Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
9/18/2015
To take advantage of the United Kingdom’s shale gas resources while also addressing the need to lower carbon emissions, revenue from a potential shale gas industry in the nation should be invested in the development of a carbon capture and storage industry, according to a report published this week by the Task Force on Shale Gas.
The task force was established in 2014 and is funded by the U.K.’s shale industry, though the group’s mission statement says it operates independently. “The Task Force acts with total impartiality and independence from its funders, and from stakeholders with firmly supportive or firmly opposed views on issues,” according to the statement.
“The Task Force is convinced that for a shale gas industry to serve appropriately as a transitional fuel it is important that it is clearly demonstrated that this will not prohibit or slow the development of renewables and low carbon energy industry. We believe that government should commit to deploying the government energy specific revenue derived from a developed shale gas industry to investment in R&D and innovation in CCS and low carbon energy generation, storage and distribution,” the report says.
This is not to say that consideration of a shale industry should be halted until the country develops a more significant CCS industry, the report says. “The Task Force believes that the development of a CCS industry should not be seen as a pre-requisite for initial exploratory drilling for shale gas in the UK,” the task force said. “However, if a shale gas industry begins to develop at scale, CCS will become essential, and a CCS industry should be developed and grown concurrently.”
The further development of fossil fuels, however, should not deter the development of renewable energy, the report says, which should be seen as a necessity. “Whilst the growth of renewable energy is now becoming well established, the technical and economic constraints favour a long approach to full implementation in the short (to 2020) and medium term (2030). Even in the longer term (2050) there are some gaps that will need to be filled with other energy resources such as nuclear and some fossil fuels, mainly gas,” according to the task force.
