While Trump Says Drill, the UK Heads Towards Power Cuts
While the Trump administration is embracing so-called ‘fossil fuels’ to reduce energy prices and the chances of power cuts, Britain has ordered the last fracking wells to be filled with cement, is pursuing policies that are making energy prices ever more expensive, and seriously increasing the risk of power cuts
The US will have to wait a year before it can be released from Paris obligations but the White House has announced a “national energy emergency”, outlining a raft of changes that will reverse US climate regulations and boost oil and gas production.
Under these proposals ‘fossil fuels’ will take centre stage. Trump’s energy strategy centres on the revival of the ‘fossil fuel’ industry by planning to expand drilling projects on federal lands, reinstate key oil and gas pipeline projects and reduce federal oversight on energy production.
Trump’s team is expected to incentivise coal-fired power plants through subsidies and to reduce environmental red-tape and costs of compliance. Trump has indicated that he will remove federal support for wind and solar and tax credits for wind and solar could be cut.
Trump’s energy agenda is designed to lower domestic energy prices and reduce reliance on foreign oil.
In sharp contrast the UK government is doubling down on ‘Net Zero’ and in many ways going beyond Paris agreements.
None of the Paris agreements are legally binding, for example. Yet the UK’s ‘Net Zero’ legislation binds us to targets and puts them beyond democratic control.
I write here how campaign group Client Earth challenged the then Conservative government, bringing about road charging which established a 500 square mile charging zone in Greater Manchester and another in London which charged the most impoverished £10.60 ($13.11) per day.
Only last week the UK dodged a bullet when the Climate and Nature Act, further un-costed, badly conceived legislation which further ties our hands was thankfully rejected by Parliament.
I am coincidentally staying in Preston as the news comes out that the fracking site at Preston New Road will be concreted over and capped off. The action is the result of orders from the Environment Agency, the UK’s fracking regulator.
The owner of the site Cuadrilla said it would start work on plugging the two exploration wells with cement next month in a process expected to last six weeks.
It is only weeks since Russia’s gas firm Gazprom said it had stopped gas supplies from January 1, 2025 after Ukraine refused to renew a transit agreement.
Up to then, Russian gas had continued flow to Europe and the UK despite now nearly three years of war.
Only a week after that, Centrica and British Gas both warned that British gas supplies were disconcertingly low and that UK gas stores had fallen to low levels, with only a week’s supply in hand after freezing temperatures across Britain significantly boosted demand.
Rising prices will hamper gas suppliers in improving levels of reserves, and National Grid said Britain came very close to power cuts during January for the first time since the 1970s, with cold weather producing high demand, and electricity production from wind & solar very low.
Cuadrilla began drilling at the Lancashire site in 2017 and produced the first shale gas the following year. A moratorium was placed on fracking in 2019 after a ‘seismic event’ during operations at the site and a subsequent investigation, which found that it was not possible to accurately predict the probability or magnitude of earthquakes.
Editor’s note: while it remains impossible to predict when and how strong earthquakes will be, those at the fracking site were too small to be noticed by humans, and were only detected by sensitive measuring instruments.
The ban was briefly lifted by Liz Truss, and an order for Cuadrilla’s site to be decommissioned in 2022 was revoked after the energy crisis provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Craig Mackinlay, Tory MP and chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, has urged the Government to rethink its policy on fracking.
He said of plugging the Cuadrilla sites, “Doing this at the height of an energy crisis is utter madness.”
Mr Mackinlay further argued that the move will also undermine ‘net zero’ targets by forcing Britain to import more gas, which has a higher ‘carbon’ footprint than homegrown shale gas.
It worth pointing out that despite the withdrawal form the Paris Accords undertaken by the last Trump administration, carbon dioxide output of the US actually reduced during the term of that administration as shale gas usage and fracking increased.
In fact, the US did rather better outside the Paris Agreement than countries in it.
Steve Baker, former minister and deputy chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said he had hoped the increased energy price cap, which will see bills rocket by almost £700 for around 22 million households in April, “would act as a wake-up call for ministers” on fracking.
He added that “by abandoning our shale gas industry, we will inflict more costs on our constituents” and pass up the opportunity for the creation of almost 75,000 jobs linked to the fracking industry.
My own opinion is that this is a further example of the spite and “magical thinking” displayed by the climate obsessives. Keeping these wells open would not cost taxpayers a single penny.
Concreting them over loses us the option of easy access to supplies of shale gas that could be used for decades to come. This move is designed to put the site beyond economical use.
Greta Thunberg told the UN and us all that she wanted us to, “Panic.” She has her wish. The Environment Agency is forcing the UK to burn its bridges and salt the fields.
It seems whilst the new Trump administration will be, “Drill, baby, drill.” the UK’s mantra will be, “Fill, baby, fill.”
See more here substack.com
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Header image: BBC
About the author: David O’Toole is a former IT systems analyst and college lecturer who worked until recently as a full-time organiser for the University and College Union (UCU). He has a keen interest in the politics of the environmental movement and has recently started blogging on the politics of climate alarmism, the school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion phenomenon.
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