Report: shale development will have "relatively small" impact on greenhouse gas emissions

According to a Government-commissioned research paper, further development of the emerging fuel source while remaining within the UK's legislated climate change targets is possible. However, more work on emissions reduction and low-carbon technologies will be needed at an international level to ensure that global cumulative greenhouse gas emissions do not increase in line with international exploitation of shale, the report said.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey said that the report's recommendations were "sensible", and that the Government would respond "positively and in detail" shortly.

"This report shows that the continued use of gas is perfectly consistent with our carbon budgets over the next couple of decades," he said. "If shale gas production does reach significant levels we will need to make extra efforts in other areas, because by on-shoring production we will be on-shoring the emissions as well."

"The report from Professor Mackay and Dr Stone puts another piece of the puzzle in place. It should help reassure environmentalists like myself that we can safely pursue UK shale gas production and meet our national emissions reductions targets designed to help tackle climate change. UK shale gas production must not be at the expense of our wider environmental aims – indeed, if done properly, it will support them," he said.

The report by Professor David Mackay, the chief scientific advisor to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and Davey's senior advisor Dr Timothy Stone, concluded that the carbon footprint of UK-produced shale gas would likely be significantly less that of coal, and also lower than that of imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). However, it would be slightly higher than that of gas extracted from conventional sources, such as that produced offshore.

According to the report, if shale gas production was "adequately regulated", related greenhouse gas emissions would likely be dominated by CO2 emissions associated with its combustion as part of the energy generation process. Emissions as a result of operations should only represent a "small proportion" of the energy source's total carbon footprint, the report said.

Any emissions as a result of shale gas operations would fall within the non-traded sector of the UK's carbon budgets. This would mean that any increase in emissions associated with domestic shale gas operations would have to be offset by emissions cuts elsewhere in the economy, the researchers said. In addition, government and industry should "actively pursue" new techniques to minimise emissions, including through research into the development of more effective extraction techniques. The UK aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

Shale gas is natural gas trapped within shale formations at significant depths below ground. It has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the United States, particularly over the past decade. A combination of drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking', has facilitated access to large volumes of shale gas that were previously uneconomical to exploit. In the US, increased shale gas production has resulted in a sharp reduction in gas prices.

Although shale gas has not yet been produced in the UK, exploratory drilling in West Sussex led to protests from environmental activists this summer. Protestors have claimed that fracking can contaminate ground water and cause earthquakes. The process involves pumping water at high pressure into shale rock to create narrow fractures, through which trapped gas can flow out and be captured.

In a speech at the Royal Society, Energy Secretary Ed Davey said that providing the "rigorous regulation" that the Government planned to put in place was "followed to the letter", the exploitation of shale gas could boost jobs and tax revenues. The British Geological Survey is currently working to establish the amount of potentially recoverable shale gas in the south east of England, after a previous report showed that there was twice as much gas in the north of England alone than was previously thought to be in the entire UK.

"Gas, as the cleanest fossil fuel, is part of the answer to climate change, as a bridge in our transition to a green future, especially in our move away from coal," Davey said. "We have to face it: North Sea gas production is falling and we are becoming increasingly reliant on gas imports. So UK shale gas could increase our energy security by cutting those imports."

However, Davey warned against "banking on shale gas to solve all our energy challenges", adding that "nobody can say, for sure, how much onshore UK shale gas resource exists or how much of it can be commercially extracted".