Battle lines were yesterday drawn in Sussex pitching fracking for oil against wind power as the answer to our future energy needs.

Environment campaigners were on alert as the new Secretary of State for Energy said the new Conservative government will back fracking.

The MP for Hastings Amber Rudd said the government will allow shale gas extraction under national parks – but the practise would be tightly regulated. Meanwhile it was announced funding for a massive off-shore windfarm off the Brighton coast was now in place.

The Rampion Offshore Windfarm received £1.3bn from E.on and the UK Green Investment Bank meaning work can begin on the infrastructure to run the windfarm – based in Twineham, near Haywards Heath – next month.

Work on the 116 turbines – built 13 miles from the beach – is due to be completed by 2018.

Shaun Kingsbury, chief executive of the UK Green Investment Bank plc, said the project would cut CO2 emissions by up to 600,000 tonnes a year and provide power to 300,000 homes.

Ms Rudd said: “This huge investment is a vote of confidence in the UK, creating local jobs, bringing business opportunities and providing clean, home-grown energy.

“The UK is the best place in the world to invest in offshore wind, thanks to the certainty the Government is able to provide to attract private finance in partnership with the Green Investment Bank.”

She also said she would give residents more power to object to wind farms being built near their homes.

Speaking about fracking, Ms Rudd said her department would stress tight regulation on fracking as long as wells started from outside park boundaries.

She added: “We have protected groundwater source areas and [prevented] national park drilling. I will make sure we go out of our way to demonstrate to people the safety elements of it.”

Ms Rudd blamed her former Lib Dem colleagues for being “completely anti-shale” and said that she would be looking again at a compensation scheme for communities affected by fracking – expected to be around £800,000 for each well.

She said: “There’s good reward in it.”

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said they hope to identify areas suitable for hydraulic fracturing by the end of July.

Brighton Pavilion MP Caroline Lucas – who is an ardent campaigner against fracking – welcomed the windfarm but warned it would not completely solve our energy needs and “conservation” was the most important thing we could to save resources and the planet.

Expressing her concerns about the Government’s support for fracking she said: “Polls show people are far more concerned about fracking than wind farms. The dangers associated with fracking go beyond the aesthetics.

“There has been a report into the effects of fracking which the government refuses to release and has so heavily redacted it has rendered it virtually meaningless.

“It seems particularly perverse of the government to give such a strong go ahead to fracking while keeping that report secret.”

The South Downs National Park Authority is now anxiously awaiting the implications of the news.

Trevor Beattie, chief executive for the South Downs National Park Authority, said: “The Government recognised the importance of the South Downs’ special landscapes when they made it a National Park.

“Amber Rudd has reconfirmed the Government’s commitment to putting measures in place to make sure it stays protected and we await further details as to how this will work.”

Environmental scientist Dr Jill Sutcliffe called for Ms Rudd to look at the evidence before making decisions.

She said: “Amber Rudd has said she is going to put local communities back in charge of decisions regarding renewable energy – so why not do that with fracking as well?

“They are not following the evidence. In the area of the Sussex Weald there are seismic reasons why drilling is not a good idea – and that’s the geologists who have found that.”

Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: “The priority appears to be hobbling the cheapest form of low carbon energy – onshore wind – by removing subsidies and making it easier for communities to block development. Meanwhile it will become even more difficult to block the much less popular shale gas industry. So higher bills for consumers, more environmental damage to our best-loved beauty spots, but great news for fossil fuel companies.”

Fighting the case for wind

The UK has the best renewable energy resources in Europe.  Harnessing their potential should be at the very heart of the UK’s energy policy.
So it’s good news that the Rampion offshore wind farm is now a big step closer to producing clean power.
It will provide secure and sustainable power for hundreds of thousands of homes in Brighton and Hove – as well as creating jobs, slashing carbon emissions and boosting the well-earned reputation of our city as a place for investment in green industry.
The exciting potential of clean power is illustrated by an Offshore Valuation report that found harnessing less than a third of offshore renewable resources could match North Sea oil and gas production, create 145,000 new jobs and would ensure Britain became a net electricity exporter.
Right now we’re only harnessing a tiny proportion of the UK’s home grown renewable energy.  
The Rampion offshore wind farm showcases just one type of technology. Government should be doing much more to usher in a solar revolution too, with costs coming down and public support on the up – especially for community-owned renewable projects where local people get their fair share of the benefits.
Ministers are stressing the importance of a global climate deal in Paris in December, yet it’s deeds not words that count.  
To protect our children and communities, cities and countryside, the Government must take urgent action on energy efficiency and switch from dirty fossil fuels towards clean, home-grown renewable energy.   
Giving the green light to wind farms and fracking at the same time is a bit like trying to fill up a bath with the plug out.
The only safe and responsible thing to do with shale gas reserves is to leave them in the ground.
We need more offshore wind farms like Rampion and we need that to go hand in hand with a locally owned renewable energy revolution.
Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion

 

Fighting the case for oil

It is a little-known fact that the first gas well in the UK was drilled in Sussex. Wells drilled in 1895 and 1896 at Heathfield to provide water for a hotel and railway station, also encountered gas.
The railway station well reached Kimmeridgian strata, with a strong gas odour noted. On ignition, it produced a five-metre high flare.
The well became Britain’s first natural gas well, with production of 1,000 cubic feet per day (cfd) used to provide gaslight for the station.
Since then over 2000 oil and gas wells have been drilled in the UK, and over 200 of them have been fracked.
They exist in fields, in villages, next to pubs and in the case of Wytch Farm in Dorset, Europe’s largest onshore oil and gas field, next to an area of outstanding natural beauty, a RSPB nature reserve and some of the most expensive homes in the UK.
The industry has an excellent safety and environmental record.
The reasons why the UK needs to develop shale oil and gas have been well rehearsed. Over 80% of our homes use gas for either heating or cooking. Our chemicals industry relies on petrochemicals to produce everyday items for our homes.
We need an energy mix which involves wind, wave and solar energy as well as nuclear, oil and gas if we are to cut our dependence on coal, the least environmentally friendly energy source, and keep the lights on.
We also have to cut our reliance on oil and gas imports from countries such as Russia for our own energy security.
Large parts of Sussex sit on top of the Weald Basin which the British Geological Survey estimates contains 4.4 billion barrels of oil in its shale layer.  
At present there are no plans to hydraulically fracture any well in Sussex  but the onshore oil industry can bring jobs, skills and income to local communities as well as direct benefits in terms of a share of the income from shale gas. We need to extract gas from the Weald safely, with the minimum of disruption for communities, for the good of the country and the good of Sussex.

Ken Cronin, chief executive of UKOOG, the representative body for the onshore oil and gas industry – Visit ukoog.org.uk for more details