评论
打印
Shale gas
页岩气
Raise the pressure
增加了开采压力
Government dithering keeps frackers above ground
政府仍就是否批准开采页岩气犹豫不决
Inflated concerns
担心通胀
FOR all the debate about it, Britain's shale-gas industry is minuscule. Whereas roughnecks in America have sunk many thousands of wells since a boom began more than a decade ago, Britain has fracked at only one test site, in Lancashire, and not since 2011. In a report published on May 8th, an all-party group from the House of Lords said that speeding shale-gas exploration should be an “urgent national priority”. So far, so familiar—and entirely in tune with the position of the coalition government. But the authors go on to blame the government, not green campaigners, for holding the frackers up.
在所有对于页岩气的争议中，英国的页岩气企业发展最为迟缓。一百年前天然气开始发展时，美国的油井工人已经下探了数千油井了，而直到2011年，英国才在兰开夏郡一处试点进行油井开采。在一份发表于3月8日的报告中，上议院的一个全党组织称，加快页岩气勘探应成为“国家的紧急首要任务”。至今，这句话非常熟悉-与联合政府的处境非常一致。但是报告的撰写者旨在批评政府暂停油井开采，并非环保主义者。
The Lords' economic-affairs committee argues that shale gas could boost Britain's economy while reducing its dependence on imports. It says that proper oversight can limit the environmental and health risks associated with fracking. And it recognises that burning more gas instead of coal—which is still used to generate more than one-third of Britain's electricity—could be a cheap and sustainable way to lower the country's carbon emissions while waiting for pricey renewable technologies to mature.
上议院经济事务委员会称，页岩气会促进英国的经济发展，减少国家对进口天然气的依赖。委员会还称，适当的监管会控制油井开采对环境和健康方面的危害。该委员会还认为，燃烧更多的天然气以取代煤-目前仍为英国提供超过三分之一的电力-价格低廉，而且是降低整个国家碳排放更加可持续的方法，同时还可以等待造价高昂的可再生能源技术成熟。
But a thicket of regulation has slowed progress to a crawl. Although dozens of test wells are needed even to calculate the extent of Britain's shale-gas reserves, Cuadrilla, an oil and gas firm, reckons it could take more than a year to get clearance for each site. Part of the problem is that several government agencies share responsibility for approving fracking applications. The Lords worry that unwieldy rules will not make the business much safer but could prod shale-gas firms into seeking far richer pickings abroad.
但繁琐复杂的管制拖累了进程以致发展缓慢。虽然仍需要数十个试验井以计算英国页岩气的储量的范围，据石油天然气公司Cuadrilla推测，要想开采每个试验井需要超过一年的时间。之所以出现这个问题，有部分原因是因为有几个政府部门同时监管批准油井的开采。上议院担心，庞杂的条条框框并不能使企业更加的安全，反而会刺激页岩气企业寻找国外富产油气田投资。
Complaints about bureaucracy are embarrassing to a government that has promised to go “all out for shale”, and which is busily finding ways to stop critics beyond Westminster from holding up the industry. It has persuaded shale-gas firms to put ￡100,000 ($170,000) into a fund for local causes each time they drill a test site. In January it promised to let local councils keep all the money frackers pay in business rates, up from half at present. Next month it will probably announce plans to make it easier for fracking firms to drill tunnels deep beneath people's homes.
关于官僚主义的抱怨使得政府颜面尽失，政府之前承诺“全力以赴页岩气”，而现在却忙于想方设法要平息议会关于阻碍产业发展的批评。政府曾建议页岩企业为每次钻探试验井投入10万英镑（约合17万美元）用以地方政府的补贴。今年一月，以市场价支付补偿，目前只有市场价的一半。下个月，政府很可能宣布新计划，使钻探公司从居民屋子下钻隧道更为简单。
Pushing through that proposal will mean fending off noisy opposition from environmental lobbies such as Greenpeace, which had hoped its supporters could use Britain's aged trespass laws to make life difficult for shale-gas boosters. Such campaigns carry weight while most Britons are still making up their minds about the industry. The proportion in favour of fracking has shrunk since lively protests erupted at a drill site near Balcombe in Sussex last summer; it may keep sliding until a few pioneers prove it can be safe and unobtrusive. All the more reason to get cracking.
推行这样的提案，意味着要抵挡来自环境保护游说团体，如绿色环保组织嘈杂的反对意见，这类团体希望，其支持者能够利用英国行之有年的入侵法，使得那些支持开采页岩气的人举步维艰。在大多数英国人构思自己对于工业看法的时候，这样的活动有举足轻重的作用。支持开采的比例在去年一次发生在靠近苏塞克斯郡Balcombe市爆发的激烈抗议后有所缩小；而且还有可能继续下滑，直到有先驱者能够证明，开采可以安全无害、不事张扬。所有的理由都是为了能够开采。翻译 周雨晴 校对 王化起
译文属译生译世
