Fracking

[Againstfracking]

Lancashire voted NO to Fracking but it's been forced on us by the Government. We don't want it! What can we do?

Missing that's a pretty harsh response, I'm not necessarily "pro fracking" per se, more pro as far as is humanly possible that safe, sensible and , ethical energy policy energy extraction is performed AS NECESSARY.

I have seen the reality of the human and environmental impact of unregulated extractive industries first hand and it's not pretty, the UK is so, so far away from this as to be almost laughable if it weren't so tragic and yet so many are beholden to populist agendas, petitions and facebook groups to stop it happening in their own country, when that is simply not the case.

I am not directly involved in the UK industry at the present time but can assure you that a very large part (ok all) of my job is working from "inside the fence" so to speak to ensure that this is the case wherever I work and believe me, the amount of effort that goes into doing it across the board is phenomenal.

The excessive hyperbole employed by many of the protest groups involved in this issue is in many cases nothing short of disgraceful and is being used to create unnecessary anxiety amongst an awfully large proportion of our society - it's self evident on this thread if you read backwards along the time line, or "upstream" as someone put in a different post.
lynB123 as I posted earlier you'll actually find that most of the big energy companies aren't too far from that way of thinking, they are aware that the writing is on the wall fro the carbon economy in it's current form.

The over reliance on it for vehicles etc. is going to fade away pretty soon as electric transportation becomes more mainstream but for power generation, domestic scale battery storage, heating and industrial power it's going to take a generation or more - that's before you look at feedstocks for plastics and fertilisers as previous posters have mentioned. Another piece of reality is that developing countries are still needing oil & gas to pull themselves through whatever their version of The Industrial Revolution. If you met me you would underatand that I'm not trying to troll anyone here, it's just reality.

It's another thread entirely but I am also enormously proud of much that this industry achieves - one of the last in which the pioneering spirit lives on, these days it's a long way (largely) from cowboy boots, chewing tobacco and "drill baby drill" I promise (not that most of you will believe me but hey...)

But, MissingMySleep - I can't understand why the fracking at Wytch Farm is so different to "what they want to do now". Of course there are differences, but I can't see why it is "misinforming" or "untrue" to compare them and the impacts that have or haven't occurred? Surely no more misleading than saying that what has happened in some shale wells in the US with different geology, different well construction rules and so on will undoubtedly happen here? Or that chemical composition won't be disclosed here (it will be - to the Environment Agency as part of their Environmental Permit). Or that what has happened with vertical, closely spaced wells in a desert somewhere in Wyoming in terms of scarring the landscape is what will happen here in a much more densely populated country.

If "what they want to do now" is frack in a horizontal well, that has been done in the UK. If "what they want to do now" is extract hydrocarbons from shales, that has been done in the UK. I understand that to "frack a horizontal well in shale using a very specific technique" may require different volumes of water, traffic and so on, which could affect the surface impacts - but I can't see how it would suddenly mean more wells start leaking when they are constructed to the same standards, or how gas suddenly starts spewing into the atmosphere when it isn't so far, or radioactive waste suddenly has to be dealt with, when it is dealt with so far at existing wells.

Generally after a few conversations on social media re fracking... the people in the industry start to infer that you are just a nimby who is prepared to perpetuate misery on third world countries and let them bear the brunt of your energy cost in order for you to live a life of untrapped luxury. I've had some shills actually accuse me of murder and ask me which part of the worlds population I wish to kill in order to carry on using gas without Fracking....
It's all a bit bizarre really.
But the fact remains that there are scientist and energy experts who feel that with a push and investment... we can fill the energy gap in the UK without Fracking.
I feel it's worth a try.

Has this already been to the European Courts? I know they intervened in Germany and Poland.....

LynB 'But the fact remains that there are scientist and energy experts who feel that with a push and investment... we can fill the energy gap in the UK without Fracking'

There are also scientists and energy experts who feel that we can fill the energy gap without the need for a push, or investment.

Why should the public bear the risk in order for the windfarm operators to make a massive profit ? why not leave it to the market to bear the risk, make their investment and then run the wells?

