Britain banned fracking — then started importing it
Notes on what I learned making a film about UK energy imports, the day before Earth Day
I spent two days this week making a short film I thought would take me an afternoon.
It started as a simple Earth Day post. Something about fossil fuel subsidies. I ended up reading a national security assessment, a parliamentary evidence session, the Digest of UK Energy Statistics, and a pile of articles about LNG terminals. The more I read, the more I realised I didn’t understand my own country’s energy system — and the bits I didn’t understand were the bits most worth explaining.
So here’s what I learned.
Britain now imports 43% of its energy. The highest on record. North Sea oil and gas production peaked in 1999 and today we produce about a quarter of what we did then. The gap has to come from somewhere. It’s coming from somewhere I didn’t expect.
The United States is now Britain’s biggest oil supplier. 37% of UK crude oil in 2024 came from America. 16 million tonnes of it. Plus 6.6 million tonnes of American gas shipped as LNG into British ports. Almost every drop of it fracked — in Texas, in Pennsylvania, in New Mexico.
Now here’s the bit that made me stop.
Britain banned fracking at home. We decided it was too dangerous. Too disruptive. Not compatible with our climate commitments. The ban is still in place.
And then we quietly started buying fracked gas and oil from someone else. Shipped across the Atlantic and then regassed at a terminal in Kent that’s now half-owned by British Gas. Sold back to you through your meter.
It’s not just that we’ve outsourced the environmental damage. We’ve outsourced the moral position. Not in my backyard became in someone else’s, and we’ll pay the premium to keep it that way.
Dale Vince — who I spoke to about this — has a line that got into the film. “Fossil fuels are a single-use form of energy. We spend £50 billion a year bringing them into our country to burn them.”
Fifty billion pounds. Leaving the UK economy. Every year. Burned once. Gone.
If we spent that money for ten years building the domestic renewable system instead, the £50 billion a year stays in the economy. The bills come down. The imports stop. The power stations get built on British streets.
It’s not a climate argument. It’s an economic argument. It’s a sovereignty argument. It’s a what is our own country doing with our own money argument.
The bit the film ends on — the bit that matters more than the numbers — is what’s already happening.
Less than a week ago I was in a room with my local MP and 120 residents from Walthamstow, where I live and work. Every one of them representing a street that wants to retrofit, install solar, rip out their gas boilers, and start generating their own power. The government has earmarked a billion pounds for exactly this. The challenge now is getting the money into the hands of the streets that are ready.
I don’t know how this bit ends. I know that when we made Bank Job we printed and destroyed £1.2 million of predatory debt on a street in Walthamstow. I know that when we made Power Station we turned our own road into a crowdfunded solar installation. I know that the next film we’re making is about what comes next for streets like ours — and that it only happens if people keep supporting the work.
So if you’ve got five minutes today, watch the film. If it resonates, share it with someone who’d care.
And if you want the step-by-step guide to how we turned our London street into a power station — comment POWER on any of my recent posts, or reply to this email, and I’ll send it to you.
🎬 Watch the short (3 mins):
Support the work:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/themillion