Clause 38 - Petroleum and geothermal energy: right to use deep-level land

Part of Infrastructure Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:45 am on 13 January 2015.

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Photo of Alan Whitehead Alan Whitehead Labour, Southampton, Test 10:45, 13 January 2015

I rise to support my amendment 37, which is included in this group. It seeks to place a requirement on the Secretary of State to commission and consider reports on

“the cumulative impacts of water use in fracking and refracking,” both in exploration and production, on “the cumulative impact” of the waste water arising from those processes, and on

“the cumulative impacts on communities of road and vehicle movements from fracking and refracking activity”.

The amendment asks the Secretary of State to receive reports on that cumulative impact, should an application come before him or her for further fracking drilling to take place. Where there was an exploitation facility within one mile of a new application, the amendment would require reports to be undertaken on what the cumulative impact would look like for that area.

I hope the Committee will agree that I have tabled amendment 37 for very sound reasons. If we look at the likely cumulative impact of shale gas exploitation in this country, we potentially have several numbers before us. For example, the effect of one fracking pad with perhaps 10 wells being drilled on it would be multiple vehicle movements over time. The Institute of Directors has suggested that there would be tens of thousands of vehicle movements during the period of operation of one pad and multiple thousands of cubic metres of water —and, indeed, fracking fluid—used in production in just one pad.

When it comes to the cumulative impact over a period of time, the Ricardo report, which was produced for the Environment Agency, gave various growth scenarios for fracking. It suggested that more than 3,000 wells would be drilled in the medium-growth scenario and more than 12,000 wells in a high-growth, US-style scenario. That would involve a number of wells per fracking pad; nevertheless, the number is of that order—perhaps more than 1,000 wells drilled per year at peak production. That is where things get a little difficult, because the question then is where the wells are likely to be drilled. They would not be drilled equally over the country, because the shale deposits to be accessed are not distributed equally over the country, but are distributed over relatively limited parts of the United Kingdom, in particular in southern England—the weald, Sussex and Surrey—the north-west of England and parts of the north-east.

The detail of the areas likely to be affected by shale gas licensing would therefore suggest that a large number of rural communities in those areas would be affected far more intensely than if drilling took place on an undifferentiated, national basis—that is, the number of wells suggested by the Ricardo report would be very much clustered in those areas. I would like to set out for the Committee exactly what effect that would have by quoting the DEFRA report, “Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts”. It contains a very good map showing those areas; unfortunately, all the text underneath it has been redacted, so I cannot say anything further.

However, the question arises from the drilling of such wells of whether the claimed economic benefits to the area would outweigh a number of the difficult environmental consequences of cumulation. Some suggest that a number of the wells would be affected by the so-called boom-and-bust cycle, with intensive activity leading to a rapid degradation of activity as the wells degraded. I would like to tell the Committee about how that cycle might work, but in spite of an interesting chart in the DEFRA rural impacts reports, the text accompanying it has been redacted—other than the statement:

“The international evidence on this is weak”

—so I cannot tell the Committee anything further.

What about the social impacts of the potential cumulation on various communities?