Shale gas drilling has been given the go-ahead by members of the UK parliament who have insisted that the process is safe. An inquiry by the Energy and Climate Change committee concluded that fracking, the process by which gas is extracted from shale rock, poses no risk to underground water supplies as long as drilling wells are properly constructed. Therefore a moratorium on drilling in the UK would be inappropriate, the committee said, as long as it is monitored closely by government. Writing for PublicServiceEurope.com earlier this month, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation Dr Benny Peiser highlighted the Europe-wide potential for a shale gas “revolution”. “Poland, France and the Ukraine alone may have supplies sufficient to last for 200 or 300 years. No wonder then that many European countries see shale as a golden opportunity to generate cheap energy as well as reduce their reliance on imports from Russia and the Middle East. “Already, Germany is set for the conversion of its energy mix away from nuclear and towards gas. Berlin announced only last week that its new energy policy will now focus on building more gas-fired power stations to fill to looming gap caused by Germany’s accelerated nuclear phase-out,” he wrote. Full story