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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think nobody here can support Unconventional Gas extraction (fracking, UCG, CBM etc)?

108 replies

deeedeee · 24/11/2014 16:45

Mumsnet has surprised me before though...

So surely none here can think that the Government removing homeowner's rights to object to fracking under their property, and it's support for the unconventional gas industry in general, is a good and justified thing?

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RandallFloyd · 24/11/2014 18:36

Deedee, this is something I am very interested in as it is about to affect me personally but I am finding it impossible to find any non-biased, fact based, information.

All I hear is energy companies saying 'it's fine, don't worry' and anti-frackers yelling 'it's not safe! You are delusional! It's going to kill your children!'

Do you have any links to where I can get information so I can form an opinion based purely on fact?

ThatBloodyWoman · 24/11/2014 18:38

I own no property,but neither does anyone really.
We just look after this planet for future generations.
And I cannot support something that could have such dire environmental consequences.

RandallFloyd · 24/11/2014 18:41

Tbh, Pauline, unless you expect rent from airlines you can't expect payment from mining. I'm sure we'd all love to own everything above and below us but we don't so to me that's a non-issue.

Your first point is my only issue.
Is it safe and what will the environmental costs be compared to the other viable options?
That's what I don't know and that's what I want to try and find out.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 24/11/2014 18:48

Do you have any links to where I can get information so I can form an opinion based purely on fact?

www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/issues/fracking_background_information_33157

Obviously they are not unbiased, but as their bias is towards saving the planet rather than making money, I would trust them to a certain extent.

skylark2 · 24/11/2014 18:53

"And then please provide independent peer reviewed evidence that this is a safe process."

Tell you what, deeedeee. You provide independent peer reviewed evidence that, shall we say, having a drink of water is a safe process, and I'll consider taking your demands seriously. Or sending your kids to school, or crossing the street - pick anything you like, I'm easy.

There is no such thing as a process with no risk. The fact nobody will tell you that fracking is this safe means they are being honest. The fact people are telling you that you should expect to be told it is this safe means you are being lied to. The fact you believe them means you are extremely gullible.

You might find this site interesting as an example of manipulating people's lack of understanding of what "safe" means:

www.dhmo.org/facts.html

mummymeister · 24/11/2014 19:00

Oil and gas are running out. we don't have any safe system in place yet to deal with nuclear waste other than a big hole in the ground. land based wind turbines are bird choppers and their low frequency noise has health implications. solar farms cover profitable food - growing land with metal panels that contaminate the soil with heavy metals, produce glare and look bloody ugly. sea based turbines have implications for fishing and again look bloody ugly. so there it is. pick the worst of the evils and add in fracking. I would sooner live on fracking that look at a bird chopper or live next to a glaring solar farm.

deeedeee · 24/11/2014 19:01

RandallFloyd, to start with have a look at www.faug.org.uk, the website of the concerned communities of Falkirk and surrounds who have for two years been fighting Dart Energy's plans to extract coal bed methane in their community. They do not in any way fit the stereo type of nimbus or environmental activists, they are just normal concerned people who investigated the Unconventional Gas industry and found that they did not want it in their midst. They have pushed the whole plan back and took it to a Public Inquiry. The decision on it has been called in by Scottish Ministers and we are expecting a decision in the New Year. They formed a Community Mandate and a Community Charter which are full of dully sourced evidence based arguments and got 2,500 local signatures. That encouraged their Councils to refuse the planning permission, but Dart appealed and then the case went to a Public Inquiry. Falkirk Council, Stirling Council, Dart Energy and Friends of the Earth were all represented by lawyers at the PI. FAUG group felt it was important that the local people were also represented and raised £80k to pay for a legal team to put forward our case. If they hadn't done all of this, Dart would have been drilling long ago! I encourage you to have a really good look at their site, it has all their legal documents, freedom of information request and a history of the campaign.

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paxtecum · 24/11/2014 19:09

I'm not a NIMBY. I rent my house.

I live about 400 yards from a proposed exploratory well.

I don't care that the house I live in will become uninsurable if fracking goes ahead in this area.
I don't care if the value of this house drops dramatically.
I don't care if this house subsides as a result of fracking.

