The Independent: Don't expect shale gas to cause economic explosions on this side of the Pond
Jim Armitage: Sorry to deflate your balloon, Mr Osborne, but I fear much of the excitement about UK shale gas will prove to be so much fracking hot air.
Sure, in the US, the discovery of the flammable stuff in vast swaths of empty mining and agricultural beltland has had a tremendous impact on the economy. Gas prices there have plummeted just as consumers and industry needed a financial shot in the arm. Experts reckon it will be self sufficient within a few years.
But this is one occasion where the UK will not be catching a cold when America sneezes. When it comes to activities involving digging up large tracts of land, Britain is a very different country.
For an obvious start, there are way more of us than them – acre for acre, I mean. Population density in the US is about 32 people per square kilometre compared with 250 in the UK.
As Cuadrilla has already found in Lancashire, if your fracking attempts trigger mini-earthquakes on the outskirts of Blackpool, residents tend to notice. Not so in many parts of the US. And I can't see the bribe of £100,000 to local communities being enough to convince many. MORE