Fracking

[dave50]

Why is it that fracking is up and running in the USA, providing the country with cheap energy yet here we have to put with the environmental idiots usual objections to anything that may solve our looming energy crisis. They dont want nuclear or fracking or fossil fueled power stations. Why cant we just finally ignore these deranged idiots and just get on with it?

[Canary42]

So you would be quite happy with one next to your property ?

[Old_Geezer]

Maybe they have genuine concerns that were dismissed in other countries ? Should we just do whatever anyone else does without considering the situation for ourselves ?

Anyway who is to decide who should be ignored ? Perhaps someone holds the opinion your views should be ignored: would that be ok ?

[BRIGHT SPARK]

Dave..do you honestly believe that the fracking process is carried out for the benefit of the end user?

[sunny-dave]

For the first time in living memory the Dave's are in some sort of agreement.

I don't care for my namesake's language in disparaging the campaigners against frack/nuke developments - many of them are quite sincere - albeit a good few of them are just out for a ruck with 'the authorities'.

We appear (as a society) to be unwilling or unable to reduce our energy usage, and 'renewables' just won't cut the mustard as regards continuity of supply. So we need something else and frack gas is one option that can deliver a little breathing space until we get a Government with the balls to bite the bullet and build nuclear. The only indigenous alternative is open cast mining of 'dirty coal' and the environmental consequences of producing and burning that are pretty awful.

There's an easy answer to the anti-fracking lobby (and the anti-nuclear too) - just point out that the lights will be going off from around winter 17/18 whatever we do.

It's too bl**dy late to build/drill/fack/dig our way out of it now, and the foreign chappies will be keeping their energy/electricity at home to meet their own shortages - not exporting it to us.

Offer people who live in the designated frack/nuke zones a guarantee of energy security (even if the rest of the country is on short-time supplies) and possibly a discount on the energy price too.

I'd bite their hands off if it was offered to me - I'd prefer nuke to frack, but either would do.

[mikey4444]

America is a vast country, which has millions of acres of uninhabited territory, so any fracking may be well away from most population. I'm also fairly certain that appeals procedure is somewhat limited.

But on your general point, I too am frustrated to all the nimbys, especially after yesterdays foot-in-mouth fiasco by the Tory Peer Lord Howells. If people don't want nuclear, fracking, wind generators and coal fired power stations, just where is the electricity going to come from when we get home at night and switch the lights on ?

In my neck of the woods here in Wales people are objecting to wind generators in their legions. But when you ask them what alternatives they would prefer, they just mumble and won't engage in any useful debate.

If we don't do something pretty quickly, the lights are going to have to start going off, not in some indeterminate time in the future but in our own lifetimes.

[VHG]

>>>environmental idiots

It is a good job somebody cares about the earth because there are plenty of people / companies who don't and we are gradually destroying and polluting the earth.

But I forgot, anyone who complains about that is an "idiot".

[sunny-dave]

That's the easy bit to snipe at VHG - and I agree that the language is very inappropriate.

But perhaps you'd like to answer the main point (as amplified by Mikey and me) - "how do we keep the lights on"?

[mikey4444]

dave50 may have been somewhat unguarded in his language but his point is valid. Of course peoples objections should be heard. But when it comes to energy security and the good of the nation as a whole, it may be necessary to go ahead and build more facilities despite a minority of people raising objections. We already import vast quantities of gas and electricity from abroad. I, for one, am not at all happy with our dependence on imported energy. We are an island nation and shouldn't be importing anything that we can produce here at home.

[sunny-dave]

I think we are singing from the same hymn sheet Mikey.

[Gromit]

The USA has 88 people per square mile.
England has 1054 people per square mile.

So it is a lot more difficult to locate these sites away from people in the UK.

Fracking will not solve our looming energy crisis.
Nor will it provide cheap energy.

We need to have a variety of energy sources, not just be dependent on one. We need to lower our fossil fuel burning and use cleaner alternatives.

[mikey4444]

I hope you have a better singing voice then me then dave ! I might live here in Wales but I share none of my countryman's ability in a choir.

[Coobeastie]

Quite happy with nuclear, but not so much the proposed fracking to be carried out locally in the Mendips. The hills are an area of natural beauty with mainy prehistoric sites, not forgetting the myriad of caves and underground rivers throughout.

Fracking might be a good idea in the middle of nowhere (if you cant put aside the quakes and water pollution) but youd be hard pressed in this country to go a few miles without some sort of settlement and rather our water supply doesnt get poisoned.

[sunny-dave]

Build More Nukes is the only answer Gromit - nothing else reduces carbon emissions *and* gives you enough capacity *and* ensures continuity of supply.

But successive Governments (of all colours) have been too week-kneed to take the decision. Fracking is at least proven technology and will fill a gap until we get building on a new nuclear energy programme - whils also reducing a dangerous over-reliance on imported energy.

[sunny-dave]

This makes me sound like a "fracking is good" cheer-leader - I'm not that by any means.

It's (potentially) dirty, polluting and not a nice neighbour - but I am also a realist who can't see that many better alternatives.

[jomifl]

I think we are all arguing from a point of deep ignorance, has any public information been published giving information about the areas where gas bearing shale exists, the depth at which fracking will take place, pollution of groundwater, radio-isotopes present in the gas, deleterious effects in other countries where fracking is carried out, etc ?

[mikey4444]

Gromit...not sure why fracking won't solve our looming energy crisis ? Its brought down energy bills considerably in the States, while ours just seem to go up and up on a annual basis. Surely fracking, if it is successful, will aid our energy problems, at least in part ? How could it not ?

We still have vast reserves of coal in Britain. There is good workable technology around today that can help coal produce electricity cleanly. But our electricity companies would rather import coal from Western Australia. I can't think of many places farther away from Blighty than Perth ! Can it really make sense to import coal from the other side of the world, rather than mine our own. Imagine what would have happened in WW2 if we relied on coal coming by sea ? We would all be speaking German by now if we had !

[Gromit]

// Controversial gas drilling did cause a series of earthquakes along the Lancashire coastline, a report today confirmed.
Gas company Cuadrilla Resources, which is extracting shale gas in the region, commissioned the independent study after two tremors shook Fylde coastline in April and May this year.

Energy chiefs have now sent a stark warning to the firm - either stop the earthquakes or be shut down.

It comes after Cuadrilla held urgent talks with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to consider the report into the risk of earthquakes associated with 'fracking' - the process used to extract shale gas.
The meetings followed the British Geological Survey's conclusion that the two tremors felt nearby were most likely to have been caused by fracking.
On April 1, a magnitude 2.3 earthquake shook the North-West. It originated less than two miles from an experimental shale gas well near Blackpool run by Cuadrilla.

A second tremor occurred on May 27 with a magnitude of 1.5. The epicentre was within 500 yards of the well.
The BGS said the correlations between the earthquakes and the time of fracking operations, and the proximity of the quakes to the site, all pointed towards the earthquakes being a result of the fracking process. //

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050025/Earthquakes-Lancashire-coast-WERE-caused-drilling-gas-experts-warn-energy-operation-threatened-closure.html

[sunny-dave]

Probably true Kosmos - but (irritating as it may be) he does have a point about the need to address the energy crisis, possibly meaning that we need to address this on the basis "the greater good of the greater number"?