British Geological Survey report suggests Britain's shale gas resources are more abundant than previously thought

A report just released by the British Geological Survey suggests that Britain has far more shale gas than previously thought.  This is clearly a significant development, both economically and in terms of climate change mitigation. 

Dr Paul Fennell, joint co-ordinator of the Grantham Institute’s mitigation programme and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College said that the increase in potential shale gas reserves is welcome on the basis of balance of payments, energy security,  jobs and potentially on the basis of climate change mitigation. However he stressed that the full exploitation of even a fraction of this reserve will not be consistent with the UK’s legally-binding climate change mitigation targets unless used in combination with carbon capture and storage technologies.  “In the short term”, Paul said, “ there may be some reduction in emissions, where coal is displaced by natural gas.  In the long term, locking in to unabated natural gas would significantly reduce our ability to hit our climate change targets.”

Paul noted that the BGS is extremely careful in their final conclusions in the report: “However, only with further shale gas exploration drilling and testing over an extended period, and optimization of the extraction process, will it be possible to determine whether this identified shale gas prospectivity can be exploited commercially – and how significant a contribution it could make to the future UK energy mix."