Are you sitting on top of billions of barrels of oil?
A new report due to be published today is expected to conclude that substantial reserves of shale oil are situated beneath Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire.
The long-awaited (and controversial) survey from the British Geological Survey will say several billion barrels of oil can be found in the area, an area which includes the beautiful South Downs National Park.
Trouble is, getting to this oil would require rather a lot of ‘fracking’.
For the uninitiated, fracking involves drilling into the earth and sending down a high-pressure liquid to fracture the rocks, releasing gas and oil.
Many people are opposed to this hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) technique, with big environmental concerns surrounding ground water contamination, risks to air quality, migration of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals to the surface, mishandling of waste, and the health effects of all these. It has even been blamed for causing earthquakes.
The trouble is, fracking has major economic benefits.
The government is set to offer communities affected by fracking an average payout of £800,000. This is in addition to a one-off payment £100,000 and a 1% share of profits from the shale oil extraction.
With local authorities strapped for cash, this financial incentive could overcome local opposition to fracking activity. It should at least put the two of a neat collision course.
Not too far from us here in Cranleigh, in Balcombe, West Sussex, we saw weeks of protests last summer over exploratory drilling by the firm Cuadrilla Resources. They would eventually go on to withdraw plans for using hydraulic fracturing at the site, but only because rocks there already contained natural fractures.
Those opposed to fracking, and to the continued reliance on fossil fuels in general, might consider investing in clean energy technology.
This is often considered to be a good long-term investment, as the planet will eventually be forced to switch away from oil, gas and other ‘dirty’ methods of energy production, in favour of more sustainable and environmentally compatible techniques.
One additional risk associated with these investments is that the renewable energy source of the future might not yet have been discovered. Funds investing in wind, solar and wave technology could fail to provide investor returns should a more efficient and popular form of clean energy production be discovered.
And despite supposed widespread political support for renewables, enterprise investment schemes and venture capital trusts were banned from receiving renewable energy subsidies in the latest Budget in March.
It will be interesting to see how the issue of fracking pans out over the coming years, following the publication of this new British Geological Survey report.
With any luck, common-sense and a long-term focus will prevent the need for me to be chained to the gates of drilling sites or the wheels of JCBs. But who knows.
