I hope I don’t pretend to have expertise on everything. On fracking I have none. My entirely amateur views on the subject are that the major risk appears to be pollution of aquifers. The UK seems too seismically stable for earthquakes or volcanoes to be a serious concern. I am not terribly worried about the local environmental consequences of the installations – human activity of all kinds detracts from the natural environment in a sense. This spot was doubtless a great deal more pleasing aesthetically before Dundee was built upon it. But then Dundee has a great deal more human utility.
It is also plain to me that humans are going to have to burn fossil fuels for a while yet, despite the very obvious fact that we also need to put much more energy and resource into developing renewable alternatives.
So I am not opposed to fracking in principle, which I know will upset some people. But nor can I understand the hurry. Fracking is being undertaken on a very large scale in the United States and elsewhere. Onshore fracking is not actually a new technology at all, but its widespread use is new. Given concerns especially about the effects on underground water supplies, why don’t we just wait for thirty years and see how it turns out elsewhere? That should give time for a good accumulation of evidence.
The hydrocarbons are not going anywhere – they will still be there in thirty years time and I predict will be a good deal more valuable. So my entirely unprofound, non-fundamentalist and dully pragmatic view on fracking is that there should be a thirty year moratorium. Then we can think about it.
Thank you for signing the #FrackFree UK petition to David Cameron.
We’ll need to spread the word far and wide if we want to raise the stakes on fracking enough to drown out the fossil fuel lobbyists in Whitehall.
Can you forward the email below to your friends?
We’re up against a lot, but momentum is building and together we can secure a #FrackFree UK!
Thank you,
Lawrence Carter
Greenpeace
==========================================
Hi there,
David Cameron claims that fracking could alleviate fuel poverty, but even his friends at Cuadrilla – the fracking company slated to cash in on the dash for gas – doubt this will be the case.
Add your name to the petition for a #FrackFree UK.
What we do know is that fracking is being used to justify 40 new gas power stations and that extracting new fossil fuel deposits is likely to make climate change worse.
It will also require tens of thousands of new wells in Lancashire alone, scarring the natural landscape wherever shale gas is exploited.
According to international experts, we need to keep two-thirds of known fossil fuels in the ground to avoid runaway climate change – the point in which global warming becomes irreversible.
Rather than scraping the bottom of the fossil fuels barrel and building up costly infrastructure that will lock us into a high-carbon future for decades to come, we need strong government investment in clean, renewable energy.
Sign the petition for a #FrackFree UK now!
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/page/s/frack-free-uk?source=em&subsource=frsh02&utm_source=gpeace&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fracking02
Thank you
As I understand the fracking process is blasting water, sand, and chemicals underground in vast quantities and at extreme pressures to force open shale layers deep beneath the Earth, and release natural gas. In most sites explosives are also used to crack the rock and shale.
Huge industrial operations accompany fracking such as drilling, waste disposal and humongous amounts of water. Legally drilling can now occur underneath your property to boot.
Most fracking sites are depleted and ‘sealed’ in a short space of time thus leading to a colossal number of sites covering about 48% of the UK.
Applications for licences will be accepted up to 14:00 on 28 October 2014 and will be assessed on: (i) the financial viability of the applicant; (ii) the technical capability of the applicant; (iii) the quality of the work programme; and (iv) the proven track record of the applicant.
An estimated 3,000 additional fracking sites will be generated.
http://www.groundsure.com/blogs/14th-round-onshore-licensing
I hope I can influence Craig to fundamentally oppose this habitat holocaust; to promote this process as an abomination that is only economically viable on a huge scale.
Obama has been drinking water from fracking for twenty years and it’s done him no harm.
https://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=B111GB662D20140811&p=dental+care+obamacare+image
“We could use that window of opportunity to reshape our societies”
Not sure that we could reshape society in such a way that we no longer needed to heat our homes or cook our food. Power stations and engines that don’t use fossil fuels are what we need.
It amazes me that billions can be found to fund things like particle accelerators and the LHC but so little goes into researching things that would benefit the whole planet. An alternative to the the internal combustion engine (19th century technology) would be a good start.
The scientific community’s principal response to all this is to produce reams of doom porn telling us how terrible we all are for selfishly wanting to heat our homes and cook our food with the only fuels and technologies available. Are we supposed to design our own clean power stations, or freeze to death, or what?
