Shale in context

British greenies are doing all they can to delay prospecting for shale in the UK.

Thus "while DECC and the Environment Agency are both convinced this will not affect local water supplies, campaigners like Louise Evans are sceptical", reports the BBC, majoring on this caravan park owner rather than the position of the Environment Agency and DECC.

"There's never going to be a guarantee it's safe, but it's a very new method and we're calling for a moratorium so that everyone can take a step back from it," she says.

But it's not just us and the US. In Europe we know France has banned fracking, while Poland sees its probably plentiful shale gas as an historical chance to break free of dependence on Russia.

China aims to produce 6.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas annually by 2015. The US has already made shale gas an important part of the world's energy mix, and a dash for shale by China will hugely increase that.

The Welsh caravan park campaigners don't want you to know that. They want you to think shale and fracking are some wild American practice.

Some commentators disparage Cuadrilla's estimate of gas in place on their Lancashire licence, which was far higher than expected. They question it on the basis that Cuadrilla isn't a publicly quoted company. Should they? Lord Browne ex-BP is prominently involved, and Cuadrilla have shown seismic suggesting their two wells have over 3,000 feet net shale thickness, whereas in the US, any shale thickness over 300 feet is rare.

So probably it's sitting there ready to provide us with far cheaper energy. Does Huhne want to hail this boon for voters? Does he hell, even though it's good politics.

Matt Ridley has written a cracking piece praising the gift of shale. Don't miss it.