Anger over George Osborne's North Sea bid Green campaigners have reacted angrily to the Chancellor's backing for fossil fuels, which included £3 billion in support for new drilling in the North Sea. George Osborne gave qualified support to renewables in the Budget, describing them as a "crucial part of the UK's energy mix" but insisted he would remain alert to the costs they added to families' fuel bills. "Environmentally sustainable has to be fiscally sustainable too," he said. But he gave strong backing to gas, which he said was cheap and cleaner than coal, and would remain the UK's single biggest source of energy for decades. And he said: "I also want to ensure we extract the greatest possible amount of oil and gas from our reserves in the North Sea." He announced a series of tax changes, including £3 billion in allowances for drilling new large and deep fields in a bid to open up resources to the West of Shetland. Exploiting the West of Shetland is opposed by environmentalists not only because would it lead to the extraction of more fossil fuels, but they fear the deep water and rough sea conditions would make a potential spill extremely hard to clean up. Charlie Kronick, senior energy advisor for Greenpeace, said: "George Osborne has opened the flood gates to a new Klondike in the deep waters off Shetland without learning any of the lessons of the dangers this poses after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico just over a year ago. Any oil spill in the west of Scotland would wreak untold devastation on some of the UK's most fragile habitat and the local economy. Greenpeace also said the scant support for clean-tech industries in the Budget, alongside a U-turn on airport expansion in the South East and the backing for the oil industry, spelled out a polluters' charter that was bad for the environment.