The pros and cons of shale fracking cut on several levels. Fracking has met strong local opposition due to environmental and health concerns, highlighted by Greenpeace amongst others, which has listed a series of downsides to fracking operations including the claim that the chemicals used to extract shale gas could pollute water resources, harming farming activities.

Economic costs have been examined too. While in America most of the lands are privately owned, in Britain they are not. Financial commissions, used in the US to convince the locals to consent to fracking, are unlikely to work in the UK. But the government has tried to promote shale by offering a 1% revenue to landowners, considered a viable compromise despite the fierce opposition of green groups.

However, despite such divergences, it is important that fracking supporters and opponents meet halfway.

Environmental concerns are legitimate, but so is the attempt to reach energy independence. After all, the fields in Northern England alone have sufficient resources to satisfy the UK’s energy demand for fifty years. It is still worth proceeding with fracking despite the financial and environmental costs, yet perhaps with a cleaner version of it.

One sustainable variant would be the water-free fracking which uses a gel containing propane that doesn’t damage the soil and avoids long-term contamination. In addition, instead of freshwater, companies might use recycled hydraulic resources as well as the products that happen to be extracted in the fracking process. Diesel fumes could be substantially reduced by replacing carbon-based technologies with eco-friendly ones, as done in the United States by Apache and Halliburton, who are now using natural gas and solar panels as alternatives.

At the national level, the controversy has been at the centre of harsh debates in Parliament. In January, a moratorium to ban fracking was voted down in Westminster. While this seemed good news for shale gas advocates, it actually was not. Although fracking was left on the discussion table, the feeling was that it would “live to fight another day” and the hindrances it met in Parliament reinforce this idea.

For instance, Scotland decided to halt drilling until further investigations had been carried out. Similarly, in January MPs voted in favour of enforcing tighter environmental regulations, preventing companies from drilling in areas of natural beauty and drinking water collection. Such measures were taken to counter the Government’s Infrastructure Bill, whose purpose was to boost fracking.  

The fall in oil prices to less than $50 per barrel might have unexpectedly reinforced the case for shale gas. Paradoxically enough, a price decrease was probably meant to put the American shale industry under pressure. It is believed that Saudi Arabia might have persuaded OPEC to do so in order to drive prices down and make fracking companies eat into their own profits.

While this strategy is probably causing some concerns in the United States, it has revealed a potential opportunity in Europe. Francis Egan, chief executive of Cuadrilla, has said that the current oil crisis has made equipment cheaper, in some cases halving the cost of the material needed to drill. This is more likely to be a temporary rather than long-term decline in the price of oil, as oil prices will eventually rise up again without structural adjustments. For the time being, cheap oil might still out-compete shale resources.

In the longer term, shale resources could bring energy independence, making the UK less vulnerable to the sort of oil price volatility demonstrated today. This would be a good time to give fracking a chance, as operational costs might be cheaper.

The extraction of shale gas must be viewed internationally as well as domestically, and particularly in relation to Russia’s geopolitical role in Europe.

Moscow does not want fracking to be adopted by EU countries as it would create competition and threaten its national extractive industries, thereby cutting Russia’s share of oil and gas revenues. Vladimir Putin is suspected of funding environmental groups in order to discredit shale technologies. Whether these allegations can be confirmed or not, the Kremlin’s intentions over its economic relations with Europe are clear.

Especially in the light of the current fall in oil prices, Mr Putin’s hold on the hydrocarbons market is not likely to loosen. By extracting its own gas, European countries would gain increased sovereignty and the freedom to act.

Some countries are still reluctant to support sanctions on Russia despite strongly condemning its actions in Ukraine; their reluctance is simply because they depend on Moscow for energy and financial support. As the Crimean crisis shows, there is a very complex interdependence among Eastern European states. But dealing with energy policy and security issues against the context of a serious military crisis like the one in Ukraine should be strongly avoided, and shale gas could be key to achieving cutting the linkage between different these knotty problems.