Schaliegas verscheurt Frankrijk
Spandoeken worden weer van zolder gehaald.
Eerder schreef ik over de schaliegasdiscussie in Groot Brittannië. In Frankrijk gaat het ook hard tegen hard.
De laatste groeicijfers laten een krimp van de economie zien met 0,2% - hoger dan verwacht. De werkloosheid staat op recordhoogte: boven de 10%. De staatsschuld bedraagt bijna 90% van het BBP vèr boven de Europese norm en stijgt nog steeds. De Franse economie zou dus natuurlijk best een opkikker kunnen gebruiken. Maar de regering Hollande heeft kennelijk geen flauw idee wat zij zou moeten doen op de Franse economie weer op de rails te zetten.
De exploitatie van schaliegas zou meer lucht kunnen geven, maar stuit op hardnekkig verzet, zowel buiten als binnen de regering. Onder de titel, 'France engulfed in new row over shale gas', rapporteerde Ben McPartland in 'The Local, France's News in English:
An outspoken French minister sparked a fierce row within his own fractured government this week by suggesting France should exploit the countrys immense shale gas resources in an environmentally friendly way. Old wounds have been reopened. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault moved to defuse a row over whether France should exploit the country's shale gas reserves on Thursday after one of his ministers had reignited the divisive debate.
Ayrault was forced to step in after an old row over whether to tap Frances wealthy reserves of shale gas was reignited this week and once again revealed the French government to be more fractured than ever. The PM insisted however "there was only one government policy" and that a 2011 ban on the drilling for shale gas would remain in place.
His statement came after a claim by the outspoken industry minister Arnaud Montebourg that France should exploit its resources of shale gas in an environmentally friendly way. Montebourg, well known for causing angst among members of his own party and others, said a public company should be set up and that we could come up with the technology in a very short time to be able to exploit the gas ecologically.
The subject of shale gas drilling has been a divisive one in recent years due to the fears over the harm done to the environment by the process of extracting the gas, known as fracturing, or "fracking."
On the face of it, however, Montebourg's statement does not appear ridiculous, especially from an economic point of view. According to the Shale Gas Europe organization, a study by the United States Energy Information Administration, carried out without exploratory drilling, revealed that France has technically recoverable reserves of 3.8 trillion cubic metres (137 trillion cubic feet). And in the US governments Energy Information Administration survey of 14 European countries, France was second only to Poland in its level of shale gas deposits.
And at time when French industry is in decline, recent estimates that 62,000 new jobs could be created by exploiting shale gas have added weight to the arguments of those in favour. For the moment, however, the gas looks set to remain exactly where it is, because of the environmental fears. In 2011, France imposed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing and subsequently revoked several exploration licenses. In September 2012, President François Hollande reaffirmed the ban on hydraulic fracturing in France for the remainder of his time in office. ...
A recent report from Frances Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices (OPECST) gave support to those who share Montebourgs view by endorsing shale gas exploration, highlighting that the technique has already been used in France at least 45 times without any harmful consequences to the environment.
Lees verder hier.
Een beetje minder 'Hollande' zou de Franse economie geen kwaad doen, dunkt mij. Als het zo doorgaat als nu, moeten de relatief sterkere Europese landen straks misschien nog Frankrijk te hulp schieten. Ik moet er niet aan denken!
Voor mijn eerdere DDSbijdragen, zie hier.
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