Or will it?
Estimates of the amount of shale gas in the UK vary widely. Cuadrilla puts the potential resources in Lancashire alone at a 200 trillion cubic feet – an amount that could supply the whole of the UK's gas needs for more than five decades.
Maybe:
But using more conservative methods, the British Geological Survey put the likely resources at 4.7 trillion cubic feet, one-40th of the company's figure.
Or maybe as little as 325 million cubic feet:
Even then, only about 5% to 10% of that figure is likely to be recoverable.
To get which:
...there will need to be six to eight wells per square mile around each of the tens of sites to be explored, including as many as 800 in Lancashire and more in areas such as Sussex.