Your idea of nationalising the risk and privatising the profits is just wrong

I don't believe the risk of serious, sustained and widespread environmental damage from wind farms is as massive as those posed by fracking.
I feel if there is an extra cost financially (and your theory is disputed by some above) it should be borne.
I'm not sure of the market price of clean air water and land.
Maybe that is the crux or our debate?
I'm not pleased that a private oil company is to be given tax breaks in order to facilitate them making millions out of our Resources (which I feel should remain in the ground) and potentially poison our environment then leg it with the profit leaving us to live with any 'mess.' This has happened in other places.
A wind farm will just be there... with the wind. If it falls over it can be fixed or picked up?

Qualified Radioactive Waste Adviser here.

Can I just point out that the limits on radioactive impurities in waste water are very very very low so it's only the fact that the process washes out tiny amounts of naturally occurring radioactive material from the soil/rock that makes this water 'radioactive waste'.

Focussing on the term 'radioactive waste' is unnecessary scaremongering because it makes it sounds like it is a much bigger issue than it is really - the waste water would only be hazardous if it went on to be someone's main drinking water supply without any further dilution or treatment - of course it may contain other impurities that would make it inappropriate for it to end up back into the water supply anyway.

I don't know enough about fracking to decide whether or not I am for or against it, but what I do know is that the Environment Agencies will regulate all aspects of it extremely tightly and we we do need additional energy sources.

We are getting critically short of power in the UK and all the coal powered stations will be gone soon. If they can't build new power sources of one flavour or another, it is going to make life more difficult and/or expensive for everyone. The last few winters have been comparitively mild, we aren't far off not having enough capacity to serve a colder than average winter.

It does contain other impurities and however you dilute and wherever you put it (I've read reports it's used as a de-icer on roads in some countries), something somewhere will end up drinking it. That's how the planet works?
If the energy gap can be filled in other ways (and many reports say it can) then why wouldn't we push for that? Rather than taking a chance with fracking?

Tidal lagoons for example. It's the one, potentially exploitable natural phenomenon in this country which is completely and utterly guaranteed.

Tidal lagoons... ok, please give me the case for their potential environmental and social impact and their overall sustainability as a power source (please don't reduce the argument to there always being rides to rely on) ...Sounds nice doesn't it?

Plus the subsidies required then the projected cost per unit of the electricity in some of the current proposals on the table.

If you really want to cry cronyism and exploitation of our natural resources by the private sector you would do well to look there.

Tramps
Why are you so obsessed by cost?
There's more to our energy future than financial implications?
Renewables are longer term, sustainable and less damaging to our planet.

I'm not obsessed by cost particularly - just sensible energy policy that balances security of supply, is sustainable economically and as friendly to the environment as much as is reasonably practicable. 'Clean' hydrocarbons produced in the UK need to be a part of that for various reasons.

The point about unit cost of supply was in relation to the enormous cost per unit proposed for (as I recall) the latest lagoon proposal in South Wales - alongside the sustainability of the whole thing from an environmental perspective it's been designed as a massive cash cow and not really with those principles in mind.

To anyone who sees themselves as an armchair eco warrior and wants to 'stick it to the man' a "tidal lagoon" is so much nicer sounding than FRACKING which sounds a little bit like 'fucking' and makes for endlessly hilarious variations for the placards.

Gas production from shale will not cause environmental Armageddon in the UK.

...and for goodness sake, for one last time, I am not "anti renewables" but they are not the panacea for global energy needs (yet) that some people would have you believe.

They are cost effective than Hinckley C.

I put it there are something to discuss not so you could aggressively rubbish the suggestion. As for your suggestion that people don't like tracking because it sounds like "fucking"

They are initially expensive but cheap to upgrade (you just have to replace the turbine whereas a nuclear power station needs entirely decommissioning). The turbines are tried and tested in hydroelectric dams all over the world, and the technology is continually being improved. Nine TLs along the west coast of the UK would provide all our domestic energy needs and have similar output to the same number of nuclear power stations.

Fracking is simply a technique for extracting previously inaccessible hydrocarbons. We need to move away from fossil fuels.

