Status: 06/19/2022 09:40 a.m
Energy prices are rising – and the FDP wants to put the fracking ban in Germany to the test. The method is not that harmful under modern standards. And fracking gas is also imported from the USA.
In view of the energy crisis, the FDP wants to put the ban on natural gas production in Germany through fracking to the test. Scientific studies have shown that under modern safety standards, fracking does not cause any relevant environmental damage, Torsten Herbst, Parliamentary Secretary of the Liberals, told Welt am Sonntag.
Anyone who imports fracking gas from the USA cannot be against safe fracking production in Germany. It should therefore be seriously examined whether larger shale gas production is feasible in Germany from an economic and technical point of view, said Herbst.
The energy policy spokesman for the FDP in the Bundestag, Michael Kruse, told “Welt am Sonntag” that his party supported “the significant expansion of domestic natural gas production”. All options would have to be examined.
Most recently, CSU boss Markus Söder and NRW Economics Minister Andreas Pinkwart (FDP) and the head of the German Economic Institute, Michael Hüther, called for an open-ended examination of fracking. According to “Welt am Sonntag”, the Professional Association of German Geoscientists (BDG) is in favor of considering fracking in view of the energy crisis.
Habeck rejects fracking
Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) rejects fracking in Germany. He refers to possible negative consequences for the environment and legal hurdles.
Fracking uses pressure and chemicals to extract gas or oil from rock layers, which poses environmental hazards. Criticism is also leveled at the liquefaction through strong cooling because, according to environmentalists, this costs up to 25 percent of the energy content of the gas. In Germany, the exploitation of gas deposits in shale and coal seam layers has been banned since 2017 because this is considered a threat to the groundwater, among other things. There are also repeated warnings about earthquakes caused by fracking.
In the USA in particular, however, the method has been used intensively for several years, which has led to a massive increase in gas production there. Especially in the wake of the Ukraine war, many European countries now want to import gas from the US in the form of shipped LPG instead of Russian gas from the pipeline. However, fracking is also the subject of increasing controversy in the USA due to the environmental risks.