Some of you who know me and are friends on my personal Facebook profile will be laughing at this point I'm sure because have been ceaselessly banging on about this for 9 months, but I have to mention this here as it is relevant to us all.
Fracking (see www.refracktion.com) is the government's flavour of the month for shoring up UK tax revenues (and avoiding having to deal with climate change issues)
If they frack in your area it could have a disastrous effect on industries like tourism and agriculture. It won't do much for your house price (the effect has been compared to HS2) , and it could certainly have a very detrimental effect on your family's health, even without any nasty accidents spilling chemicals into your local aquifer, as studies in te US have shown that nearly 10% of the methane gets lost into the local atmosphere even before they start cutting corners on H&S.
I'm curious to know how many of you are aware of what Fracking is and what effect it could have on your businesses?
Did you know. for example, that the licence areas under review for potential exploitation cover TWO THIRDS of England? That means the chances of it happening in a rural area near you are pretty high.
Is it a price worth paying or is it a just a Ponzi scheme which the government is supporting as it might dig them (temporarily) out of a fiscal hole?
Fracking (yes I know....)
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Hells Bells
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I'm afraid here in the Fylde we aren't waiting any more - it's happening here!!!
But yes - it is a potential disaster and if there is a catastrophic accident tourism could be very badly affected. Even without one the inevitable industrialisation of large areas will have a huge negaitive effect - In the Fylde we face over 1000 wells in an area that is about 15 mile by 15 miles, with all the access roads, compressor stations, flaring gas pipes, literally millions of tanker loads of water and poisonous flow back fluid that go with them.
If you think marketing is hard now wait until they frack your area!
I hope the Lake District National Park may be safe , but with this government I wouldn't count on it!
But yes - it is a potential disaster and if there is a catastrophic accident tourism could be very badly affected. Even without one the inevitable industrialisation of large areas will have a huge negaitive effect - In the Fylde we face over 1000 wells in an area that is about 15 mile by 15 miles, with all the access roads, compressor stations, flaring gas pipes, literally millions of tanker loads of water and poisonous flow back fluid that go with them.
If you think marketing is hard now wait until they frack your area!
I hope the Lake District National Park may be safe , but with this government I wouldn't count on it!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... s-oil.html
An article written in December 2012 by Nigel Lawson (former Chancellor of the Exchequer). It makes interesting reading.
An article written in December 2012 by Nigel Lawson (former Chancellor of the Exchequer). It makes interesting reading.
Interesting indeed - but you need to read the last sentence "He is currently chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation" and then reread the article with that in mind to see just how interesting it is and why.
The GWPF is a group dedicated to rubbishing science which support the theories of global warming.
An analysis of GWPF's accounts showed, according to the London School of Economics and Political Science, that it is "well-funded by money from secret donors. Its income suggests that it only has about 80 members, which means that it is a fringe group promoting the interests of a very small number of politically motivated campaigners."
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ion-donors)
Nigel Lawson himself is an inveterate climate change impact denier with links to the energy industry via his chairmanship of the company Central Europe Trust, which he declares on the Register of Lords' Interests. CET states on its website that it co-manages private equity funds and consults on mergers and acquisitions for companies including BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco. Lawson has also been president of the British Institute of Energy Economics, sponsored by Royal Dutch Shell, the BG Group and BP.
Lawson is writing pro-shale pro-Osborn anti-climate change propaganda in a rag which will publish that rubbish uncritically. It's horribly cynical, but par for the course. The shale gas industry in the US use the same PR agency, Hill and Knowlton, that big tobacco used to tell you that cigarettes are quite safe. The sheer volume of the PR they pump out like this using mouthpieces like Lawson is amazing until you get used to it. Then it's just depressing as people you know repeat it back to you as fact because "I read it in the papers'
According to this piece he wants us to believe that shale gas is "a game-changing piece of good news" , but on 16th Jan the Telegraph reported
"Shale gas is unlikely to be a “game-changer” for the UK over the next two decades, energy giant BP said, as it warned that Europe would become increasingly dependent on imported gas. "
On 23rd Jan "Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, said it would be at least a decade before the UK saw any shale gas production and that, even then, it would not be “the game changer we’ve seen in North America”.
