Embracing shale gas may help cut emissions

Fred Pearce, consultant

(Image: Mayumi Tera/Getty)

THIS book will anger many environmentalists. In it, Dieter Helm argues that they, and green-minded political leaders, have wasted two decades in counterproductive efforts to curb climate change, and he calls for climate crusaders to get behind the much-hated new fossil fuel, shale gas.

A University of Oxford economist with a distinguished pedigree on climate change, Helm is no closet sceptic. He is adamant that action to halt global warming is urgent. But he says that the dogged installation, especially in Europe, of expensive and poorly performing wind turbines and solar panels has done more harm than good.

Far from kick-starting a renewables revolution, he says, it has diverted cash from research and design needed to produce genuinely carbon-reducing energy technologies. Worse, it has pushed up energy prices and driven industries to relocate. "What exactly is the point of reducing emissions in Europe," he asks, "if it encourages energy-intensive industry to move to China, where the pollution will be ever worse?"

The most urgent need is to banish coal burning, he says. Any other fuel is better. And the clear choice for the immediate future is natural gas, especially shale gas.

Natural gas may contain carbon, but burning it in power stations produces only half the carbon emissions of coal. And, thanks to improved drilling technology, we suddenly have huge reserves of cheap shale gas available around the world.

Greens may recoil at the idea of yet more cheap fossil fuel. But the US's dash to exploit shale gas cut its carbon emissions by 1.7 per cent in 2011, at a time when Europe's emissions rose. Why not grab this carbon lifeline?

Helm acknowledges that there are plenty of places where shale gas exploitation would be environmentally damaging, and that it is only a "bridging technology". But, he says, calls to stifle shale gas at birth are born of economic illiteracy. A ban can only push up coal production, the worst of all possible outcomes.

His stance is controversial, and there are those who argue shale gas will actually squeeze out renewables. But Helm insists that this is both the cheapest and quickest way to cut emissions.

The Carbon Crunch is a powerful and heartfelt plea for hard-nosed realism. And it also suggests a worrying truth - that the environment movement is often more interested in pursuing a soft-focus vision of a greener world than in actually fixing climate change.

Book Information
The Carbon Crunch by Dieter Helm
Published by: Yale University Press
?20/$35

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/25d9d666/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A120C110Cembracing0Eshale0Egas0Emay0Ehelp0Ecut0Eemissions0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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