UK approves fracking ban in national parks, rejects full moratorium
Supporters of fracking in the UK won a mixed victory Monday after the British government agreed to ban unconventional drilling in national parks but rejected calls for a countrywide moratorium.The government’s fracking ban in national parks reversed a government decision last year that would have allowed drilling in those areas.
“We have agreed an outright ban on fracking in national parks, sites of special interest and areas of natural beauty,” junior energy minister Amber Rudd said during debates.
Government officials said the new rules will only affect sites where drilling was already effectively banned.
Under the new rules companies are required to monitor potential sites for 12 months before drilling.
Landowners must also be notified about fracking projects on their properties.
However, landowners can not protest at drilling sites or block work.
Fracking opponents had called for a total ban, claiming unconventional drilling will disrupt efforts to deal with climate change.
Prime Minister David Cameron said he continues to support expanding the UK’s shale gas industry.
“I want to see unconventional gas properly exploited in our country,” Cameron said.
The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change said the new rules do not differ significantly from policies already on the books.
“[The measures] are already government policy, carried out voluntarily by industry or as part of Environment Agency or HSE every day working practice,” a spokesman for the department told the Russian Times.
In 2013, the British Geological Survey estimated that shale deposits in the UK could supply the country with gas for up to 40 years.
We believe that outright acceptance or outright rejection of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is not the way to go. We need the energy derived from the shale and we have to continue pursuing these energy sources. However, we believe that the extraction of the energy has to be done in a more systematic way and not the "cowboy way", referring to the US-led procedures. Such largely uncontrolled and unregulated practices have led to a significant death toll from trucking and other traffic accidents or incidents; destruction of the road infrastructure, air pollution, water pollution, earthquakes, noise nuisance and deterioration of the quality of life for many people. The negatives do add up to the point that a lot of people are fed up and is shown in the efforts of the citizens who take the time and effort to voice their opposition.
Certainly quite a few people have benefited financially from the energy extraction from the shale, but we need to think carefully as a society what is the overall cost associated with these activities. We believe that we have not seen the worst yet, as far as the impacts are concerned: we expect to see oil field and gas field workers to start showing symptoms of deterioration of their health due to the breathing of silica sand, the breathing of diesel fumes, the breathing of dust and natural gas and so on. They certainly receive quite nice pay, but the cost to them will not be known for some time, the same way it took us quite a long time to realize and assess the effects of asbestos and PCB and DDT and VOCs and silica and radioactivity and heavy metals.
If we just could have a national no-driving or no transportation day or days, the few days of energy savings would easily exceed the benefits provided by additional energy extraction from shale and its associated contamination and loss of quality of life.