New report recommends the continuation of fracking in UK

Fracking involves drilling a well up to 2km deep and pumping high-pressure water, sand and chemicals into shale rock in order to release methane gas.

The government-commissioned independent report suggests that fracking shale should be expanded across Britain, despite concluding that fracking was responsible for earthquakes that occurred in Blackpool last year.

The report — written by Peter Styles, professor of applied and environmental geophysics at Keele University; Brian Baptie of the British Geological Survey (BGS); and Christoper Green, an independent fracking expert — found Cuadrilla Resource’s fracking activities near Blackpool caused two minor tremors of magnitudes 2.3 and 1.5 in spring last year after the company attempted to extract methane from Lancashire shale.

‘There’s no record of a quake at this size doing any structural damage,’ said Styles. ‘But they would be strongly felt, and there is a possibility of superficial damage.’

Cuadrilla terminated fracking at its Preese Hall site after the earthquakes were felt at the surface. However, British earthquakes of magnitude 3 have been generated for decades as a result of coal mining and still take place regularly without impact.