There are another half dozen serious sources that I could quote saying the same thing from Ed Davey, the Energy Minister, to the EU. They all rubbish the idea that shale gas will be a game changer, as is ludicrously claimed here by Lawson.
He writes off the earth tremors experienced in Blackpool, but he omits to mention that the tremors deformed the well casing on one well which had to be abandoned as dangerous as a result. (He wouldn't want you to know that of course because it's not houses falling down but potential pollution caused by well integrity failure which is the really serious dangerous issue here).
He repeats the fracking company's reserve estimate as though it were truth, but omits to tell you that the latest published estimate from the British Geological Society is ten times less. Now why would a gas exploration company hoping to sell out to a major and cash in want to talk up their reserves I wonder?
He quotes the reserve estimate from Cuadrilla (200 TCF) and gleefully says that enough to supply the UK for 50 years. Now he may be ignorant of the difference between a reserve (what may be there) and a resource (what can be extracted) but I doubt it, in which case he is deliberately misleading the uninformed readership.
Given that the frackers are highly unlikely to be able to access more than 10% of that reserve, the figures are rather less exciting even if you accept Cuadrilla's incredible 200 TCF estimates.
He repeats the industry's widely rubbished claims that "gas-fired power stations emit roughly half the carbon dioxide that coal-fired power stations do, which is why the U.S. is the only country to have significantly reduced its CO2 emissions in recent years." In fact fugitive methane emissions from gas drilling more than offset any "green" C)2 reduction advantage gas has over coal, and the USA's much vaunted reductions in CO2 emissions are mostly due to increased vehicle efficiency, growth in renewables and decreases in consumption, but again he won't tell you that.
Lawson's whole piece is riddled with pro-fracking anti-climate change propaganda.
However, perhaps the most pernicious lie in the whole piece though is the way he dismisses the the awful health and environmental issues that many of those 35,000 fracking sites have caused with the statement "Needless to say, there is no substance whatever in these scares." That would be almost funny if it were not criminally irresponsible. There is PLENTY of substance to those scares. Just scan this site http://pennsylvaniaallianceforcleanwate ... /the-list/ - "The List of The Harmed" if you don't believe me - this is from just one state in the US - Pennsylvania. How Lawson sleeps at night after coming out with statements like that I just don't know. Mind you when you were Maggie's chancellor you probably got used to sleeping with a bad conscience.
So - If you don't believe in global warming, if you don't live near a fracking site, you are not worried about your health and you don't care how much of a mess the make of this country, all just for about 5 years worth of energy then you will probably agree with Lawson that fracking is a great idea.
On the other hand if you happen to have a tourism business in an area where they are going to frack (so that's anywhere in 2/3 of the UK) , you might want to contemplate whether you or your guests want to be breathing methane and silica, and listening to 18 wheelers trundling past carrying full loads water - a third of which will be laden with radio active carcinogens if they can finally get permits to dispose of it somewhere but hopefully not too near where you live. They need about 6,000 heavy (26 m3) truck loads required per well pad so, for example, we can expect at least 600,000 loads near where I live).
Of course in 15 - 25 years time it will all be over apart from the thousands of abandoned wells which will all still contain that toxic cocktail, and won't leak into the environment as long as the cement holds. And we all know cement lasts forever don't we ? .....
So if your business could stand a 15 - 25 year down turn you'll probably be OK.
Nigel Lawson even says it will be good for you and it's in the Daily Mail so it must be true
Happy days!
PS I love what they are doing in Tatton today
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/frack-go
The GWPF is a group dedicated to rubbishing science which support the theories of global warming.
