- National energy security
- Lower gas prices for households and industry
- Lower heating bills
- Increased competitiveness
Unfortunately his information comes from an unattributable Reuters report, he has cherry picked the information in the report and he has inflated the shale gas reserves by an order of magnitude.
| Jacob Rees-Mogg estimate |
360 years shale gas supply
|
| British Geological Survey estimate |
9 - 16 years shale gas supply
|
NB BGS state that it "is not aware of any offshore assessment for shale gas". The figure above is based simply on the "five to ten times" guesstimate referred to below.
The Rees-Mogg Information Source
Mr Rees-Mogg has used this information source: http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-source which is a news agency report repeating claims of vast UK shale gas reserves. The figures used in the Reuters report and by Mr Rees-Mogg cannot all be traced back to credible estimates of shale gas reserves and do not reflect the current state of knowledge.
Alternative Credible Sources of Information
Informed estimates of UK shale gas resources are available from:
- Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) shale gas - coalbed methane
- The British Geological Survey (BGS, see above)
- The US Energy Information Administration (EIA)
- Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology and the Standard Note on Shale gas and fracking (SN/SC/6073)
An additional estimate is available from Caudrilla Resources but has not been verified yet by the British Geological Survey.
A reassessment of shale gas resources will be published later in 2012 by DECC, Reuters has nothing to do with it.
Mr Rees-Mogg's / Reuters Figures
Reuters says UK onshore resources are 200 tcf and offshore resources are 1,000 tcf, but adds that only 10-20% of the gas may be recoverable. Reuters used the term 'reserve' whereas they should have used the term 'resource'. The resource is the total amount of gas in the ground, while the reserve is the amount of gas which could be recovered - i.e. the 10-20%.
Mr Rees-Mogg ignores the fact that only a portion of the gas resource can be recovered and assumes useable reserves of 200 tcf and 1,000 tcf respectively. Using a national consumption factor of 3.5 tcf per annum Mr Rees-Mogg then extrapolates:
200 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 57 year onshore supply
1,000 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 286 year offshore supply
Mr Rees-Mogg rounds these figures up to a 60 years onshore supply and a 300 year offshore supply of gas. A veritable Bonanza of shale gas!
HOWEVER, instead of taking the whole resource and dividing by 3.5 Mr Rees-Mogg should have taken just 10-20% of gas which might actually be recovered.
Lower 10% estimate:
20 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 5.7 year onshore supply
100 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 28.6 year offshore supply
Upper 20% estimate:
40 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 11.4 year onshore supply
200 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 57 year offshore supply
So, that makes for a national supply of between 34.3 years and 68.4 years.
HOWEVER, where do the 200 tcf and 1,000 tcf figures come from? Reuters do not say where the 200 came from, but it could be either the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) or from Caudrilla Resources which are both 200 tcf. The EIA estimate is from a general global assessment and the Caudrialla estimate is based on fracking tests in Lancashire (not yet verified). The 1,000 tcf seems to derive from an off the cuff answer to a question to BGS during evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee in February 2011. When asked how much bigger the offshore resource is compared to the onshore resource the BGS representative said “say five to ten, something like that”. BUT in this guestimate he was referring to five to ten times the BGS resource figure of 5.3 tcf, not the Caudrilla estimate which was not published until September 2011 or the EIA estimate.
So, if we take the British Geological Survey’s estimate of onshore recoverable shale gas, which is 5.3 tcf then we get the estimate:
5.3 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 1.5 year onshore supply
26.5 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 7.6 year offshore supply @ 10% recovery
53 tcf / 3.5 tcf = 15 year offshore supply @ 20% recovery
The combined onshore and offshore estimate Is then between 9.1 years and 16.5 years supply - not 300 years !
Estimates of Shale Gas Resources and Reserves in trillions of cubic feet (tcf)
J.R-M
|
Reuters
|
US EIA
|
British Geological Survey
(tentative) |
Caudrilla Resources
|
Advanced Resources
| |
| Onshore resource |
200
|
200
|
-
|
200
|
97
| |
| Onshore reserve |
200
|
20 - 40
|
20
|
5.3
|
20 - 40
|
20
|
| Offshore resource |
1000
|
-
|
26.5 - 53
|
-
|
-
| |
| Offshore reserve |
1,000
|
100 - 200
|
-
|
-
|
-
| |
| Onshore + offshore |
1,200
|
120 - 240
|
31.8 - 58.3
| |||
| Supply in years |
342
|
34 - 69
|
9 - 16
|
Reserves are given assuming a 10% gas recovery rate. Advanced Resources use a 21% recovery rate.
There is much uncertainty over shale gas resources in the UK, and better estimates will emerge, but the estimate of a 360 year national supply has been cooked up by someone and promulgated by the Global Warming Policy Foundation and now Mr Rees-Mogg.
Implications
The implications are that Mr Rees-Mogg has told constituents that shale gas reserves (what could actually be recovered) are vastly higher than the current state of knowledge, and on that basis has further told constituents that they could have better energy security and lower gas bills. Some constituents don’t even have mains gas.
This kind of misinformation has no place in our democracy where important policy and planning decisions are being made.
In evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee DECC states that, “It is difficult to see how offshore shale gas might become a real prospect within the next few decades” adding “At the present time there is no known offshore exploration activity for unconventional gas anywhere in the world”. The Reuters report to which Mr Rees-Mogg refers also states that, “for the offshore industry to become viable, you'd need vastly higher energy costs”.
In recent written evidence to the Department of Energy and Climate Change the right leaning think tank the Policy Exchange (“David Cameron’s favourite think tank”) states “commentators who argue with great certainty that shale gas is the answer to future energy needs fail to recognise uncertainty about the future and neglect the importance of developing zero carbon technologies to meet long term emissions reduction goals”.
Summary
- Constituents have been misinformed by their MP about the potential volumes of shale gas, even his own source is actually 5 to 10 times lower that what he says
- Constituents have not been informed by their MP that offshore shale gas production would need "vastly higher energy prices"
- Rather than using a confused Reuters report and then making even more confused and outlandish claims, Mr Rees-Mogg should have gone to information provided to him by the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology and the Standard Note on Shale gas and fracking (SN/SC/6073) (http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06073) published in July this year and which gives a balanced overview, or to the estimates of the Department for Energy and Climate Change or the British Geological Survey.
- Why did Mr Rees-Mogg go to the Reuters report rather than official British estimates?
- Why is he so confident in his conviction when he not seem to understand the basic principles?
- Why are his fracking articles not on his web site?
- Who is advising him so badly?
References
The Rees-Mogg Reuters Report
http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-source
Rees-Mogg article in Somerset Guardian - Benefits fracking could bring are surely worth investigating
http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-somerset-g
Rees-Mogg article in MNRJournal - Fracking good for the economy – less fuel poverty
http://tinyurl.com/rm-frack-mnrj
Rees-Mogg article in Chew Valley Gazette - Fracking offers benefits
http://www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk, page 20 of the October 2012 edition. Click on the current digital and then use the archive tab.
Tim Richards letter to Chew Valley Gazette
www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk/news.cfm?id=37599&searchword=shale
Parliamentary Note on Shale Gas and Fracking
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06073
ECCC Written Evidence
http://tinyurl.com/eccc-shale-gas-2012-13
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change
http://tinyurl.com/tyndall-shalegas
British Geological Survey, The impact of shale gas on energy markets, Written evidence to the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenergy/writev/isg/m17.htm
6/11/12
Also see http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/04/1,000-trillion-cubic-feet-of-shale-gas
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