TALIS Kimberley’s warning that burning shale gas “tips us further into climate change” is, if anything, understating the dangers of exploiting unconventional oil and gas.
A 2011 peer-reviewed study of the climate impact of shale gas concluded that it had as bad an impact on the climate as burning coal.
A group of scientists, sceptical of the fossil fuel industry’s claims that there is little leakage of methane resulting from hydraulic fracturing, decided to measure the actual amounts of this potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere above US oil and gas fields.
They discovered that the emissions are two to eight times higher than the companies admitted.
The industry has also been exaggerating the amount of gas produced per well.
This suggests that shale gas in Britain might eventually prove uneconomic.
One wonders why the UK Government is doing its best to sabotage proven, safe renewable energy technology while enthusiastically promoting risky and expensive fracking.
Andrew Day, Bydemill Gardens, Highworth, Swindon
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