Do you believe fracking in the UK will bring lower consumer energy costs?

mickamike404

Im old enough to remember when North Sea Oil was discovered,
we were led to belive we could fill up our car tanks for 10 bob (50p)
not a penny of it filtered through to the pumps or the public,it was swallowed
up by the goverment on various developements to make them look good, and of course the shareholders,which was largely made up of rich people who just wanted more.

yangptangkipperbang

Cardew is correct in his statement, once the Yanks start exporting it will drag down world prices to some extent - BUT, perversely it will push UP gas prices in the USA. The reason that gas prices have fallen so dramatically in the States is that they have almost no infrastructure to export gas. As a result the producers can only sell it at home - over supply and prices plunge. Once they can export it at a higher price (to UK ??) the US users will have to pay more for it.

Andy_WSM

But the thing is, World gas AND electricity wholesale prices have already dropped compared to their artificially high levels of recent years and these savings haven't been passed to consumers?! I have no reason to believe they will in the future either. The Government are in on this too, they don't want to lose their tax revenues.

PollySouthend

The interesting thing is in my last poll most people supported fracking but here most people don't think it will lower consumer energy prices.

Why then support it unless you are the crown / church / big business and all them lot?

In the US people have mineral rights, here the people have no rights of extraction - we just own the very top soil.

Andy_WSM

PollySouthend wrote: »

Why then support it unless you are the crown / church / big business and all them lot?

Because we are all adult enough to know that if we want to keep the lights on and heat our houses the gas needs to come from somewhere. As supplies dwindle, prices will rise. Fracking gives a new source that will last for years longer. As Cardew said, it may stabilise prices, but it won't lower them and your Poll made no provision to answer in this way.

Cardew

I think we should bear in mind that the cost of the product - gas in this case - is only a small part of the overall cost to consumers.

Water as a 'product' for instance, doesn't cost us a lot of money; and 'stores' quite easily. However it ain't cheap for the consumer.

lstar337

Andy_WSM wrote: »

As Cardew said, it may stabilise prices, but it won't lower them and your Poll made no provision to answer in this way.

If you look at his poll history, you will find they mostly only provide for the answers he wants to hear. I have yet to see a fairly weighted poll.

System

hope so i couldnt afford to heat my home last year, it was either having a hot meal or the heating, dread this year

PollySouthend

Andy_WSM wrote: »

Because we are all adult enough to know that if we want to keep the lights on and heat our houses the gas needs to come from somewhere. As supplies dwindle, prices will rise. Fracking gives a new source that will last for years longer. As Cardew said, it may stabilise prices, but it won't lower them and your Poll made no provision to answer in this way.

About 6 years as a conservative estimate, glad my kids energy worries will be sorted and there will be no lasting damage from fracking and not using any other resources that are in short supply (h2o).

Southend1

PollySouthend wrote: »

About 6 years as a conservative estimate, glad my kids energy worries will be sorted and there will be no lasting damage from fracking and not using any other resources that are in short supply (h2o).

No shortage of h2o in Southend recently Polly! http://youtu.be/p5Qf6uA12I0 :rotfl: