Shale gas alone is not the answer – but neither is renewable energy | Tom Greatrex | Environment | theguardian.com

Shale gas alone is not the answer – but neither is renewable energy | Tom Greatrex | Environment | theguardian.com:

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A test drilling site for shale gas near Banks on the outskirts of Southport,
Lancashire. Photograph: Ashley Cooper Corbis

In May this year, academics from Washington State University published research confirming a long-held suspicion: being loud and confident is a more effective way to win an argument than being right. The researchers assiduously mined their data from more than 1bn Tweets, but a quick look at the increasingly polarised debate about shale gas in the UK might have saved them some time.

For a significant number of climate-sceptic Tories and rightwing commentators, shale is a silver bullet. The hapless energy secretary, Ed Davey, has been sidelined by George Osborne, who appears to be setting energy policy on the advice of his father-in-law, Lord Howell.

The intervention of Boris Johnson last week has, I suspect, more to with his desire to be on side with discontented Tory MPs than any real appreciation of energy policy. His description of gas as "clean" and "green" was both crowd-pleasing and simply wrong."

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