An analysis of GWPF's accounts showed, according to the London School of Economics and Political Science, that it is "well-funded by money from secret donors. Its income suggests that it only has about 80 members, which means that it is a fringe group promoting the interests of a very small number of politically motivated campaigners."
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ion-donors)
Nigel Lawson himself is an inveterate climate change impact denier with links to the energy industry via his chairmanship of the company Central Europe Trust, which he declares on the Register of Lords' Interests. CET states on its website that it co-manages private equity funds and consults on mergers and acquisitions for companies including BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco. Lawson has also been president of the British Institute of Energy Economics, sponsored by Royal Dutch Shell, the BG Group and BP.
Lawson is writing pro-shale pro-Osborn anti-climate change propaganda in a rag which will publish that rubbish uncritically. It's horribly cynical, but par for the course. The shale gas industry in the US use the same PR agency, Hill and Knowlton, that big tobacco used to tell you that cigarettes are quite safe. The sheer volume of the PR they pump out like this using mouthpieces like Lawson is amazing until you get used to it. Then it's just depressing as people you know repeat it back to you as fact because "I read it in the papers'
According to this piece he wants us to believe that shale gas is "a game-changing piece of good news" , but on 16th Jan the Telegraph reported
"Shale gas is unlikely to be a “game-changer” for the UK over the next two decades, energy giant BP said, as it warned that Europe would become increasingly dependent on imported gas. "
On 23rd Jan "Sam Laidlaw, chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, said it would be at least a decade before the UK saw any shale gas production and that, even then, it would not be “the game changer we’ve seen in North America”.
There are another half dozen serious sources that I could quote saying the same thing from Ed Davey, the Energy Minister, to the EU. They all rubbish the idea that shale gas will be a game changer, as is ludicrously claimed here by Lawson.
He writes off the earth tremors experienced in Blackpool, but he omits to mention that the tremors deformed the well casing on one well which had to be abandoned as dangerous as a result. (He wouldn't want you to know that of course because it's not houses falling down but potential pollution caused by well integrity failure which is the really serious dangerous issue here).
He repeats the fracking company's reserve estimate as though it were truth, but omits to tell you that the latest published estimate from the British Geological Society is ten times less. Now why would a gas exploration company hoping to sell out to a major and cash in want to talk up their reserves I wonder?
He quotes the reserve estimate from Cuadrilla (200 TCF) and gleefully says that enough to supply the UK for 50 years. Now he may be ignorant of the difference between a reserve (what may be there) and a resource (what can be extracted) but I doubt it, in which case he is deliberately misleading the uninformed readership.
Given that the frackers are highly unlikely to be able to access more than 10% of that reserve, the figures are rather less exciting even if you accept Cuadrilla's incredible 200 TCF estimates.
He repeats the industry's widely rubbished claims that "gas-fired power stations emit roughly half the carbon dioxide that coal-fired power stations do, which is why the U.S. is the only country to have significantly reduced its CO2 emissions in recent years." In fact fugitive methane emissions from gas drilling more than offset any "green" C)2 reduction advantage gas has over coal, and the USA's much vaunted reductions in CO2 emissions are mostly due to increased vehicle efficiency, growth in renewables and decreases in consumption, but again he won't tell you that.
Lawson's whole piece is riddled with pro-fracking anti-climate change propaganda.
However, perhaps the most pernicious lie in the whole piece though is the way he dismisses the the awful health and environmental issues that many of those 35,000 fracking sites have caused with the statement "Needless to say, there is no substance whatever in these scares." That would be almost funny if it were not criminally irresponsible. There is PLENTY of substance to those scares. Just scan this site http://pennsylvaniaallianceforcleanwate ... /the-list/ - "The List of The Harmed" if you don't believe me - this is from just one state in the US - Pennsylvania. How Lawson sleeps at night after coming out with statements like that I just don't know. Mind you when you were Maggie's chancellor you probably got used to sleeping with a bad conscience.
