THANK you for your continuing coverage of fracking.
“I remain supportive of shale gas extraction so long as regulations are in place to protect both our environment and our countryside. If this does not happen, then I will call for a moratorium.”
So said MP Kevin Hollinrake in his July press release.
Mr Hollinrake knows that such regulations as there are likely to be are already in place or, in the case of the Joint Minerals and Waste Plan, proposed after slight revision, and purport to protect as he says.
This is his let-out clause. He will not feel it necessary therefore to call for a moratorium. Will he reconsider if the said regulations are credibly considered inadequate?
Last November the Climate Change Commission pointed out that large scale fracking (and large scale it must be to be viable) could only be compatible with the UK’s climate change targets if three conditions were met. They have not been met.
The June 2012 Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering ten regulatory recommendations for UK shale gas extraction have, with one exception, not been met.
Mr Hollinrake relies upon ten regulatory provisions in his defence of fracking.
These have been systematically demolished by engineer Mike Hill, once a potential fracker but now emphatically opposed to fracking.
In October last, researchers at Stirling University concluded that “the evidence base for robust regulation and good industry practice is currently absent”.
Perhaps not a ban, yet, Mr Hollinrake, merely the moratorium you promised while the government conducts some meaningful independent research.
David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York
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