The Ince plant is one of only two fertiliser factories in Britain and is a key supplier of carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fertiliser production, to industry. CO2 is used in everything from surgical operations and meat processing.
CF Industries last month announced plans to shut the Ince plant in August, leaving the consortium, called UK Nitrogen, just weeks to secure a deal. The group plans to approach the Prime Minister through an intermediary this week to directly lobby for support.
Given the size of the varied pipelines and interconnects then UK fracking would lower the domestic price of gas. We know this because the floods of LNG coming in have lowered the UK price of gas relative to the European – it’s not physically possible to export enough to equalise prices.
Natural gas is the major cost input into a Haber Process plant, therefore the fertiliser plant will be more profitable if we go fracking. QED.
Direct quote to me from my MP after I enquired on his stance regarding fracking prior to the vote in March: ” I would only be open to shale gas exploration if it can be done in a safe and sustainable way”.
I await, with relish, the volte-face when politics gets in the way of principles.
It can be done in a safe way. The word sustainable is meaningless. It is obviously sustainable until the gas runs out and then it isn’t sustainable after that. It not being sustainable for eternity is no reason not to do it until it runs out is it?
I find it a little surprising how long it has taken for the chickens of green lunacy to come home to roost. Presumably we have survived up until now by outsourcing our polluting to countries that don’t worship the green gods. Cloaking ourselves in righteousness while, in reality, doing sod all to save the world from CO2 driven thermaggeddon.
Stonyground
The effects tend to be gradual. Every day everything gets a bit crappier, but by the time things have really gone to pot we don’t really notice.
So what it takes is a “crisis” to makesus realise and lo! Uncle Vlad has provided
Don’t worry we can just import everything and it’s all good! I know this because our host keeps telling us that we don’t need domestic production of anything and can live by selling our assets to foreigners in return for their goods. So fuck you fertiliser maker! You’re not needed. We can buy it from the Ukraine, er, Russia, er, someone anyway!
“we can just import everything and it’s all good”
Only when imports are cheaper than domestic production. Or, more generally, buy it from where it’s cheapest and don’t get in the way of people doing things that might make it cheaper.
As a Conservative, I can authoritatively say that fracking won’t lower prices because supply and demand curves aren’t real.
Furthermore it’ll take years to build up production capacity, so we should stick with the tried and tested green policies we already know don’t work.