The BNP is firmly opposed to onshore gas fracking – the controversial technology which uses a cocktail of water, sand and poisonous chemicals to break up shale rocks so that gas can be extracted.
All the propaganda about how fracking is moving the USA towards ‘energy self-sufficiency’ is (deliberately) missing the key points:
- Although fracking produces a lot of US gas, very few of the companies doing it actually make money. It’s a very inefficient and expensive process. But rosy claims about the industry’s potential keep small investors and pension funds alike pouring money into fracking companies. It’s like the dot.com bubble, there is far more money in the speculation than in what is actually produced.
- Fracked gas wells go into rapid decline after only about a year of production. To keep the gas flowing in the USA, they are drilling thousands of new wells every year. It’s short-termism at its very worst. Even in thinly-populated America, the vast amounts of traffic, pollution and the industrialisation of the landscape provoke fierce local resistance. In heavily populated Britain, there is not the faintest possibility of production on anything like the scale in the USA.
- Fracking supporters (invariably energy companies, banks or greedy politicians on the take) claim that the technology is ‘safe’. But, in the real world, steel well linings corrode and concrete rots. The test borehole near Blackpool was fractured by the earthquake it caused and has had to be abandoned.
When a disused, capped well fails, the pressure from the remaining gas is liable to force a cocktail of poisonous chemicals and even radioactive water from the pipe and into the groundwater that we use for drinking, livestock and irrigating crops.
“It’s because of the long-term risks that the BNP speaks out against fracking at every opportunity,” says BNP’s Clive Jefferson.
“Fracking is a poisoned short-term sticking plaster which would be disastrous for future generations, house prices and local communities across vast swathes of our Green and Pleasant Land.
“We need real, high-density energy sources to keep our lights on for good. Britain could be a world leader in ultra-safe, technologies such as thorium and deep wave power, securing safe, affordable energy and thousands of well-paid new manufacturing jobs.”
Find out more about BNP policy to save our Environment here.
