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.
George Osborne suffered a fresh blow today as the six-year squeeze on earnings growth was blamed for the latest official figures showing a widening hole in the public finances.
The data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed revenues from income and wealth taxes failed to grow compared to the same month last year.
They showed borrowing for the month, excluding the effects of bank bail-outs, was £11.8 billion, which was 15.3%, or £1.6 billion, ahead of September last year.
It means that halfway through the financial year, the Treasury looks well behind the target for a 12% fall in the annual deficit expected by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Borrowing for April to September stands at £58 billion, 10% higher than for the same period in 2013/14.
______________________________________
Borrowing up, yet we can afford a £3 million quid a day war in Iraq/Syria, what the bloody hell’s going on in the den of iniquity, aka Westminster.
http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/national/blow-to-osborne-as-deficit-grows-1-6369602
with regard to NEW NSA director, it occurs to me these polibots are lost souls anyway. It’s the newbies I worry about. When Corporations recruit, they like them young and impressionable. Preferably, their values are still in a fluid state. That’s what they want. Obedient worker ants who will carry out directives without any hesitation due to wringing the hands. they are probably ambitious and wish to climb the ladder of success. The carrot is held up to their noses as incentive for going along.
When they reach the top the concrete is set.
“What about Google’s motto of “Don’t be Evil”?”
That’s the equivalent of the oath physicians take; ‘Do no harm’ as though doing good was an unattainable goal.
Bureaucracies are inherently evil. It’s like mob violence. A lynch mob’s mindset gets cranked up and swallows even good folks who wouldn’t ordinarily do such things, but they get caught up. Peer review becomes paramount.
Bureaucracies are like a wild carnivore on a leash, but few wish to hold the leash because they could get bit. It’s easier to just let it roam.
Costs/ benefits of fracking?
Fracking has reduced the price for natural gas in USA considerably and USA may be energy independent in the future. Cheap energy means more jobs for the USA. Unemployment is negligible where fracking is done in the USA. This, in turn, benefits our own economy. For the USA economy lifts or lowers the economies of other countries. Natural gas is replacing coal which is better for the environment. If the Chinese were to frack it might stop the building of more coal plants.
The EPA in the USA has investigated problems at drinking water wells near fracking sites.Little evidence was found that that fracking caused contamination.
There have been instances where fracking companies have paid court settlements to people claiming their healths have been affected by fracking.These settlements might involve large payments for the people involved but relatively small for the oil explorers. Some (not me) characterise the payments as nuisance settlements i.e. it is cheaper and quicker for the companies to settle a claim without admitting liability than go through the court procedure. These settlements will always have a gagging order attached. What all of this means, to me, anyway, is that it cannot be certain that some people do not have a court case worth taking or certain that they do.
Fracking in the UK will take place below the level of the water table. That is unlikely to affect our drinking water. Problems might arise if the cement casing of the well is faulty.
There will be environmental consequences.. Traffic, loss of scenery, damage to roads. Other…?
Net benefit? Net deficit?
Sam
“Dowd is the guy with whom Alexander filed 7 patents for work developed at NSA.
During his time at the NSA, Alexander said he filed seven patents, four of which are still pending, that relate to an “end-to-end cybersecurity solution.” Alexander said his co-inventor on the patents was Patrick Dowd, the chief technical officer and chief architect of the NSA. Alexander said the patented solution, which he wouldn’t describe in detail given the sensitive nature of the work, involved “a line of thought about how you’d systematically do cybersecurity in a network.”
That sounds hard to distinguish from Alexander’s new venture. But, he insisted, the behavior modeling and other key characteristics represent a fundamentally new approach that will “jump” ahead of the technology that’s now being used in government and in the private sector.
Presumably, bringing Dowd on board will both make Alexander look more technologically credible and let Dowd profit off all the new patents Alexander is filing for, which he claims don’t derive from work taxpayers paid for.”
https://www.emptywheel.net/
People seem to have a concern over Fracking because they have read doomsday stories of Earthquakes and water course contamination. Where i live in the Trent Valley we have had many years of subsidence from all the mining over the decades and also we have skies that are constantly cloudy through the 15Km steam clouds from all the power stations along the River Trent. But nobody seems scared and nobody’s protesting outside the power station gates.
But if there were no power stations, either coal, gas or Nuclear where would the energy come from? We would all complain when we couldn’t charge our iPhones or watch our energy thirsty 60inch Plasma TV’s.
We need to produce 1Mw of energy for each 800 Homes and as all political parties are stating that they intend to build hundreds of thousands of new homes over the next few years then we are faced with some choices.
• Don’t close Coal fired power stations – Not good for the environment
• Build more nuclear power stations-will take too long and not good for the environment
• Expand Renewables from 12% to 50%-possible but not enough viable space for all the turbines and has a visual impact (by the way..a windmill makes flour. A wind turbine makes energy)
• Build more Gas fired power stations- possible but will need the gas from Fracking
• Import more energy from abroad.-very expensive and politically bad
• Frack the life out the countryside-possible but requires good legislation
If the UK is blessed with a natural resource and it can be extracted sensibly (Fracking leaves very little surface footprint in terms of infrastructure) then as long as the spoils are shared with the communities where the gas is extracted then we should at least have full trial run, not over 30 years, that’s just passing the buck to our children, but over 3-5 years would be sensible.
