and chemical compounds underneath the bottom at excessive stress to launch fuel from rock formations.

However Johnson accredited a moratorium on fracking in November 2019, reflecting considerations from native communities and environmentalists concerning the course of.

Earlier that yr, vitality firm Cuadrilla Assets halted fracking at a web site close to Blackpool in Lancashire after it triggered a minor earthquake with a magnitude of two.9, which some local homeowners claimed caused damage to their properties.

On the weekend, nonetheless, Kwarteng insisted the ban wouldn’t be reversed, regardless of considerations concerning the UK’s vitality safety in gentle of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Even when we lifted the fracking moratorium tomorrow, it might take as much as a decade to extract adequate volumes — and it might come at a excessive price for communities and our treasured countryside,” Kwarteng wrote within the Mail on Sunday. “Second, no quantity of shale fuel from tons of of wells dotted throughout rural England could be sufficient to decrease the European worth any time quickly.” 

A number of main geologists have additionally advised the geology of the UK is unsuitable for industrial fracking.

“Fairly aside from the problems of social acceptance and environmental impression, the problem that the subsurface geological construction poses for shale fuel manufacturing has not gone away and but is basically absent from the dialogue,” mentioned John Underhill, director of the Centre for Power Transition at Aberdeen college.

But Johnson is underneath stress from a few of his personal MPs to revive the nascent fracking trade with the intention to present a extra dependable supply of fuel and oil at a time of geopolitical instability.

Francis Egan, chief govt of Cuadrilla, urged the prime minister to carry the shale fuel moratorium to supply home fuel. He warned that his firm was near filling in Britain’s solely two viable shale fuel wells with concrete within the coming months.

“Cuadrilla’s plans to plug the Lancashire shale wells are very superior and the rig will nonetheless be arriving on web site subsequent week,” he mentioned.

Johnson’s new vitality technique is just not anticipated to desert the UK authorities’s dedication to reaching “internet zero” vitality consumption by 2050.

Actually the prime minister will emphasise the necessity to step up manufacturing of nuclear and renewable vitality, which aren’t solely low-carbon sources of energy however are additionally much less weak to worldwide provide shocks.

As a part of these discussions ministers are inspecting plans to loosen up the planning system to permit extra new onshore wind farms. The Tory authorities put a de facto moratorium in place in 2015 for brand spanking new onshore wind in England after an anti-green backlash from a few of its backbench MPs.

Johnson has already partially reversed that measure by permitting onshore wind tasks to bid for vitality contracts from the federal government.