THERESA MAY’S plan to dish out £10,000 to every household near a shale gas well is a fracking brainwave.
It offers to solve Britain’s alarming energy crisis, cut the ground under eco-anarchist protesters and sort out our stand-off with China over nuclear power.
Most important, it gives a direct stake to those who live above those valuable gas fields — a bonanza to the impoverished North West and the whole British economy.
It is also a nod to America where landowners control the rights to minerals found below their feet.
The payout to locals is already being denounced by opponents as a “bribe”.
But it is a bribe that works — as the French proved when they built nuclear power plants in cities and drove TGV rail routes straight through the countryside.
Homes near power plants won cheap hot water and central heating.
Those in the path of a high speed train line were offered above-market prices for their houses.
This gave them a real personal interest in the process of change.
Protests, if any, came from those who lived outside the compensation zone.
Hand-wringing Lib Dems thwarted David Cameron’s dream of tapping Britain’s potential treasure trove and gave protesters time to dig in.
Few householders were swayed by promises to hand some of the shale profits to extravagant local councils.
'Fracking offers to solve Britain’s alarming energy crisis'
Driller Cuadrilla almost abandoned hope as environmentalists put more and more hurdles in its path.
The prospect of a cash-in-hand deal worth more than half a year’s pay in the Blackpool area is likely to see such entrenched opposition evaporate overnight.
If America’s experience is anything to go by, huge benefits in jobs and prosperity would certainly follow.
While Britain’s vast shale gas reserves have been left untapped, America has become a net oil exporter for the first time in decades.
The US is self-sufficient in oil and is even competing with Opec on world markets, in direct competition with the Gulf states who once held the world to ransom. Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer, risks economic disaster after slashing prices in a futile gamble to kill off American shale and undermine rivals like Russia and Iran.
They reckoned without the genius of modern engineering.
What began as a marginal and inefficient drilling process has been transformed by technology into a reliable source of cheap fuel in just one decade.
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Britain would enjoy “late-comer advantage” and save ten years by introducing these super-efficient improvements immediately.
Thanks to shale, global oil prices have slumped from $110 a barrel before the Scottish referendum in 2014 to $41 today and are unlikely to climb again any time soon.
Cheap oil has given a shot in the arm to the sickly world economy.
'Britain’s vast shale gas reserves have been left untapped'
In America it has cut firm’s costs, bringing home hundreds of thousands of jobs from cheap-labour China and Asia and breathing new life into “rust-belt” cities like Chicago.
Fears about earth tremors and polluted water tables have proved negligible.
True, burning oil and gas creates carbon emissions — but at half the rate of coal and with far more 24/7 reliability than solar and wind power.
Until renewable energy catches up, as it may do eventually, shale gas is Britain’s best hope of keeping the lights on without becoming a hostage to China over nuclear power.
Former US Congressman Chris Carney says: “Fracking means America is awash with energy. Cheap energy is a benefit. Fracking isn’t a double-edged sword. It’s just a good thing.”
There is no time to be lost. Our creaking nuclear plants are near the end of their lives.
North Sea oil is a thing of the past. We are at the mercy of Russia’s gas pipelines and rely dangerously on imported fuel.
'Chris Carney is right. Fracking IS a good thing'
Lancashire and Yorkshire are among Britain’s poorest regions but they stand on some of the richest shale gas fields in Europe.
If we want to close the economy’s yawning North-South divide we need to take the inevitable next step.
Chris Carney is right. Fracking IS a good thing.
Jeremy Corbyn is a talentless non-entity
THE slow death of the Labour Party is depressing to behold, even for those cynics who believe it is richly deserved.
It is impossible to recall a time when its most senior figures – party leader, shadow cabinet, national executive committee – were such faceless dullards.
Until last year Jeremy Corbyn was anonymous even inside Westminster, for good reason.
He is a talentless non-entity catapulted into office by mistake.
But challenger Owen Smith is, if anything, still less impressive. It is a shame he bullied Angela Eagle into stepping aside. She at least has brains and some fire in her belly.
What a mess!
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