I don't imagine you'll give any credit to this post though.

And why do you sneer about the fact that the tide goes in and our reliably twice a day? It's up there with death and taxes as one of the few certainties.

I am not one of the people that says renewables can fix everything immediately. However dismissing them completely as "too expensive" or "not reliable" shows a massive lack of ambition, foresight and imagination.

I said in my first post about the Swansea tidal lagoon that I knew it wasn't a magic fix all solution, and that it wasn't perfect environmentally. Any kind of proactive energy policy will necessarily involve some element of compromise. Yes the folk on the Lizard peninsula wouldn't be happy because of the extraction of rock to build the lagoon, and it does kind of piss all over the recent designation of the MCZ at the Manacles with the construction of the jetty, but might it not be worth it long term? I agree with the poster who said there was more to our energy future than financial implications.

I'd really recommend "sustainable energy without the hot air" for a discussion (with actual figures) as to whether it is possible for the UK to get all our energy needs from renewable sources. You can download the book free.

Spoiler: theoretically it could nearly be possible, if you ignore that some things at present need specific energy types, and the fact that the land needed to grow energy crops, for example, might conflict with that needed to support solar panels or other sources... But that didn't take into account social, economic or environmental costs. Like whether it might be unacceptable to cover 75% of the land surface with biofuels instead of food, and whether the astronomical cost of the PV panels needed would be money well spent.

I agree we need a debate to address the energy future, but it will need to look at all three prongs of the "trilemma" (cost/ fuel poverty, carbon emissions and energy security). And I don't think we should dismiss the environmental impacts of renewable forms of energy, which are very far from negligible ( like "pissing on the MCZ" at Swansea), just because they are lower carbon than gas. Who gets to decide which "bit" of the environment is most important? To what extent do we go to reduce carbon in energy, at the cost of other things?

My opinion is that we will still need gas in the energy mix, even with a huge push for renewables. Better than the situation in Germany where carbon emissions have increased since banning nuclear, due to an increase in mining and burning coal while they increase renewable capacity.

It's in South Cornwall actually.

I agree that we need a realistic mix of energy supplies. I never said anything else. Covering the whole country in solar panels would be insane, even though they have their place, and are actually good for biodiversity in that they provide havens for invertebrates and are not covered in pesticides. (Can you have grazing amongst them too? I don't know).

And personally I think biofuels are an environmental nonsense.

www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/fracking-must-be-banned

I agree the solar panel thing is ridiculous, Sukey (biofuels, esp to generate biomethane I think have their place, as long as marginal land is used, and from as near to the generation plant as possible...but that's never going to provide more than a sliver of our requirements).

I have actually seen sheep under solar panels, but I think the panels need wiring in a special way if there will be grazing, or the sheep eat the wires. Interesting point on the biodiversity increase. Apparently that also happens on offshore rigs. One of the issues with decommissioning platforms is that they have developed populations of rare sea critters around the legs...so if they are totally removed, the critters are disturbed.

But anyway, as we agree 100% renewables isn't feasible, the question remains what is used to fill the gap. Nothing's perfect, agreed, but in my opinion we will need nuclear (though I'm not sure the current plans will come through!) and we should seriously prioritise new gas over coal. And using the proximity principle (as important as the precautionary principle, I think) in my mind means fracking is something we need to explore.

1% of our land covered with solar panels (and grazing sheep) ... even if it was 2% and we will included roofs etc... it wouldn't be a catastrophe? And they don't leak, or flare, or produce flowback... and the sun doesn't 'run out'

Bloody does here

LynB that's really small. can you give the source as I can't read it. Sounds good, though would need to know kilowatts per hour in different weather conditions etc.

I've always thought large warehouses, industrial estates etc provide huge potential for solar panels.

“The threats exist to the public health, worker health and global health through air, water and soil and transport and include exposure to carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, noise and light. The risks may be to human reproduction, development, respiratory, immune and other systems, mental health and well-being.”

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15102355.TheStateeoftheeNationTheetruthabouttfrackinginn_Scotland/#comments-anchor