One thing that many of us complain about with regards to Prince William is that he lacks passion for almost everything. He doesn’t have the drive of a public servant, he shows little interest in most of his charitable work (there are some exceptions) and even his big rollout this year for his new centerpiece issue, conservation and anti-poaching, was marred by disinterest and bad timing (he was boar hunting with Jecca Craig just weeks before a major rollout). I’ve always thought that William veers towards environmental, conservation and animal-friendly work because his father has already spent decades working on those issues. The Prince of Wales has already done the heavy lifting on all of those issues and William is just following in his father’s footsteps. Or maybe we’re wrong and William has actually thought about these issues in depth, and he’s just not very good and expressing his passion? The Daily Mail spoke to a fracking expert who recently met William, and this guy says William shut down when he mentioned fracking.

Prince Charles’s controversial environmental views included a dramatic warning in 2009 that there were ‘less than 100 months to act’ to save the planet from irreversible damage due to climate change. Is his son a chip off the old block? The Duke of Cambridge is understood to be worried about fracking – the contentious drilling technique in which billions of pounds worth of shale gas might be recoverable from beneath large parts of rural England.

Now a leading fracking expert, Simon Toole, has disclosed details of an awkward exchange he had with William when he went to Buckingham Palace to collect his CBE from the Prince. Toole is a key figure at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which released a report last year showing that a large swathe of north Norfolk was under consideration for fracking. William and the Duchess of Cambridge moved into their country retreat, Anmer Hall, in north Norfolk just before Christmas.

Toole is understood to have been apprehensive about meeting William because he’d heard suggestions the future king is concerned about fracking.

‘I went up [to receive his gong] and the Prince asked me what I did,’ says Toole, who was awarded the CBE for his services to oil, gas and energy infrastructure development. ‘I explained and said it involved fracking and then waited . . .’

The ominous silence that followed confirmed his suspicions that William had reservations about the technique. ‘I did expect he had views on that and I thought: “This could be awkward,” ’ says Toole. ‘Then he said “Yes, this will be difficult” and quickly changed the subject.’ I don’t think he is a big fan.’

It is not known if fracking is one of the subjects on which the Prince of Wales has written a private ‘black spider memo’ to ministers. Opponents of the fracking process, which revolutionised the energy industry in America, worry that potentially carcinogenic chemicals used in the drilling process may escape and contaminate groundwater around the fracking site. There are also worries that the process can cause small earth tremors.

A Kensington Palace spokesman declined to comment, but William has already proved outspoken on other environmental subjects, such as the poaching of wildlife in Africa.

[From The Daily Mail]

William was probably trying to avoid a situation, especially considering he was supposed to be awarding this guy with a CBE. It wouldn’t surprise me if William was opposed to fracking, and it also wouldn’t surprise me if he was being told by many people to keep his feelings undercover. While many people – not just environmental types – oppose fracking these days, the gas/energy lobby is powerful and William could be wading into something huge and massively controversial. And if it’s just a passing opinion – “Oh, I don’t like the sound of fracking” – and not something he’s passionate about, maybe William should just stay quiet about it.

Photos courtesy of WENN.