France, unlike other countries, decides to cut theshale gas extraction, the shale gas. The decision, to be made official in the next few days, closes a story that has been going on for months. This extraction technique – said fracking – is in fact considered dangerous for the environment and a law of 13 July already forbade the fracking technique, the hydraulic fracturing, used precisely for extraction.
According to what it reveals Le Figaro, France has therefore decided to revoke the exploration permits assigned to the American Schuepbach and in French Total.
In his report, Schuepbach underlined that he could not give up fracking, since there are no alternative methods, the content of the Total report is not even known, but evidently both have not satisfied the requests of the competent Ministry.
A heavy setback for the exploitation of shale gas, the last chapter of a very heated debate around this source whose environmental impacts according to many are too high. Before the latest French decision, a rejection of shale gas had come in July from a report commissioned by the Environment Commission of the European Parliament.
Despite growing gas needs and declining conventional reserves, unconventional gas resources are too small to have any substantial impact and the negative consequences too high, the report said.
First of all, the contamination of groundwater: the fluids used for fracking often contain dangerous substances and currently operators are not obliged to declare their composition; often these seep into the ground, also carrying heavy metals and radioactive materials with them.
Also, there is the problem of climate-changing emissions: methane, whose leaks during fracking are frequent, as we know has a climate-altering power much higher than that of CO2, even if it has a shorter permanence time in the atmosphere (about one tenth): it impacts the climate 33 times more considering a period of 100 years, and up to 105 times when calculating the effects over a 20-year period.
But above all, there is the bulk seismic danger: hydraulic fracking can cause small earthquakes of magnitude 1-3 on the Richter scale.
In Europe, however, there is still an inexplicable legislative vacuum on this delicate issue. France, meanwhile, has taken a firm position: until new provisions, no shale gas.
