YP Letters: Fossil fuels vital for transition to green future

From: Sam Grant, York.
Is there still an economic case for fracking?Is there still an economic case for fracking?
Is there still an economic case for fracking?

TRYING to stop any and all fossil fuel production, whether by fracking or any other well type, neglects that fossil fuel prices must remain low for many more years because we all use them, and no alternative energy can be produced without them. Stop their production and you stop the very means by which any alternative energy is cheaply produced and you put up the prices of everything else too, and for everyone.

What is being ignored is this. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global decline rate from conventional oil fields is 6.4 per cent per year. If you want energy prices to stay low throughout the energy transition, which we need if we are to afford alternative energy, then globally we need to drill many wells, no matter what type they are. There is no other choice.

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If we stop producing oil and gas, then energy prices will skyrocket very quickly and alternative energy will not have access to the resources and energy it needs to grow to the scale demanded. Yes, there is a conflict here between climate change and humanity, but it isn’t one that goes away by sticking one’s head in the sand. For all the ideology and rhetoric of anti-fossil fuel campaigners, the world does not behave how they demand it should.