Brussels, 19/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - José Bové, the deputy chairman of the European Parliament (EP) agriculture committee, will use the informal Energy Council to inform the media of his campaign against the extraction of schist gas in Poland. The country's deposits of schist gas, estimated at 5,300 billion m³, are being presented by the Tusk government as a guarantee of independence from Russian gas.
Bové held a conference on Monday 19 September, bringing together Polish scientists and environmentalists. A demonstration by Polish associations is scheduled to take place on Monday 20 September outside the building where energy ministers are meeting in Wroc³aw. The anti-schist gas militants plan to travel to the site in the region of Silesia where a company has already begun exploration by hydraulic fracturing. “We really have to present another view of schist gas exploration here. It would seem that, in Poland, there is only one tune playing on this issue”, the Bové camp says. New reports claiming that extraction of the gas will be harmful to the environment have been published. “Extraction of schist gas carries serious risks”¸ Bové says. The Polish Economy Ministry says there is “no hydraulic risk in this conventional gas extraction process. Extraction is carried out at such a depth that there cannot be any pressure in the water”. (VW/transl.rt)