Just to clarify, I'm meaning more about the security of supply than just the gesture.

I saw some official on the TV last night who was offering the simplistic opinion that fracked gas would be cheaper, so prices would go down.
That would only occur if UK fracked gas was produced fast enough and in large enough quantities to affect the world price .... bearing in mind he didn't mention banning exports of it, which would be the only way of insulating it from world prices.

Yeah, I got that. I was meaning that the security of supply would be a hollow victory if it destroyed huge swathes of the countryside, polluted the water supply, continued to contribute to climate change, and would still run out eventually anyway.

Depends what you see as preferable - sitting in the dark, or some environmental disruption.

The Government certainly seems to be taking the view that security of supply is the most important factor, over and above affordability and sustainability - which given the current reliance on supplies from the Middle East and Russia is probably the sensible course of action.

... and that, in turn, depends on "how much" environmental disruption.
We can learn by experience.
Huge swathes of Northern England have been amazingly re-greened in my lifetime, taking-down slagheaps and landscaping etc, often at local public expense.
Whilst I don't imagine we'll see the wanton dumping of slag that coal mining produced, we may well have serious water table pollution problems and I would want to see remediation properly costed-in and limited to its extent because, as I understand it, the process produces vast amounts of polluted water that has to be disposed of somehow.
Putting it over-simplistically to make the point, I do not want to see the North despoiled once again to keep Piccadilly Circus all lit up.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/uk-shale-gas-could-last-as-long-as-a-spaniel-2013061171583

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/uk-shale-gas-could-last-as-long-as-a-spaniel-2013061171583

Presumably because it fits in with your way of thinking on the issue? Whereas some of my most sensible posts do not seem to.

If you get the chance, have a read of this book: http://www.allisonandbusby.com/book/bushwhacked and in particular the chapter that deals with methane gas extraction in Minnesota and the damage that has been done to the area's farming and countryside by it. If you start polluting the UK water table (an inevitability - no method of gas extraction is ever going to be 100% "safe") then it's bye-bye to large swathes of farmland around fracking sites. By the time you realise that the benefit in terms of energy generated is outweighed by the long term damage, it's going to be too late. That's before we get started on the widespread corruption and mutual back scratching that will be involved in the contracting process.

If you get the chance, have a read of this book: http://www.allisonandbusby.com/book/bushwhacked and in particular the chapter that deals with methane gas extraction in Minnesota and the damage that has been done to the area's farming and countryside by it. If you start polluting the UK water table (an inevitability - no method of gas extraction is ever going to be 100% "safe") then it's bye-bye to large swathes of farmland around fracking sites. By the time you realise that the benefit in terms of energy generated is outweighed by the long term damage, it's going to be too late. That's before we get started on the widespread corruption and mutual back scratching that will be involved in the contracting process.

Contamination of the water table must be a major concern but how many large urban populations in the North depend on underground aquifers for their water?
I don't actually know but my guess would be that most get their water from reservoirs on higher ground e.g. Thirlmere in Cumbria supplies a lot to Manchester, Kielder to the NorthWest etc etc.
Happy to be corrected if someone here can tell us.

[EDIT] I'm wrong, a quick google tells me that e.g. in Yorkshire, the flatter areas in the East Riding Riding do use an awful lot of groundwater ... plus there is the effect of the grid which moves water around the region.[/EDIT]

As I see it at the moment, the greatest water pollution threat is a) To natural water courses such as rivers and springs etc and everything that lives in them ... and b) To farms etc that use water from below ground to irrigate crops or provide drinking water for herds and flocks.
That's in addition to the problems caused by taking water from whatever source to facilitate the fracking.
Considering the erratic droughting and flooding we see nowadays, it would seem that we need the water we have, do we really have that much to spare?
Again, happy to be corrected.

No biggy. We can import all the food we need. That's what 'food security' means.

Isn't it?