The British establishment can change its mind amazingly rapidly. Before the last world war appeasement was the near universal creed. Yet, within months of the war breaking out it was almost impossible to find anyone who admitted ever supporting appeasement or disarmament.

Something similar may be happening over support for Net Zero. Before the Russians invaded Ukraine, no respectable person in Britain or Europe would cast doubt on any measures adopted to achieve that target. Then suddenly the EU’s Green Deal Chief Frans Timmerman said: “Things have changed. History took a very sharp turn a week ago, [now] countries can continue burning coal to avoid relying on Russian gas”. Now Boris is reviewing domestic oil and gas production. In a few months it may be hard to find anyone in the mainstream who admits ever supporting the old consensus for energy disarmament. 

People have already started distinguishing between measures which actually reduce carbon emissions and those which are mere virtue signalling. The ban on new oil and gas production is a case in point. It is sheer hypocrisy to curb domestic oil and gas production yet import fossil fuels instead. Worse than hypocritical, it is perverse – since importing LNG involves far higher emissions to liquefy, transport and regasify than using our own gas. So, it slows achieving Net Zero.

We will continue to need gas for decades. Nearly 40% of our primary energy (including for heating, transport and industry as well as electricity generation) comes from natural gas. Wind, sun and hydro account for less than 4%. Those figures are unfamiliar since attention has focussed on reducing fossil fuels in electricity generation, which is only a small part of total energy. Even if we succeed by 2050 in converting all our vehicles, heating and industry to electricity (requiring a massive expansion of our generating capacity) we will still need gas fired generators for when the wind doesn’t blow and sun doesn’t shine.

During the War we drilled some 400 onshore wells to minimise imports. There was another burst of drilling after the great energy crisis in 1973. That resulted in the discovery of the largest onshore oil field in Europe at Wytch Farm. It snuggles unnoticed in the beautiful Dorset countryside since oil and gas wells are far less conspicuous than wind farms. There are 250 wells onshore at 120 sites currently producing modest quantities of oil and gas with almost no opposition. Over the years over 200 UK wells have undergone hydraulic fracking to enhance recovery.

In this century drilling technology has developed making it possible to extract gas from shale deposits of which Britain is endowed with huge amounts. The Bowman shale in Lancashire is believed to have over twice as much gas per square mile as America’s most prolific shale basin. But our politicians appear to have succumbed to a campaign mounted by eco-extremists and imposed a series of moratoria on drilling for this potentially immensely valuable resource. 

It is not just war in Ukraine which has begun to change political attitudes. It is the post Covid cost of living crisis including a doubling of household energy bills. Voters won’t accept that this can be blamed on foreign shortages if we are doing nothing to alleviate it by exploiting our own reserves.

BEIS officials – who are devotees of the Net Zero religion – resist change on three grounds. First, that high and volatile gas prices make offshore wind even more competitive – so we should go for wind, not gas. But they are not alternatives. We need both. Indeed, existing plans for offshore wind assume a heroic pace of expansion which will be hard to increase. They involve eventually adding the equivalent of the world’s largest offshore wind farm every 10 weeks.   

Second, BEIS says shale gas cannot be developed in time to alleviate shortages. But wind farms and offshore fields take far longer to build than drilling onshore wells. US shale output grew tenfold over ten years.

Third, UK shale gas would not reduce prices since they are set across Europe. Yet shale gas halved US prices in less than a decade and kept them low while ours have risen six-fold. If UK output is insufficient to reduce European prices all that value will be reflected in British incomes and huge tax take for the Treasury instead of going to Qatar, America or financing Putin’s war.

In short, Britain can now longer allow its energy security to be compromised. To do so would be nothing less than appeasing the loudest voices who have held the megaphone, and our politician’s attention, for far too long.