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If fracking is not the solution we always have coal

RECENTLY the head of one of Europe’s biggest energy companies described the EU’s energy policy as a total mess.

He added that 2014 is a vitally important year in which energy will play a critical role for the long-term prosperity of the European people.

So, if we want to ensure that the lights stay on for our own, and future, generations what is the best way of tackling the problems? One of the most controversial solutions is known as fracking and I should explain the title since, for some people, it is as close as you can get to a rude word without actually swearing.

Fracking is actually a shorthand, umbrella term, for a longer definition which is “high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing using sand, water and chemicals injected at high pressure to blast open shale rock and release the trapped gas inside”. After the drill reaches a certain vertical depth in the ground, which can be hundreds or even thousands of feet, the well is then drilled horizontally, often for more than a mile.

In America, what’s called the shale revolution has seen energy prices fall, making industry more profitable. It has also benefitted consumers by about £795 ($1,300) this year which is expected to rise to £2,450 ($4,000) next year. Yet fracking is controversial.

Residents near the village of Fernhurst in West Sussex are launching a legal blockade against drilling under their land. If that move was repeated across the country it could hold fracking up for years.

So is there a viable alternative to solve our future energy problems? Well, as Labour MP Aneurin Bevan famously observed almost 70 years ago, “Our island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish”.

Now coal mining is a demanding and often dangerous job and I know of what I write because my uncles were coal miners.

The coal is still there and if we are talking about something as basic to our survival as keeping our heating on, it could still be an important asset.

For years China was opening coal mines at the rate of one a week and Germany is also building new coal plants. So, not only do I think we should keep our coal power stations operating but I go farther, we should also re-open mothballed ones.

If the unelected Brussels bureaucrats try to fine us we should simply refuse to pay the fine. Or even better, refer them to the Germans who belong to the same EU as us and who will send them away with a thick ear as they proceed to open their latest new coal plant.

To paraphrase the splendid Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army fame, they won’t like it up ’em, but it is time to give Brussels a taste of our good old British bulldog spirit, Prime Minister.

Source: www.express.co.uk