THE new energy minister, Matthew Hancock, has recently announced that he sees shale gas as the “holy grail” for the UK’s energy policy and wants to see the time for processing applications for drilling to be “cut in half”. In the wake of the tensions in Ukraine he appears to suggest shale gas is the means to obtain our energy security.

I believe that this is seriously misleading. David Cameron has repeated claims that there is the potential for 50 years supply of gas in UK reserves. But experience from the US has shown that their initial estimates were wildly optimistic and they will be lucky to get some 20 years supply from their reserves (Arthur E. Berman and Lynn F Pittinger, US Shale Gas: Less Abundance, Higher Cost, August 5, 2011).

Matthew Hancock also alludes to the potential for bringing down energy costs. Again this is misleading, the situation in the US is quite different and the price of gas has dropped dramatically there because producers are desperate to get the gas out of the ground before permits run out or they become unprofitable (Arthur E Berman, After The Gold Rush: A Perspective on Future US Natural Gas Supply and Price, The Oil Drum, February 8, 2012).

Apart from the immediate disruption to our landscape and lives and the possible effects on our health of this proposed “dash for gas”, there is also the question of what sort of legacy the industry would leave. In a study of data from around the world (Davies, RJ, et al., Oil and gas wells and their integrity: Implications for shale and uncon- ventional resource exploitation, Marine and Petroleum Geology (2014), dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2014.03.001) the authors found that “Of the 8,030 wells targeting the Marcellus shale inspected in Pennsylvania between 2005 and 2013, 6.3 per cent of these have been reported to the authorities for infringements related to well barrier or integrity failure” .

We are told that our regulation system will be much tougher, but the same report concludes that presently “abandoned wells in the UK are sealed with cement, cut below the surface and buried, but are not subsequently monitored” and that, “Where the company that drilled the well no longer exists, or has been taken over or merged (up to 53 per cent of UK wells), liability for any well integrity failures that lead to pollution is unclear; in some cases it may be the landowner”.

Of course this begs the question of what we do instead? First we must be much more active in all aspects of energy efficiency. Also, for a truly long-term sustainable and secure energy supply we must look to the endless supplies of energy from the sun, waves and wind. It is remarkable that back in 1966 France constructed a tidal energy scheme on the Rance river in Brittany, which produces 600Gwh of electricity each year at a cost which is now much cheaper than nuclear generated power.

It also attracts about 70,000 visitors per year. And yet we are now still only considering the potential of such schemes in the UK – see the report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research on tidal lagoon generation in UK.

Glyn Wild, Swinton