Media coverage of shale gas seems to be moving on. Suddenly, Britain’s shale gas naysayers aren’t just ” Swampy-style eco-warriors” or ” green zealots” denying the UK a shale gas ” bonanza“ promised in some sections of the media. East Sussex’s anti-fracking protesters are just as likely to be the local vicar as they are to be from Greenpeace, and MPs are issuing  ” doomsday alerts“ about fracking, warning that the technology poses a threat to the countryside.

A few weeks ago shale gas was an active, but fairly niche part of the energy wonk debate – revolving mainly around how much shale gas the UK has got, and what a new supply of how-grown energy would mean for energy bills. 

Large parts of the media appeared overwhelmingly in favour of the new industry – building on two years of optimism about shale gas might mean for the UK. But as test drilling moves into a village in leafy East Sussex, shale gas isn’t an exciting possibility any longer – it’s an altogether more divisive reality.

So how did the media story get here – and what’s going to happen as the industry develops on the ground? We chart the course of the shale gas debate over the past two years – and where it might be going next.

2011: what does America mean for us? 

Well before the UK was talking about shale gas, it was big news in the US. Shale gas production was booming, growing from less than one per cent of domestic production in 2000 to 23 per cent in 2010.

But the new fuel didn’t attract much attention in the UK media until about 2011, as the graph below illustrates:

Number of newspaper articles in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail mentioning the word ‘shale gas’. 2013 covers seven months of coverage while the rest of the years refer to 12 months of coverage. Source: Factiva search.  

That year, climate skeptic Matt Ridley published a report for Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation heralding shale gas’s potential for this country. Ridley wrote in the Times that “the environmental and economic benefits of shale gas could be vast.” 

Then in June 2011, the International Energy Agency’s ‘Golden Age of Gas‘ report highlighted the consequences of the US boom: low gas prices and falling emissions.

Claims that the UK could mimic the bonanza on the other side of the Atlantic started to appear. Skeptic journalist, David Rose, wrote:

“Shale gas production could create thousands of jobs directly, and provide many billions in tax revenue – as it is already doing in Texas, Pennsylvania and several other states in America.”

Climate skeptic commentators opposed to expansion of renewable energy also argued that investing in shale gas would be cheaper than the government’s attempts to shift to greener energy. As James Delingpole wrote in the Telegraph:

“Against all the odds, that magic bullet  [for the economy] has just been handed to [the Chancellor] on a plate. All he has to do is call a halt to Britain’s economically suicidal drive for ‘renewable energy’, cancel immediately Britain’s disastrous wind farm building programme, and give the green light to shale gas drilling.”

The response: but what about the impacts? 

Environmental groups were less impressed by the prospect of a new fossil fuel resource in the UK. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and WWF started to gear up opposition to the fuel. The green groups highlighted the local environmental impacts of shale gas extraction – including earthquakes, pollution of drinking water, overuse of water and noise disruption.

New grassroots anti-shale gas group, Frack Off, launched in August 2011.  Meanwhile, the film ‘Gasland‘, which documents environmental problems with the US fracking industry, mobilised opposition across US and started to attract attention over here – even though the veracity of some of its claims has been challenged.

2011 and 2012: Lots and lots and lots of shale gas 

In November 2011, oil and gas company Cuadrilla announced it had discovered 200 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of shale gas in deposits in East Lancashire – equivalent to more than sixty years of the country’s gas consumption.

Cuadrilla didn’t say how much gas it might be able to get out. In fact, it may only be possible to extract a tenth of the total gas resource, or even less. But that didn’t bother sections of the media, which started to print a variety of optimistic predictions of how much shale gas the UK might be able to access. The most interesting of these was the Times’s claim that Britain has enough shale gas for ” 1,500 years“.

But while the newspaper estimates were high-end, and often unreliable, there was real excitement about the UK’s shale gas potential. At a conference Carbon Brief attended in 2012, for example, rumours were circulating that a new estimate by the British Geological Survey (BGS) would find much more of the fuel under the UK than previously thought.

Elsewhere, numerous commentators supported the idea that shale gas would bring benefits to the UK – lowering gas prices and bringing jobs to the country. A report by the Institute of Directors said shale gas would bring 35,000 jobs to the UK.

Some commentators accused the government of being too cautious on shale gas. London Mayor Boris Johnson wrote:

“Ignore the doom merchants, Britain should get fracking. It’s green, it’s cheap and it’s plentiful! So why are opponents of shale gas making such a fuss??”

Energy and climate change secretary, Ed Davey, admonished the agitators, accusing the right of the Tory party of trying in undermine investment in renewables by “making out that the UK could rely on shale gas instead”.

But In 2012, the political winds started to move in favour of shale gas – and the government started plans to exploit the resource. A government-sponsored report concluded that the risks of the industry are manageable, if effectively regulated. And at the end of 2012, chancellor George Osborne announced the creation of the Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil as well as significant tax breaks, all intended to facilitate the development of the new industry.

2013: Here we go: reality hits the ground

By the time BGS announced in June 2013 that it had discovered approximately 1,300 tcf of shale gas in the North of England, few commentators were surprised.

Even parts of the media that had been largely opposed to shale gas extraction accepted that this could potentially provide forty years of the country’s gas supply. Not as much as some media outlets had claimed, but still quite a lot.

The high estimate – combined with warnings from energy regulator Ofgem of a looming capacity crunch – prompted newspapers to express support for fracking. The Telegraph wrote:

“By any measure, shale gas represents an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss out on, just like North Sea oil half a century ago. We need to get on with it.”

The Times said:

“[L]ocal gas is greener by far than imported gas, or coal. It is time to drill.”

The claims and counter-claims about shale gas remain contested in 2013. Despite the rhetoric, the evidence that UK shale gas could bring down gas prices is weak. Even Cuadrilla’s public relations company doesn’t seem that convinced of shale gas’s downward effect on prices – although some recent research supports the idea.

On the environmental side, evidence shows that shale gas could increase countries’ greenhouse gas emissions, rather than drive them down. On the other side of the coin, studies do not appear to support some environmentalists’ claims about the effect of fracking on landscapes. Properly-drilled wells, for example, should not pollute drinking water.

Despite these complicating factors, what Tory Conservativehome describes as the ” rightwing consensus” in favour of shale gas seemed pretty solid last week. The Sun even placed shale gas in a “vision” for Britain – covering everything from energy to immigration – arguing that “it could create huge numbers of jobs and power Britain cheaply for generations”.

But as Cuadrilla attempted to start drilling in Balcombe, East Sussex a few days ago, the reality of shale gas extraction seemed to come into focus. In fact, Cuadrilla are not drilling for shale gas – they are exploring for shale oil, which if found may be extracted using the fracking process. But that doesn’t seem to be the point.

Many of the licences handed out for shale gas drilling are in the constituencies of Tory MPs – and as Michael Fallon pointed out, some shale gas extraction is likely to take place in the rural home counties.

Whether or not a shale gas well is the size of a cricket pitch or can be hidden in a hollow behind a hedge, the prospect of revolt in the shires doesn’t seem that enticing for the government – or the pro-shale press. Suddenly, a debate focused on numbers has moved to the effects local people may endure – and not everyone is being that positive.

As UK extraction of shale gas moves from theory to reality, the media story has only just got started.