For those who are too worried about Fracking, worrying about Britain’s idealised self-image as a democracy, why not attend a possibly relaxing concert tonight at the Royal Albert hall?
http://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/valeriya/default.aspx
“Valeriya, one of the top-rated Russian singers, comes to the Royal Albert Hall with a host of special guests in a not-to-be-missed event for fans of Russian popular music”
There have been allegations in September of Internet trolling & disruptive provocative behaviour aimed at preventing tonights concert (linked by some in the UK to activities in Ukraine) Surely England couldn’t be that evil to even unfriendly-regime artists from the wrong side of ‘the great game’?
It is very helpful that the UK Border Agency/Border Force spent a relaxing 8 hours checking, rechecking, thumbing, probing Valeria’s family passports when they arrived at Heathrow yesterday, after-all you can’t be too careful when the terror threat is at Substantial/Severe/Ultra and rising! After a full working day of bureaucracy, they were eventually admitted to our hallowed piece of earth.
Here’s a website that may radicalise you – one way or the other – it’s in Russian, so you’ll need to use Chrome browser for instant translation, http://arseniyshulgin.com/ (note: there’s embedded classical music on website for those spys wearing headphones)
he’s one of the kids playing with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.
and on a last, irrelevant to Fracking point of view,
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22253/1/filmmaker-laura-poitras-cannot-visit-uk-for-fear-of-arrest
The noted freedom loving film-maker has been advised by her lawyer not to visit the UK, it’s too dangerous.
I suppose the new UK law on trolls is a gill net for any they feel are trollish. What is the definition, btw? Twitter seems to be the social communique most disruptive to criminal states.
Gough Whitlam, the Australian prime minister who was removed from office in an unusual move by the Governor General, who was close to the Americans and probably did so at their bidding, just died. His obituary was in the Washington Post today. This morning, Democracy Now! ran a segment on the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in the same year, 1975. They played a clip from an Australian journalist repoting the story on scene at the time. The juxtaposition of the two stories made me think of how the two stories were probably connected, so I looked up the chronology. Sure enough. Whitlam was removed from office on Nov. 11, 1975. East Timor declared its independence from Portugal at the end of November. On Dec. 5, Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger visited Jakarta and gave Suharto a green light for invading East Timor. The next day, Indonesia invaded East Timor.
Russia’s recent move to cut natural gas supplies to Ukraine was a terse reminder to Europe that, if it continues to pressure Russia in what it considers its backyard, then the disruption of Europe’s vulnerable gas supplies might be next.
This dramatic move, coupled with Russia’s recent $400bn natural gas deal with China, is meant to deliver a blunt message to Europe, as the United States pressures it to impose more sanctions on Russia. Simply put, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to toothless US and European Union sanctions is that Russia has other options. The message back from Europe should be just as blunt: So do we. What other options does Europe have? Believe it or not – Iran.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/europe-russia-gas-dependency-2014617102612321303.htm
YouKnowMyName 21 Oct, 2014 – 1:03 pm
“Dr Abbas Khan, 32, travelled to war-torn Syria to save injured civilians but was arrested in Aleppo, tortured and held in captivity until his death on December 16, 2013.
His family, backed by Bradford Respect MP George Galloway, are adamant the doctor, who used to work at Epsom Hospital, was murdered. But Syrian authorities claim he hung himself, just days before his promised release.
His brother Dr Afroze Khan told the Epsom Guardian that last Tuesday: “I gave some evidence that I was told by an individual, who also gave evidence, that MI6 had intimated that they did not want my brother to be returned.”
In early September, I suggested that the British state was ‘doing an Yvonne Ridley’ on Dr Khan, hanging him out to dry, setting him up for a fall, engineering his death for political propaganda purposes. The evidence from his inquest seems to support this view..
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/09/after-project-fear-expect-project-terror/#comment-476304
“Berlin) – Ukrainian government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city in early October 2014, Human Rights Watch said today. The use of cluster munitions in populated areas violates the laws of war due to the indiscriminate nature of the weapon and may amount to war crimes.
During a week-long investigation in eastern Ukraine, Human Rights Watch documented widespread use of cluster munitions in fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels in more than a dozen urban and rural locations. While it was not possible to conclusively determine responsibility for many of the attacks, the evidence points to Ukrainian government forces’ responsibility for several cluster munition attacks on Donetsk. An employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was killed on October 2 in an attack on Donetsk that included use of cluster munition rockets.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
@Windy Miller
But if there were no power stations, either coal, gas or Nuclear where would the energy come from?
Well obviously if there were no power stations the power would come from nowhere.
