½ of the uk suitable for fracking

More than half of the UK could be suitable for shale gas fracking, according to the government-commissioned report.
Under the maximum scenario, up to 2,880 wells could be drilled for oil or gas in a new licensing round, the report says, generating around 16,000 to 32,000 jobs.

Fracking – a process that involves splitting shale rocks deep underground - uses huge amounts of water, and in some places this would need to be shipped in by tanker. This means fracking will squeeze water supplies for local communities around the shale gas site.

Around ¾ of water will used for fracking flows back with the addition of extra water to be used again for fracking.

Greenhouse gases during the exploration phase could be up to 0.96 million tonnes of CO2 – totalling just over 15% of the UK’s emissions from all oil and gas production.