“We didn’t expect that we would be standing here again to demonstrate against fracking. But if we have to, then we have to”, Danby sighs as he hangs a bright yellow banner on the iron fence of the industrial site on the Preston New Road.
Barbara Richardson is especially surprised, she can hardly believe that this topic is on the table again. “Why would they want to do this?” she asks aloud. “It is not climate-friendly at all. And they know that the residents are strongly against drilling here. How do they get it?”
Controversial
Drilling for shale gas is highly controversial in the northern English region. The well in Lancashire was the subject of fierce demonstrations for years by local residents and activists. The site was closed after an earthquake in 2019. But the cement that should have closed the well of exploration company Cuadrilla permanently, did not come. And now, in the midst of the energy crisis, the British House of Commons is once again talking about resuming shale gas drilling.
Shale gas is extracted by cracking rock layers deep underground with water, sand and chemicals. According to opponents, this is polluting and leads to earthquakes. But proponents point to the success of fracking in the United States, where shale gas extraction has sparked a veritable energy revolution. Thanks to the domestic extraction of the gas there, the energy bill for Americans rises much less rapidly.
The United Kingdom could have experienced such a shale gas revolution, some scientists claim, if the drilling had continued. The British Geological Survey estimates that there are about 36 trillion cubic meters of natural gas (36,000 billion cubic meters) in the county’s soil. Only 10 percent of that would have been needed to keep the entire country warm for the next 50 years.
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