Fracking is essential for the West to maintain the health of EU and US. BRICS and Gazprom are the threat on the world market and TTIP is the tumescent response.
Apparently both Obamas have been drinking the stuff.
http://tomfernandez28.com/2013/11/10/the-obamacare-dental-plan/
Methane, anyone? The EPA is the watch dog that must be watched.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/17/6237.abstract
Big problems in your logic, Craig.
A thirty year moratorium?
No way José.
Osbourn and the City need as much of the stuff as soon as possible to keep the spinning plates trick.
Without more assets, no more munney can be borrowed against securitised future cash flows.
Fracking is a method of gas extraction where water is mixed with sand and chemicals and injected at high pressure into a wellbore to create small fractures, yielding natural gas and petroleum. In the process, it pollutes ground water, which now bears toxic chemicals and dangerously high levels of radiation, as well as emitting foul odors.
We in Canada are also campaigning against Israeli-poodle Stephen Harper’s government plan to confiscate more aboriginal lands to build the proposed tar sands project: Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline going West, and Trans-Canada’s Keystone XL pipeline going South. Dr. Noam Chomsky had this to say on the project.
“It means taking every drop of hydrocarbon out of the ground, whether it’s shale gas in New Brunswick or tar sands in Alberta and trying to destroy the environment as fast as possible, with barely a question raised about what the world will look like as a result.”
http://rehmat1.com/2013/11/02/chomsky-slams-canadian-pm/
Where will they get the water from?
Fracking take enormous volumes of water per unit of oil or gas extracted.
I thought most of SE England and many other parts are often subject to droughts?
Scottish Water to be force privatised?
My view is that it’s prudent to adopt the precautionary principle in relation to fracking. A paper in the journal Climatic Change, concluded that:
“The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.”
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-011-0061-5
Although these are preliminary findings, and more work needs to be done on leakage rates on both sides of the Atlantic before we can draw reliable conclusions, great caution should nevertheless be exercised in claiming that shale gas causes less global warming than coal.
Why US Fracking Companies Are Licking Their Lips Over Ukraine
“From climate change to Crimea, the natural gas industry is supreme at exploiting crisis for private gain – what I call the shock doctrine”
By Naomi Klein
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38211.htm
“And remember: you don’t build multibillion-dollar pieces of infrastructure unless you plan on using them for at least 40 years. So we are responding to the crisis of our warming planet by constructing a network of ultra-powerful atmospheric ovens. Are we mad?”
——————–
Fracking America
The Woodlands – By Rich Waters
‘Residents in Butler County, Pennsylvania share their fracking experience. Film shared courtesy of Nature Abounds’ friend Rich Waters, a local photographer and videographer who is documenting how fracking is changing the lives of his neighbors in Southwest Pennsylvania.’
Video Posted July 16, 2012
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31880.htm
Real Tory progress in Shropshire. yay.
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/10/20/victorian-diseases-on-the-rise-in-shropshire/
Its not so much the fracking part that bothers me its the noxious chemicals that are pumped in later. I fully believe fracking is one of the reasons Sir Ian Wood sold Scots out, he has supposedly acquired a fracking firm, and with Westminster issuing licences to frack, Wood sees the potential, to make a profit, that doesn’t require deep sea drilling.
On the environmental side of fracking, I can’t see the industry giving 100% guarantees that thing won’t go wrong, though they will try push the “Its all safe” idea.
In my opinion there’s something deeply flawed with fracking, that stirs the human psyche, to oppose it, it provokes a similar feeling to those who oppose nuclear weapons, or nuclear power plants, or strip mining.
We should be pursuing renewable energy, and forms of clean energy, if not for ourselves, then our children, and their children.
Alas, a profit comes before anything else in this day and age, we will however live to regret, that policy, in the long term.
Dreoilin, thanks for posting “The Woodlands” fracking video. I advise every sceptic, Craig included, to watch it. And then tell me fracking’s safe. The fact that Cameron is supporting it shows that money is the only concern. Wake up world – before there is no world (as we know it).
