UK Prime Minister Liz Truss ends national ban on fracking amid energy crisis
FOX NewsDec 24, 2022
The Facts
On Thursday, Britain lifted a three year ban on fracking — the process of extracting shale gas from rocks by breaking them up. The practice had been banned due to concerns that it could trigger tremors, but increased pressures on global energy supplies have prompted leaders to prioritize developing new sources of fuel in recent months.
Fracking has been a topic of debate in recent years in the UK. Cuadrilla, an oil and gas exploration company, was forced to close its fracking site in Lancashire in 2019 after more than 120 tremors — most of which were too small to be felt — were recorded in its vicinity.
The Spin
Left narrative
According to the BGS, little progress has been made in reducing and predicting the risk of earthquakes caused by fracking, and the companies themselves are lobbying for regulations on the drilling that causes tremors to be substantially reduced. The Conservatives are greenwashing this dangerous and environmentally irresponsible practice at the cost of the British people.
Right narrative
Fracking is just one of a portfolio of long-term reforms — including an increase in nuclear power capacity and renewable energy sources —that will aid the UK's energy security and reduce the nation's dependence on Russian oil. Even if only one-tenth of the 1.3K trillion cubic feet of gas that could lie underneath the UK is extracted, it could meet Britain's gas needs for decades.
