Fracking letter
Dear sir,
Last week Liz Truss announced the ban on fracking is to be lifted. Despite the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, saying in March 2022, it would cost millions and have little impact on energy bills. The Scottish and Welsh governments oppose fracking, and say they will not use their powers to grant drilling licences.
Fracking could be a lot closer to home than we realise with potential plans for Biddulph Moor, Endon, Stanley, Horton and outskirts of Rudyard. They were identified as a hotspot for the potential extraction of shale gas in a 2016 geological survey. Hugely worrying!
The new Prime Minister, a former Shell employee, has been frank in her view, that energy companies should be able to keep those undeserved excess profits.
A different principle should guide us. The companies should not be allowed to make a single penny from excess profits in this crisis. That will require a package of measures from public ownership to full windfall taxes and caps on the prices at which North sea oil and gas can be sold.
The claim that we need to protect the profits of North sea oil and gas firms to guarantee their investment is completely false. They were investing fine when they were making their normal profits just a few months ago.
To replace only half of the UK gas imports it would take 6,100 new fracking wells to be in place, yet the industry to time, has managed only 2 fracking sites and both were abandoned due to earthquakes. Energy security cannot be achieved by making ourselves more dependent on the expensive fossil fuels that have driven this crisis. We do not need more North sea exploration. We do not need fracking. Just to be clear; that gas will not be cheaper. It will be sold at world prices and gas is nine times more expensive than renewables. Investment should be channeled to renewables.
Retrofitting and insulating homes would save people money and reduce our gas use, so the greater reliance on fossil fuels is quite simply ideological. The Government are using the crisis to undermine their own massively inadequate climate responsibilities.
The profits of fossil fuel companies are being put before the people and before the planet. This approach is failing people who are today being hit by higher bills. I am afraid that it will also fail us all hit by climate catastrophes, which are becoming more common place. In an age of climate breakdown, this Government’s determination to drill is an act of environmental vandalism.The Green Party always fights fossil fuel extraction wherever it happens.
France, the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Denmark, Germany and New York state have all banned hydraulic fracturing due to potential risks to human health and the environment. The risks include earthquakes, as well as air, sound and water pollution, with reports in the United States that toxic carcinogenic chemicals have leaked into water tables. In addition to water quality issues, fracking wells release compounds into the air, such as benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and n-hexane. Long-term exposure to these has been linked to birth defects, neurological problems, blood disorders and cancer. Industry have admitted that ‘little has changed since the ban on fracking that was imposed in 2019. This therefore, begs the question, what will our government gain from putting the health and safety of people and the environment at huge risk for the sake of fracking?
Many thanks
Lisa miller
Intensive care nurse
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