The Ynni Cymru podcast #2 – Shale Gas
This podcast was recorded in August 2013, and has been produced as a transcript owing to problems in the recording process.
Participants were Rita Singh, Policy Director at Cynnal Cymru; Gareth Clubb, Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru; and Alun James, Policy Officer at WWF Cymru. The session was chaired by David Clubb, Director of RenewableUK Cymru.
Energy generation
(DC) Perhaps we can focus on to the generation side – fossil fuels, nuclear, renewable.
Obviously the topic at the moment is shale gas so perhaps we can kick off with that because licences are started being applied for, shale gas has been in the news in Wales recently and the question I guess is does it have a place as a bridging fuel, will it reduce energy prices overall, what’s the environmental impact of is as we see reports from the US, and what’s your organisation’s view on it? Perhaps we can start with Alun…
(AJ) We are against shale gas and believe it should be left in the ground. We have to be concerned with climate change, and that means we have to leave most of the remaining fossil fuels in the ground. We can’t afford to risk catastrophic changes to the ecosystem, so we should be looking at renewable energy, energy efficiency of course and shale is a distraction and it will add to carbon emissions. We feel that the best thing to do is not go on with shale. The market in Europe is so different, and the market is completely different here too in terms of our regulations, population density, it could be very different in Europe as it is in the US. What we see is happening in the US is mass pictures showing North Dekota with all this shale gas flaring and there are huge issues facing the US as well. As far as the environmental issues, and local environment issues which mustn’t be ignored.
(GC) Well Alun mentioned that shale gas was a distraction and it is a distraction, but actually worse than that because it is sucking up investment which should be going into renewables. Lazy Welsh Governments and yet again we come to the same conclusion with shale gas, the Welsh Government has the powers to regulate much more tightly on shale gas.
But in a letter as part of freedom of information request Carl Sargeant, Minister of Planning said they had no intention of regulating tougher planning regime for fracking, unless they do likewise in England. So we have by default a Welsh Government going down the same route as the very pro shale gas Government is doing in England. I think that is a real problem. The overriding problem with shale gas is of course climate change. But there are issues which are important and the big difference with the UK, and Wales in particular is you look at the way licences have been offered, the density is very very high and I conceive this as being a very big problem for communities right across the areas where shale gas is being touted as a possibility.
Community benefit
(DC) What about the claims of the hundreds of thousands of pounds being pumped into local communities? I mean Rita, from local communities it’s always nice to see those benefits?
(RS) Yes, I think it comes down to this idea that we are running after a short term measures, because all of these need to fit into the long term plan. Have we worked out the pros and cons, in terms of yes local communities can benefit but I’m sure they can benefit in other ways. I don’t think any community just sit there and have benefits coming through and in the end your are looking climate change with its hazard of 2 degrees which we’re looking at going over anyway! I think it needs to come down to where exactly is the Government going, we have things like the Environment Bill which all have long term policy in terms of where do we see Wales going in 20 – 50 years time.
The last thing we want for them is to look at very short term measures saying we need an immediate answer to the problems we face now. What happens to these measures longer term? Are they going to help sustain ourselves long term, I don’t think they can. They really need to look at these figures, the evidence that is currently available to them. In terms of the impact now does it match up, because if not then let’s just put our foot down and take let’s take a stance and say actually this is not for us.
(DC) Well what I would say to people trying to understand devolution in Wales is that we’ve had sustainability written into the constitution, the framework but when you cross the border from Bristol to Newport or wherever, you don’t see a difference. Plastic bags being one, but to the average person in the street it’s the same since 1997. So yes, there is certainly more we can do on the matter.
Wrapping up the discussion
We are going to wrap this up shortly but I’ll give you the opportunity to say a last couple of words, again thinking of energy conservation, shale gas or renewables..what are they key messages you would like to give to our policy makers?
(RS) I think we need to be very enterprising, I like what Scotland have been doing, I like what other parts of Europe have been doing. We need to be much more enterprising, we don’t want to be recipients of grants and funds, we want communities to go out and raise those incomes for themselves. Go out and regenerate their community and build resilience within it because we are a proud nation, we want to do something for our community, and here’s the opportunity to do something. Again as a nation, we are young nation we need to be thriving and risk takers and I’d like to see much more of that. Lets see that teenage rebellion, we’ve been 14 years old since devolution…lets prove it!
(GC) Fossilised fuels, fossilised economy. It’s clear that fossil fuels are going nowhere. Climate change legislation no less requires that by 2030 our economy virtually decarbonised. We are consenting far more power stations that we can possibly justify under that scenario of decarbonised by 2030.
I have no idea why the Welsh Government is saying shale gas, yes that’s fine we’ll follow England’s lead. Why the Welsh Government isn’t legislating hard and fast on energy efficiency – I have no idea. These are all the sorts of questions the Welsh Government need to be answering!
The classic example is large scale energy developments where Welsh Government is quite happy – it appears – to point the finger in every direction other than itself for failures meeting renewable energy generation targets.
(DC) and finally Alun;
(AJ) Building on what Gareth was saying about the new power stations going up in Wales, we have a 2GW station in Milford Haven and now in Hirwuan coming and in North Wales, and that’s going to have a huge impact so we need a route map on how we are going to get that 40% reduction and you have to involve the UK Government as well. They have to buy into the fact that the target in Wales is much larger that the rest of the UK. Scotland has a 42% reduction target and they have a plan on how they are going to do it. Carbon emission are very important and we can’t just look at territorial emissions, we have to look at also the emissions that are embedded in the products and services we consume from elsewhere, that keeps going up even though our emissions are going down a bit. We seem to be wanting more and more products and we have a carbon footprint associated with them, we have to be serious about looking at these. And we can’t do that in Wales alone or in the UK alone, we have to work with Europe in terms of a carbon reduction.
The last thing I would like to say is that we are fortunate in Wales to having so many resources of renewable energy, we can do so much with solar still, wind – onshore and offshore, geothermal we haven’t even started that yet and of course marine, because we have a fantastic tidal energy that can be harnessed in a sustainable way, not with the barrage but possibly lagoons and tidal stream. There’s lots of exciting things that we can do and that would generate jobs as well as giving us the image of Wales being a place to be for sustainable developments, that’s a message for the rest of the World.
(DC) Great thank you, so it’s about planning, vision and practical steps to get us there.
Rita from Cynnal Cymru, Alun from WWF Cymru and Gareth from FOE Cymru – diolch.
Last updated: October 25, 2013 at 15:28 pmPicture courtesy of Truthout.org