So - If you don't believe in global warming, if you don't live near a fracking site, you are not worried about your health and you don't care how much of a mess the make of this country, all just for about 5 years worth of energy then you will probably agree with Lawson that fracking is a great idea.
On the other hand if you happen to have a tourism business in an area where they are going to frack (so that's anywhere in 2/3 of the UK) , you might want to contemplate whether you or your guests want to be breathing methane and silica, and listening to 18 wheelers trundling past carrying full loads water - a third of which will be laden with radio active carcinogens if they can finally get permits to dispose of it somewhere but hopefully not too near where you live. They need about 6,000 heavy (26 m3) truck loads required per well pad so, for example, we can expect at least 600,000 loads near where I live).
Of course in 15 - 25 years time it will all be over apart from the thousands of abandoned wells which will all still contain that toxic cocktail, and won't leak into the environment as long as the cement holds. And we all know cement lasts forever don't we ? .....
So if your business could stand a 15 - 25 year down turn you'll probably be OK.
Nigel Lawson even says it will be good for you and it's in the Daily Mail so it must be true
Happy days!
PS I love what they are doing in Tatton today
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/frack-go
Interesting. You'd think that borehole drilling was sufficiently commonplace and straightforward that the potential risks could be easily identified, but it can obviously still go wrong. In comparison, the idea of drilling and then pumping fluid under pressure into the strata involves so many unknowns as to be complete madness. However, there's a lot of money involved, and the companies responsible aren't doing the work in their own country, so what's to lose?MaggieP wrote:I had no idea about this-thanks for informing. I recall in 2006 we had a 3.4 earthquake in Basel which was found to have been caused by drilling to extract geothermal energy. This has now been abandoned here but not in other parts of switzerland. Basel lies on a fault line.
In The Netherlands there is concern that the increase in extracting natural gas from insure deposits is causing more frequent and tremors higher up the scale.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-0 ... lands.html
http://www.government.nl/news/2013/01/2 ... ingen.html
So I wonder what Fracking will do.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-0 ... lands.html
http://www.government.nl/news/2013/01/2 ... ingen.html
So I wonder what Fracking will do.
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
Fracking will cause tremors, but probably not ones that will damage property (much). The real danger is if the tremors deform the well casing (as has already happened near Blackpool, but fortunately they realised). If that happens and they don't realise then there is a pathway for some very nasty things to get into the local water system at which point you can say "bye bye cabbage and carrots, bye bye tourism, hello lengthy decontamination process."
One problem is they don't yet seem to have any way to dispose of the radioactive / carcinogenic flow back water so may end up reinjecting it into waste wells. That apparently is what has caused more serious quakes in the USA.
Still it will all be worth it if you have shares in a fracking company or if your name is Osborne and you are desperate for tax revenues to make yourself look marginally less incompetent.
One problem is they don't yet seem to have any way to dispose of the radioactive / carcinogenic flow back water so may end up reinjecting it into waste wells. That apparently is what has caused more serious quakes in the USA.
Still it will all be worth it if you have shares in a fracking company or if your name is Osborne and you are desperate for tax revenues to make yourself look marginally less incompetent.
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Hells Bells
- Posts: 13173
- Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 8:42 am
- Location: French Alps
- Contact:
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Hells Bells
- Posts: 13173
- Joined: Sat Apr 30, 2005 8:42 am
- Location: French Alps
- Contact:
Sorry Nemo - not been as assiduous at laying my hat as I should have been 
Osborne announced tax breaks for fracking (In spite of the fact that even those supporting it said they weren't needed!!) and said basically "**** you all, we are going to do this whatever"
And the rash is starting to spread by the way
Osborne announced tax breaks for fracking (In spite of the fact that even those supporting it said they weren't needed!!) and said basically "**** you all, we are going to do this whatever"
And the rash is starting to spread by the way