Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas in the UK: Current Situation and Future Scenarios

This paper presents life cycle environmental impacts of UK shale gas used for electricity generation, in comparison with other fossil, nuclear and renewable options. Per kWh of electricity generated, shale gas has higher environmental impacts than the other options, except for coal. Thus, if it were to replace coal, most impacts would be reduced, including the global warming potential (GWP; by 2.3 times). However, if it were to compete with nuclear or some renewables most impacts would rise, with the GWP increasing by 5-123 times. Within a future UK electricity mix up to 2030, shale gas would make little difference to the environmental impacts of electricity generation, including the GWP, even for the most optimistic assumptions for its domestic production. This suggests that, in the medium term, shale gas cannot help towards meeting UK climate change targets and that certain renewables and nuclear power should be prioritized instead.