I do care that the land in this area will become polluted and stay polluted forever.
I care that the drinking water will be polluted and always will be.
I care that the rural landscape that supports many farms, some organic, will become industrialised.

Fracking isn't even financially viable. If it was Shell and BP would be at the forefront, but they are not interested in such little returns for so much effort.

I am so thankful that there are many environmentally aware people who are willing to devote so much time and energy campaigning against Unconventional Gas Extraction.

Opinions on MN don't surprise me anymore, but some sadden me.

Coffeethrowtrampbitch · 24/11/2014 19:17

It's a nightmarish problem, the government are so focused on the prospect of cheap gas they will ignore and suppress any evidence of harm due to fracking.

There was a news report last year about fracking in eastern Europe. One woman had a six foot wide hole open in her dining room after fracking had taken place nearby. The fracking company said it was nothing to do with them, so she was stuck with the damage. The end of the report showed people sabotaging exploratory drilling sites at night, because no one listened when they said no to fracking, and they were petrified their homes would collapse.

I had a similar experience when I wrote to my MP six months ago to protest against fracking; he quoted studies by energy companies (because they couldn't be biased at all) and that was that, he voted in favour of fracking without checking any more facts than those provided by people with a vested interest.

It will take a major incident, such as a fatal earthquake or landslip, or mass environmental damage like contamination of the water table, before fracking will be halted in the UK. There is just too much money involved.

But don't worry, as part of the licensing process companies agreed they wouldn't be responsible for cleaning up any damage or pollution resulting from fracking, so when it does go wrong, the tax payer will pick up the bill.
Sounds good, doesn't it?

deeedeee · 24/11/2014 19:52

The arguments about everything being risky are red herrings. There is no comparison between fracking and drinking a glass of water, and the DMHO hoax is just insulting. These are not misplaced fears, these are legitimate concerns by communities who do not want this level of industry and risk to their areas. and do not want us to keep extracting fossil fuels and accelerating climate change. The fundamentalist dogma of you can't care about Climate change unless you are an off grid campaigner or you can't care about risk of something like fracking because risk is inherent in life is just trying to shut down conversation. American industry figures say 2% of all new wells fail. The Dart energy proposal for Falkirk was the beginning of a development of 100 wells. So by the industries own figures two of those well would fail immediately. The percentage of failure goes up as wells age. How many would fail in 5 years? in ten? in 50?

Have you looked at any of the Anthony Ingraffae links I sent? He is a scientist, expert in the field turned whistle blower. If you are worried that those opposed to tracking are scientifically illiterate and scaremongering then you need to investigate further.

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deeedeee · 24/11/2014 21:20

and skylark, your arguments disagree with the precautionary principle "precautionary approach to risk management states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking an action." which underpins EU law.

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Roseformeplease · 24/11/2014 21:28

deedee, why don't you write to your mates in the SNP and all their cronies and ask the "Yes" campaign to listen to your arguments? Oh, no, they won't listen to reasoned arguments - because they are too busy pretending they won the referendum and ignoring the need to actually govern in Scotland's interests: education, fracking, roads, budget cuts in local authorities due to the council tax freeze.

They don't care because they have spent the last few years on independence at all costs and, having lost by a sizeable margins they are STILL not listening to the will of the people who live in Scotland.

deeedeee · 24/11/2014 21:50

Rose, I am! Hope you are too

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deeedeee · 24/11/2014 23:06

gosh, noone particulalry interested?

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deeedeee · 25/11/2014 10:42

bump

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SurfsUp1 · 25/11/2014 10:51

I'm pinning my hopes on Elon Musk.

Fracking is a huge issue here in Australia, especially as it's not just surface water that we need to be concerned about. Much of our agricultural land is irrigated using water that is drawn from aquifers deep within the earth - aquifers that link up with the seams that will have the tracking chemicals injected into them.

Bramshott · 25/11/2014 10:52

Personally I'm not in favour of fracking and this is short-termist and bad for the environment.

However, I do have enough imagination to realise that there are a number of reasons (jobs, cheaper energy etc) why other people might be keen to see it explored in their local area.

