For
immediate release, 30/07/13
In response to Lord Howell's statement in the House of Lords today, Greenpeace
UK Energy campaigner Leila Deen said:
“Lord Howell appears to
have noticed that our densely populated island is quite different to the sands
of the Arabian peninsula or Texas, and we view our countryside as more than
just an under-exploited hydrocarbon store that would be improved by several
thousand shale gas wells. Were Lord Howell or any member of the government to
visit the north east of England they’d find there are actually people living
there, people who don’t regard their countryside as a disposable resource. The
same is true of the south of England, which is already up in arms against the
plans of Lord Howell’s son-in-law, who wants to see vast swathes of the home
counties fracked."
Lord Howell reportedly said today:
“I mean there obviously are, in beautiful natural areas, worries about not just
the drilling and the fracking, which I think are exaggerated, but about the
trucks, and the delivery, and the roads, and the disturbance, and those about
justified worries.”
“But there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas. Certainly in part of
the North East where there’s plenty of room for fracking, well away from
anybody’s residence where we could conduct without any kind of threat to the
rural environment.”
Last year Howell told a Greenpeace investigator:
“The Prime Minister is not familiar with these issues, doesn’t understand
them...Osborne is of course getting this message and is putting pressure on”. Howell also
said: “Qatar is a great place, full of skyscrapers and rich people but it’s
also near lots of jihadists. Qatar is size
of Guildford, if it was to go into chaos we’d be up shit creek we really
would."
A further covert recording of Lord Howell is available here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6aw5946nys 00.00 – 01.10
ENDS
Notes
From
Bloomberg New Energy Finance -
"The UK currently imports around 50% of the natural gas it consumes. To
bridge the gap and eliminate imports would require shale gas production of
between 4.0 and 4.5bcf per day. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that
this would require the drilling of around 10,000 wells over a 15-year period,
based on optimistic assumptions for flow rates. Activity would peak at around
1000 wells per year. A lower flow rate might mean up to 20,000 wells would be
required, draining an area over twice the size of Lancashire."
http://about.bnef.com/press-releases/uk-shale-gas-no-get-out-of-jail-free-card/
Greenpeace UK Press
Office - 020 7865 8255
