Environmental implications for extracting oil from Gatwick Airport

In a recent exploration of the Horse Hillfield just off of Gatwick Airport, UK Oil and Gas Investments found one billion barrels of oil that could make a positive impact on the nation, and possibly in the world. Considering how badly the oil price drop has affected the globe, the energy industry could use some good news.

The sharp fall in oil price has a put a halt on oil production for most companies, despite some firms still expanding operations in Iraq’s oil rich fields, including energy service company UnaOil that opened a strategic base in North Rumaila last year. However, the recent discovery of oil beneath the field north of Gatwick could significantly contribute to Britain’s energy sector. A report on CNN Money reveals that the potential amount that can be drilled from the area is more than twice the amount produced offshore the North Sea fields in the last 40 years.

But the question that remains is whether any oil drilling will occur or not.

Although there is a growth in extracting oil and gas from unconventional sources like shale rock, hydraulic fracturing is a highly controversial process for its potential in endangering the environment, as outlined by BBC. The process is more commonly known as fracking, and involves injecting a high pressure water mixture with sand and chemicals to release the oil and gas inside.

There are four issues with fracking:

• It uses a lot of water.
• The chemicals in the mixture could contaminate the groundwater the site if not handled properly.
• Fracking can possibly lead to small earth tremors.
• The process is a distraction from efforts in renewable energy.

Fracking has been eliminated as an extraction method, but environmentalists still express their uncertainty towards proceeding with the area’s oil production. The oil crisis is meant to manifest as a wake up call to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, and focus on “clean technologies that can provide safe and cheap energy for decades to come,” explained Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace.

With all that said, is extraction in this field absolutely necessary when the world seems to have more than enough oil to go around?