SurfsUp1 · 25/11/2014 10:53

Also, coal seam gas is incredibly expensive to extract, so it is only viable when gas prices are very high. Hopefully improvements in other reusable energies will reduce demand for gas before toooo much longer thereby making fracking a white elephant.

If more factories started being built like the new Tesla mega-factories then that would be an amazing start!

deeedeee · 25/11/2014 11:24

Jobs? The government sponsored AMEC Report cut the job forecast dramatically to a maximum (at peak 94 years) of 32,000 in their high scenario. Their low scenario suggests a maximum of 5,300 at peak (2 years).

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deeedeee · 25/11/2014 11:24

Jobs? The government sponsored AMEC Report cut the job forecast dramatically to a maximum (at peak 94 years) of 32,000 in their high scenario. Their low scenario suggests a maximum of 5,300 at peak (2 years).

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deeedeee · 25/11/2014 11:25

sorry, posted too soon.

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deeedeee · 25/11/2014 11:29

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/273997/DECC_SEA_Environmental_Report.pdf here's the report. It is also important to realise that this is an industry which relies on an expert, highly skilled and mobile work force who move from job to job. This is not an industry which will provide long term stable employment for local residents. There will be jobs for their skilled mobile work force for a few years, until the gas rapidly runs out as it has done in US and Australia. The other jobs will be low paid, dangerous and transitory. As they have been in US and America.

and as for lower energy prices, it's hype! www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/11/shale-gas-unlikely-to-make-the-uk-energy-self-sufficient-report-says There's plenty of reports and forecasts and scenarios from other countries that show that it will not happen.

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DrSnowman · 25/11/2014 20:02

I am not amused, I think that in the fracking debate neither side are perfectly right. It is six of one and half a dozen of the other. The fracking companies are not open and transparent about what they put down the wells while a lot of the anti-frackers are using poor science or worse to oppose fracking.

But this thing about noble gases sounds interesting but I would like to know if the change is statistically significant, if one of the mumsnetters is a statisitain then please could they give their thoughts on the paper “Noble gases identify the mechanisms of fugitive gas contamination in drinking-water wells overlying the Marcellus and Barnett Shales” by Thomas H. Darrah, Avner Vengosh, Robert B. Jackson, Nathaniel R. Warner, and Robert J. Poreda

The fact that the antifracking site gives a list of "scientific papers" does not mean that it can be trusted totally.

I know about papers in the scientific literature which show that living in a radioactive building lowers your chance of getting cancer, if you read the literature in a perverted way where you only read papers which support your view you can make the scientific literature "prove" whatever you like.

I would like the other mumsnetters who are scientists to find a paper which suggests that "Aliens are poisoning the popcorn in cinemas with mind altering drugs", then we can prove that popcorn is mind bending

WeirdCatLady · 25/11/2014 20:40

Deeedeee, nope, honestly I'm not in the slightest bit interested, and i suspect millions of other people aren't either. As long as it doesn't cause me any personal problems then I couldn't give a rats ass where my gas comes from.

Nimby-ism is alive and well here Smile

Though I would be concerned if aliens were poisoning the popcorn...

deeedeee · 26/11/2014 12:30

They are peer reviewed independent studies! and there's plenty of them to choose from!

I understand your points Dr Snowman but I think you are misunderstanding what peer reviewed and independent mean!

In academic publishing, the goal of peer review is to assess the quality of articles submitted for publication in a scholarly journal. A
peer-reviewed journal will not publish articles that fail to meet the standards established for a given discipline, peer-reviewed articles that are accepted for publication exemplify the best research practices in a field.

These are not articles put together by the industry or by opponents.

And NIMBY is a ridiculous insult when it comes to tracking and other Unconventional Gas techniques? It's not in my backyard, or anyone else's back yard or anywhere. Why would anyone want to live with the danger of the health implications outlined in the below independent peer review study by a doctor as to the effects on public health in her tracked area in Australia?

www.ntn.org.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Symptomatology-of-a-gas-field-An-independent-health-survey-in-the-Tara-rural-residential-estates-and-environs-April-2013.pdf

You should desperately care where your gas is coming from. If you don't then PLEASE PLEASE start to research this yourself.

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