You’d be like a bunch of stunned mullets: dead iPhones and no crap on you 60 inch Plasma TV’s.
Thing is, though, life can continue without either iPhones of Plasma TV’s. You don’t even need home heating, cars or foreign holidays. Life could continue just as it did for the one hundred thousand years before around 1950.
But no one, apparently, is able to think about that. Instead they wrestle with an intolerable and insoluble contradiction. On the one hand their religion of political correctness requires undeviating adherence to the principles of radical environmentalism, whereas on the other hand, their dependence on hot water, fast food, even faster transportation, media massage and gigantically expensive public services of every kind necessitates the ruthless devastation of the environment to extract ever more cheap energy.
Funny thing is, with a bit of intelligence, which would include returning the school system to its proper function of training truly competent people, especially technically qualified people, engineers, physicists, etc., rather than a 12-year-plus program of indoctrination in political correctness, unwarranted self-esteem and non-reproductive sex, it would be possible to live as well or better than now while consuming less energy, all of it derived from non-polluting sources.
” which would include returning the school system to its proper function of training truly competent people,”
Well yes, but you follow one conundrum (what do we do without fossil fuel) with another. First you would have to reform the system,
School Boards and other redundant bureaucracies bend the spine of education. Maybe we could learn to live without them just as we could adapt to candle light and cooking over an open fire.
“First you would have to reform the system,
School Boards and other redundant bureaucracies bend the spine of education. Maybe we could learn to live without them just as we could adapt to candle light and cooking over an open fire.”
Candles are made from paraffin wax, petrochemical.
School Administrators are like code enforcement types. If it’s working, ‘fix it’. Diddling with education foundations that have worked well for centures (reading writing, arithmatic) must be suborned for job justification. New math, new grammar with scientific models paid for through taxpayers, then implemented without logic or purpose, other than keeping their jobs.
” petrochemical.”
Well wood is carbon-based as well. What is your point other than negativity?
This could come in useful for resolving whether or not pollution in areas around fracking operations might be caused by the fracking or whether it originates elsewhere.
“Well wood is carbon-based as well. What is your point other than negativity?”
The point is that candles are made as a by product of the petrochemical industry. They extract the oil and then refine it to make petrol, diesel and all the various other products we use like paraffin wax. Having extracted the oil they might as well just burn it in power stations to produce electricity for lighting.
Before we harvested bee’s wax people use tallow for candles. Any vegans object?
The thugs and bullies have been active in Parliament Square, again.
Green Party peer arrested at protest
Green Party peer and London Assembly member Jenny Jones is arrested and then “de-arrested” by police at an Occupy protest in Parliament Square.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29708144
Politician on ‘extremist’ database
Jenny is apparently on an extremist database.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27872451
RepublicOfConspiracyTheories
“Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of French oil company Total, has died in an air crash in Moscow…….
Accident? or Foul Play?
In my opinion the story is rather flimsy, someone wanted Christope de Margerie, removed.”
_______________________
Can you put that into plain English- are you saying that de Margerie was murdered?
That Sub (or whatever your real handle is)
“Rory Stewart – typical British upper-class Tory royalist country-house cunt. Atlanticist record as long as your arm, the darling of the New York Times, and – oh right – a Bilderberger to boot.”
______________________
Well, at least much of Rory Stewart’s life is out there in the public domain and therefore we have a basis for deciding whether he’s a cunt or not.
But you, on the other hand, well, we know nothing about you, do we? Who are you?
For all we know, you might be a much bigger cunt than Rory Stewart!
That Sub
“And stop keep asking who I am. Father fucking Christmas.”
_________________
I don’t believe you.
Who are you? And what was your previous handle?
Mary
“Politician on ‘extremist’ database
Jenny is apparently on an extremist database.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-27872451”
_____________________
Do you consider it impossible that a politician should be – or have been – an extremist?
If you do consider it impossible, how would you argue the case?
Totally O/T but, seriously, can you believe this????
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/21/migrationwatch-thinktank-sir-andrew-green-peer-uki
Fuck off and die retard cunt Cameron, you are beyond a joke!
Although the best laugh I got was seeing the retard cunt kippers launching eughkipscotland – “the real independence party”
Fuck off and die retard cunt Farage, you too are beyond a joke!
With acknowledgements to Fred.
Now I’m gonna go and wash my keyboard out with soap and water!
Dear, dear… the tone of this blog has definitely lowered recently. Who’s the bad influence that started all this off? It might be an idea to keep the C’s and F’s and R’s to a minimum. Just for decency’s sake.
“Can you put that into plain English- are you saying that de Margerie was murdered?”
_______________________
My dear Habb, you know fine well we don’t use the “M” word, we use neutralised or removed, or negated, or even eliminated. Now be a good chap and go back to Thames House and re-read the manual.
“Totally O/T but, seriously, can you believe this????
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/21/migrationwatch-thinktank-sir-andrew-green-peer-uki
Fuck off and die retard cunt Cameron, you are beyond a joke!”
_________________________________
Mochyn69
Nothing to see its 404.