Yes, outside of oil & gas - but what does that have to do with anything?.
Let's compare like for like, ie companies which use finite resources of the use pollution the UK tax-payer will have to cover the negative externalities for.
I don't read the Guardian either (I don't buy any newspapers), this story was from -
George Osborne reveals 50% tax break for fracking firms
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-50-tax-break-for-fracking-firms-8718711.html
How about other non oil and gas mining? Do they pay supplementary tax too? Or is that out of the comparison? Does it need to be compared against the industry with the highest suppplementary tax?
I agree in part though, in reality no one knows if it's economic yet, the likelyhood is it'll be economic without the reduction in supplimentary tax if it is economic. They didn't need to reduce the tax to get more interest in UK shale.
Edit: one of the reasons the supplimentary tax will have been reduce is because if shale gas takes off it won't be the same as the rest of the oil and gas industry, high risk, high reward, it'll be low risk, low reward, much like most other industries that don't pay supplimentary tax. A whole different model to the rest of the industry.
Fracking is still in it's infancy (for large scale operations) & not enough long term studies of it's potential ecological damage have been done yet (or if they have the studies seem to be private), I'm not saying it should be outright banned or anything - just we should take our time.
Agreed. And I'm guessing most will agree with that. That is why we are taking our time. Just see the time gap and study after quadrillas first frack. We have years before we are fracking hundreds of wells. Plenty of time to study the effects and adjust regulation if need be.
Shale gas requires the constant drilling of holes to get to the gas - geothermal creates the pipes & has a pretty much unlimited supply.
They are very different, just because drilling is involved it doesn't make objections to shale but not geothermal hypocritical.
It's not like people are just "against drilling".
Actually geothermal requires a lot of drilling as well. The area around the initial borehole and track cools down after a couple of years and a new frack needs to be done or a new well drilled elsewhere. The heat transfer from the hot rock to the cold fluid can reduce downhole temperatures in a short time. Iceland, for example, has a lot of experience in this.
So the Pennsylvania Democratic state committee are telling lies when they said to Obama
"'Hey, come take our gas and by the way, we don't care if you don't clean things up"
Show us the EPA reports and the peer reviewed papers then, not blog posts on anti fracking websites... A single blowout is pretty impressive for tens of thousands of wells... Especially as there have been tens of thousands of wells drilled. The point being is the risk is minimal that fracking fluid is going to pollute the ground water through the fracks themselves. It may happen (with so far no clear evidence) but the risk is so minimal it's like being against nuclear energy because a powerplant may blow up or the blades from a turbine fall off and the whole assembly career through a town centre...
There are undeniably poor practices occurring in the US and there is evidence that some of the gas in the water table has occured due to fracking wells (not from fracks themselves), believed to be due to poor casing design. That doesn't mean we will follow them down that path...
) shale gas companies will still pay a higher proportion in tax than any other industry outside the oil and gas sphere... If shale gas is being subsidised that means all other industries (from farming and mining to clothes shops and supermarkets, banks and accountancy firms) are being subsidies an even greater amount...
