How challenging it must be to implement an unpopular technology in the current climate.

If you are a shale gas fracking operator in England, this week’s National Audit Office (NAO) Report[1] makes sombre reading. It makes no value judgement on the wisdom of encouraging the industry, though it notes that the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have all banned fracking; in the case of Scotland, it followed a very comprehensive public consultation resulting in overwhelming public opposition. 

See previous Institute analyses in these three articles:

99% of consultees oppose Fracking in Scotland, but what does this mean?

Fracking: did Scotland do it better?

To Frack or not to Frack? That is the question…!

The NAO has reviewed progress and concludes that it has been far slower than the Government expected. The Dept for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy had expected to have up to twenty fracked wells by mid-2020, but so far has only three. Planning permission has been hard to obtain, and the initial operators have experienced problems with the frequency of earthquakes. They claim that the Government has set excessively tough standards requiring the suspension of fracking if there is a seismic event of 0.5 on the Richter scale. In comparison, the State of Ohio sets the threshold as 1.0, California uses 2.7; Colorado uses 4.0, and in Canada, British Columbia and Alberta both use 4.0.

Is this possibly a case of over-enthusiastic expectation management? And has it backfired for the Government? Earthquakes are very emotive issues for local communities (even though experts claim they cannot be felt below 2.0) and in an attempt to make the technology palatable, the Department may have erred on the side of over-optimism. Whatever the reason, public support is low and has fallen in recent years. Its public attitudes survey reveals that opposition to fracking was 21% in 2013. By March 2019, it has grown to 40%. Only 12% of the public support this energy source – compared to 35% for nuclear power and an astonishing 79% for onshore wind (which makes it curious that the Government had to de-emphasise wind farms due to opposition from its own backbench MPs!)

So would this sorry picture have been different if there had been better consultation? Or if the views of the public had been more visibly heeded? The NAO report states that all the local authorities they approached confirmed that planning applications for fracking had generated unprecedented public interest. In North Yorkshire, the County Council received more than 4,000 representations to its consultation on a shale gas application, compared with nearly 450 representations it received for what it considered a contentious application for a waste recovery park. Lancashire County Council similarly reported receiving about 36,000 representations from the public in relation to two fracking application. It also faced a huge legal bill when it was obliged to defend (albeit successfully), a judicial review on its decision to allow fracking to go ahead. Costs do not end there. Lancashire Constabulary report that daily, between 25 and 100 officers were directly involved in the policing of fracking sites between January 2017 and June 2019 at a cost of £11.8 million. Dealing with a disenchanted public can be expensive.

Industry supporters will no doubt claim that this is, once again, the NIMBY[2] principle at work. They will point to the many technological innovations that have taken time to gather general support. But there are few examples of developments that have so singularly failed to win the argument. Whilst they might be forgiven for failing to anticipate the mood change exemplified by Extinction Rebellion and their fellow-travellers, what we have seen of the industry’s attempts to persuade the public has fallen well short of what’s needed to overcome its scepticism.

Some of the responsibility may well lie with Government departments over-anxious to say ‘yes’ to the financial bonanza it once saw as possible. It by-passed public consultation on the principle of fracking and forced an unpopular policy on various areas in the teeth of local opposition. When councils consulted – as they must – Ministers overruled their reluctance to approve the projects.

The fracking saga is not over. But it is rapidly becoming a case study in the perils of proceeding with policy choices when public support is fragile.

[1] Fracking for shale gas in England, 23 Oct 2019

[2] Not in My Back Yard. See Institute paper https://www.consultationinstitute.org/understanding-why-people-say-no-the-current-debate-about-wind-farms-makes-us-think-seriously-about-nimbyism/