The stupidity of the ruling class in France

Vladimir Putin and Russia´s Gazprom are smiling: France has decided to stop the exploration of shale gas:

France's National Assembly voted Wednesday to rescind licenses granted for unconventional gas exploration in a move that is likely to put smiles on faces in Gazprom headquarters.
The vote was a culmination of months of Gallic protests over the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing — or "fracking" — dramatically highlighted by the Academy Award-nominated documentary "Gasland" that examined the United States' shale gas industry.
French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said Tuesday that fracking involved "risks we don't want to take," Bloomberg reported.
The French developments are unlikely to alter increasing European preoccupation with the potential of unconventional gas, however.
According to a study released in April by the European Center for Energy and Resource Security, or EUCERS, the continent's unconventional gas reserves are between 33 trillion and 38 trillion cubic meters. Total conventional reserves are a mere 2.42 tcm.
Comparisons are often drawn with the United States, where sharp growth has meant unconventional gas makes up 50 percent of total production. The United States overtook Russia as the planet's biggest gas producer in 2009.
Some would like to think Europe is on the cusp of a similar revolution, which would stem falling internal production and have significant consequences for Russia, which supplies 40 percent of Europe's gas imports.
"Even if only a fraction of the potential unconventional gas resources becomes available," the EUCERS report said, it would undercut the high price of Russian gas fields, put into doubt the development of Arctic reserves — like the enormous Shtokman gas field — and improve the European Union's energy security situation.

Read the entire article here

PS
Yet another sign of the utter stupidity of the degenerated French ruling class. The fact that these are also the people who have a strong say in the policies of the European Union is another good reason to oppose the EU in its present form.
No wonder, that an executive of Polish state-controlled natural gas firm PGNiG SA had this to say about the French decision:

“We believe countries who have had experience with fracking should share their experiences, but we don’t understand why countries who haven’t had fracking [on their territories] are banning it,” Mr. Karabula said. “Ecological concerns aren’t always the real driver.”

PS
This post was published already some time ago, but due to a technical error in the system, it was republished today. I apologize for the mistake. However, the message is still the same!