ECC on shale

The Energy and Climate Change Committee were back on the subject of shale gas yesterday, hearing from two panels of witnesses - one for and one against (video here). This is an improvement for the ECC who have tended to want to hear only the green side of the debate, with only token voices against (see the windfarm inquiry for example).

The stars of the show were Francis Egan, CEO of Cuadrilla, and Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre. Egan was measured and sensible and even managed to put over his frustration with bureaucratic delays at DECC without looking exasperated. This was the kind of man you'd want running things. I don't think I'd twigged that the figure of 200TCf shale gas resources is for Lancashire, not the UK. The UK will be much bigger.

Anderson meanwhile was the archetypal academic - somewhat eccentric, full of interesting bits and pieces, but with the unfortunate feature of having swallowed the global warming story whole. If you accepted this rather dogmatic position, then he had some sensible things to say, for example noting that it was probably better to extract gas in the UK than have the Russians extract it for us.

There was a measure of agreement on one issue: that there's a great deal we don't know. Just how much gas will flow from the Beast of Blackpool is anyone's guess, although Egan said that the geology looks good. There really is only one way to find out and that's to drill.

So let's get fracking and find out what we've got.

Comments

[diogenes]

and if the opposition were to say, "vote for us and see your energy bills halve"....since we are a principled nation we would vote for the party with better general principles, wouldn't we?

[diogenes]

isn't the last British coal mine about to close down?

[Athelstan.]

Thanks pharos http://og.decc.gov.uk/assets/og/ep/onshore/UK_onshore_shalegas.pdf

Nice one - 'enlightening';-)

[sHx]

Despite what Mike Hulme said in Climategate2 email:

My work is as Director of the national centre for climate change research, a job which requires me to translate my Christian belief about stewardship of God’s planet into research and action.

I still blame Muslims and Hindus and other godless heathens for their sacred cows and climate jihad. I do so because protecting Christian climate crooks is a matter of faith for me.

[michel]

Martin Reed

Yes excellent comment. It makes you realise just how mad it is to try to supply constant demand from a wildly fluctuating source. As you point out, if you match peak source to demand, you then dramatically run out of power when you need it and the wind drops. If you go the other way and match lowest output to demand, you end up with enormous excess generation when the wind blows. Like, hugely and dangerously enormous. And then if you go somewhere in between you get the worst of both worlds.

And as the other commenter notes, the problem with the low wind period is that you have to use what little energy some of the things are generating to turn the others!

It is completely mad. Its like the Easter Island statues.

[leedsjon1]

'ECC On Shale': - How interesting (or boring depending how you look at it) the tone of this article is - the speaker whose views most support your own (the CEO of Cuadrilla, the key fracking company of course) is described in the most positive terms - eg he is 'measured' and 'sensible' while the speaker representing the opposite view is a 'typical' academic (no discussion of what one of those is), his position is 'dogmatic' (a curious description of one of the country's leading climate change scientists) while the man himself is clearly 'eccentric' (why? - because he dares to trust the science he and his research unit have spent the last few decades patiently and diligently developing while ignoring the constant assault of shifting political tides and concerns?). Fortunately, the two have managed to agree on 1 important thing - there is a great deal we don't know about shale and how to extract it safely. So, since it is generally better to be safer than sorry, lets not get fracking (less we unleash the beast of completely unknown geological side effects, environmental health hazards, an increase to the threat of global warming, the complete reversal of the small but steady progress which has been made in the UK to date on combating global climate change - none of which we know how to deal with) and put this whole ridiculous, dangerous and utterly ineffective solution to our current energy crisis back to bed and bury it once and for all.