Thanks for mentioning the Ukraine, Dre. It’s a key part of the puzzle and Russia is the direct target of Saudi market dumps. The big players have been playing the same game with gold and silver. Driving currencies like Texas Longhorns to the slaughter house.
oh yes. The Blackpool earthquake. The one that caused no damage and no injuries. Dreadful affair.
________________________________
Haward
Yes indeed, did you know that the base of Blackpool Tower is made up of 5 million bricks, and in the event of an earthquake like scenario, the tower is designed to fall towards the sea.
Meanwhile Scotland and the UK are struck with mini earthquakes on quite a regular basis, with a few registering higher up the scale than you’d imagine.
Can anyone tell me what humans have contributed to the health of GAIA? Is our role somewhat like ebola? Population control seems to be the natural role for viruses. How are we different?
Well I am in principle against claiming resources that should be ours, and selling it back to us. That’s besides and environmental issues and the fact that we need to stop doing this kind of energy production.
According to a current info I have solar on a house provides about 50%. So along with a power sharing program your looking at much more.
The government should be funding this for everyone.
They won’t because it’s ideologically unsound. It would make people think about socialism and it’s benefits. Can’t have that. They want people dependent.
Price fixing is (should be) a crime.
“Saudi Arabia and Kuwait halted production at a jointly run oil field late this week, a move that could help ease a supply glut that has pushed global prices down 25 percent.
The 300,000-barrel-a-day Khafji field, located in the neutral zone between the two countries, was being shut because of environmental concerns, a person familiar with Saudi Arabian oil policy said yesterday, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
The shutdown comes as Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members face increasing pressure to scale back production while supply expands from the U.S. and other countries and demand growth slows. Asia’s oil market has become particularly flooded as the U.S. imports fewer cargoes.
“This shutdown comes at an opportune time for Kuwait and Saudi Arabia given the current perception of an oversupplied market,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston, said by phone yesterday. Cutting Khafji’s production is more advantageous for the countries because the oil generates less revenue for them than their light crude supplies, he said.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-18/saudi-kuwait-seen-curbing-oil-output-at-opportune-time-.html
Can anyone tell me what humans have contributed to the health of GAIA? Is our role somewhat like ebola? Population control seems to be the natural role for viruses. How are we different?
_________________________________
Would it be such a terrible thing to say to describe the human species as a parasite, and even then I’m being unkind to most parasites who don’t actually destroy their host.
People, don’t see themselves as destructive, and of course most people aren’t, but we are all consumers. Of a vast array of items, which takes its toll on the planet and its flora and fauna.
Can we learn to be a bit less destructive and consume a lot less, in things we buy, I’m afraid not, the economy is built on the consumer, and their purchasing power. Gone are the days when you bought a hoover or washing machine that lasted for decades.
” In the days before North Sea gas came on line we used coal to make gas. ”
You’re obviously too young to remember gas works. It was a horribly dirty process which polluted both air and ground and the gas itself produced a lot of soot when burnt and was highly toxic. We’re better off without it.
Anyone want to download this at iTunes, or Amazon, if you do, you must have more money, than sense.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/this-is-your-country-no-voters/
@ROS: “Meanwhile Scotland and the UK are struck with mini earthquakes on quite a regular basis, with a few registering higher up the scale than you’d imagine.”
Indeed – we had a 4.1 just earlier this year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26277432
I saw a bigger one back in the day, that split a plasterboard ball from top to bottom, and nearly shook me off a stool, while living up the valleys a bit. Thought it was just an old mine collapsing, or some bad acid that was going around, but it was a genuine earthquake.
RoS; Carlin seems to know what humans contribute to the Ecosystem. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRquiS1pis
The Olympus Trip started production in the 1960s, in all my years of fixing them i’v not found one where the solar sell is dead.
Can you imagine people not dependent on a centralised corporate energy company? They’d never allow it voluntarily, the very reason it should be pushed for imo.
solar cell*
You’re welcome, John, Ben
“Indeed – we had a 4.1 just earlier this year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26277432
I saw a bigger one back in the day, that split a plasterboard ball from top to bottom, and nearly shook me off a stool, while living up the valleys a bit. Thought it was just an old mine collapsing, or some bad acid that was going around, but it was a genuine earthquake.”
_________________________________
Yes Glenn that’s a fair quake for England, Scotland has seen a few recent 3.5 quakes.