David Davis says Britain needs to ‘get fracking’
As in The Daily Mail;
“Britain faces two colossal challenges. The first is how to get the economy growing.
The Western world is fighting to return to growth levels we took for granted ten years ago. We face a future in a one per cent world.
The second challenge is keeping the lights on. EU carbon reduction targets are forcing our reliable coal and gas power plants to close quicker than we can replace them.
The National Grid thinks factories could close on winter afternoons so there is enough power to go round. Ofgem warns of a Blackout Britain.
The answer to both these problems could lie right under our feet. In an area barely larger than Yorkshire and Lancashire, a survey has found enough shale gas to power Britain for half a century. Some experts think this is just the start.
Right now, Britain’s energy policy is a costly mess. Subsidised wind farms scar our countryside but stand idle on the coldest days.
The carbon floor price puts an energy tax on British businesses that their French and German competitors do not have to pay, driving our jobs into the eurozone.
Sky-high energy bills force households to choose between heating and eating, yet still we send £1.8 billion of ‘climate aid’ abroad.
Even the Government accepts its growth-killing green policies will cost Britain many tens of billions.
We need an urgent and radical change, of course.
Britain’s immense shale gas reserves hold the key to a new energy strategy that will boost growth, create jobs and cut bills and carbon emissions.
The US is having its shale gas revolution and the results are astonishing. In 2005, the Americans were running out of gas.
Thanks to fracking, they produce so much they will have surplus to export.
As a result, US gas prices are cheaper than China’s. American businesses, which once outsourced manufacturing jobs to the Far East, are bringing them home.
Ordinary consumers are getting the fracking dividend too. In Britain, gas prices have risen to an all-time high. Last winter US prices plummeted to a ten-year low.
As for environmental concerns, don’t panic. The Royal Academy of Engineering and the chairman of the Environment Agency have declared fracking safe. Shale gas is much cleaner than coal or conventional gas.
Since the US started fracking, their carbon emissions have fallen to a 20-year low.
This is an opportunity to turn Britain into a modern petropower, with cheap gas feeding our industries to make them more competitive, warming our homes and even powering our vehicles.
It could be the foundation of a high-growth, high-employment, ultra-modern economy, if we have the nerve to change our minds about our energy policy.
Clean, cheap, plentiful and safe, shale gas is an opportunity that Britain cannot afford to ignore. It is time to wave goodbye to wind farms, shelve the solar panels and get fracking.”