Fracking backers boosted by gas reserves estimate hike

Tax breaks and fast-tracked permits for controversial shale gas exploration will be offered today as part of a £100 billion Government infrastructure package aimed at kick-starting sluggish economic growth, after new geological data highlighted British reserves of the energy source are much higher than previously thought.

The Coalition’s bet that the controversial practice of fracking could bridge the country’s yawning energy gap has been boosted by a report showing huge amounts of gas beneath Lancashire.

The Bowland shale area has 1300 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to the Royal Geological Survey. That is more than twice as much as what was thought to be a punchy estimate of Britain’s entire shale gas resource by the US Energy Information Administration last month.

Shale gas is extracted by fracturing rock with a high-pressure mix of water and chemicals, which critics claim causes earthquakes and pollution. Fracker Cuadrilla had to suspend drilling in 2011 after tremors were recorded in Blackpool.

However, Governments around the world have become convinced that breaking the gas free from tightly compacted rock could be the answer to dwindling energy supplies.