Bishop Hill It won't work because we won't let it
Jul 3, 2012 Energy: gas Via Leo H, here's a press release from University of Leicester geographer, Mike Bradshaw. It announces a speech he's giving today at the Royal Geographical Society conference in Edinburgh.
“There is a high degree of risk and uncertainty associated with every element of the UK’s energy strategy – whether that’s energy efficiency, renewable energy, or carbon capture and storage. “Coming together these could result into an ever greater reliance of gas, at a time when its price is likely to increase because of growing demand from countries including China and India.” Some commentators present shale gas extraction as the solution to these future gas and energy security issues. Yet, Professor Bradshaw does not agree, commenting that significant levels of exploitation are unlikely for many years, due to substantial logistical and environmental challenges. “Shale gas is unlikely to be a game-changer in the UK” concluded Professor Bradshaw.
If I remember the Deutsche Bank report correctly, the logistical challenges are merely a shortage of horizontal drilling rigs in the UK, something that can, no doubt, be fixed by manufacturing more of them. The bigger question is, of course, over the "environmental challenges" and the efforts by greens to prevent anyone from even trying to exploit shale resources.
Reader Comments (32)
The biggest danger to the recovery from the financial crash is the economies lack of competitiveness compared to the Far East. So our establishments reaction is to continually make decisions to increase instead of decreasing the gap.
Muppet's in Hair Shirts.
Today we read that in the US - the Game changer of Shale Gas is likely to allow CO2 emissions to drop to 1990 levels by the end of this year.
What is the greater in the risk of manufacture of Horizontal rigs over the manufacture of Wind Turbines?
It seems that the "Greens" ignore the green element of shale due to some pre-supposed issue with the fact that it's natureal, it's cheap, it burns a lot cleaner, and there's a lot of it sitting 'neath this Sceptered Isle.
Manufacture of rigs would also boost the manufacturing economy - surely
You might almost think that they didn't want the 'problem' to be solved.
UK Shale's size is growing (by Nick Grealy): http://www.nohotair.co.uk/gas-guru-blog/shale-gas-2012/166-shale-gas/2571-uk-shale-s-size-is-growing
Professor Bradshaw appears to be yet another expert who is totally unaware of what is actually going on.
The days of CCS and windmills are over!
Shale gas will be extracted. The current economic situation is unlikely to change for some years and the (electoral) pressure on the gubermint to keep energy costs around their current level is going to be difficult to resist.
I don't predict any falls in price, because if wholesale prices drop, taxes will be raised to take up the 'slack'
What's most interesting of all, is where Gazprom will be spending its money to try and prevent shale gas being exploited. In a few years time there may be a lot of greens with red faces when it becomes apparent that they've been spending Gazprom money...
If shale gas makes the USA drop their CO2 emissions, and greens hate shale gas, it is evident all that talking by greens about saving the planet from CO2 emissions was a giant scam.
The basis for today's Western sivilization is cheap energy. The water melons, green on the surface but red else, wants a radical change of society.
And they try to this by making a cap on energy thus making it sparse and expensive. And at the same time stop more oil, gas and coal search and production making it look like we are running out of resources. But what really has happend is that we are running out of will to search.
Nick didnt have the whole story on nohotair (nobody does yet) I posted yesterday on "Unthreaded" that directly south of the Cuadrilla license is an area licensed to Aurora Petroleum. Aurora already have found a 700 foot thick OIL shale "seam" running through their area. This seam runs out under the Irish Sea and has been the source (by seepage) of both onshore and offshore conventional oil wells.
Aurora describe this seam as "The Mother Load" ^.^
Fortunately the government can not stop shale being exploited once they have given the general go ahead. They have previously licenced a number of companies throughout the UK to extract hydrocarbons although at the time it was assumed it would be by conventional methods. The licenses hold good for shale as well.
Professor Bradshaw research interests are located in Russia. From hip WWW page: "At present my research is organised around two major research themes: the political economy of the Russian oil and gas industry (this relates to the research theme on Spatial Politics and Change); and global energy dilemmas (this relates to the Environment, Society and Space theme).".
Taking part also in nice events promoting bussiness relations in Russia:
http://www.chathamhouse.org/events/view/157121
In that area one needs a good insider relations, particularly in rich industry, that does not need to go with extended hand for grants from EU.
Kind of difficult to promote UK shale gas, hee? What would Gazprom say to this?
Lack of horizontal drilling rigs? Is he kidding? There are idle rigs here in Texas. They are truck moble. You could load them up, move them to Houston, load them on a ship, and have them in the UK within three months.
David Cobb
The report is here. Excerpt from the section on higher well costs in Europe:
Some days bring a concatenation of reports that coalesce around a central, critical theme. The Pajamas Media site has an article on destructive "environmental challenges" (as BH has well emphasized here) to the well-known need for responsible forest management (using selective timber cutting), involving legal but ill-advised environmentalist challenges that have allowed the Western Pine Beetle to ravage western U.S. forests, and paved the way for the destructive fires now burning there. I posted the following comment there:
"...GOOD science points the way here, as in the 'global warming' debate and the spurious 'climate consensus', that is being used tyrannously by the UN's IPCC and is supported by the activist environmentalist 'Greens' (and all of our institutions that have been suborned by that scientifically fraudulent 'consensus'). It is all part of a general 'War of the Insane Left"' pretending to good scientific justification but entirely lacking it--with the patently obvious result, ignored by the insane Left, that their policies are destructive in the extreme, to our resources and our political system of self-government, of inherent individual human rights."
Here is another report today, on the same "War of the Insane Left" theme:
"Will U.S. Sovereignty by LOST at Sea?"
And I have earlier posted on this same theme today on Bishop Hill, here
Mike Bradshaw stated that GAS prices will increase due to demand increases in india and China. But isn't gas supply regionalised owing to transportation limitiation, such that the demand in Asia cannot affect prices in Europe?
The original headline for the press release:
Michael Bradshaw, Marie Antoinette Professor of Geography at the University of Leicester, issues a proclamation for the general benefit of the peasants.
Many so-called experts are compromised because their funding comes from vested interests. Hundreds of economists make the best case for CCS and banning shale gas. Behind them we have many who work or have worked for energy companies which have switched over to carbon trading. It takes a cool head to see the best way forward.
Firstly, despite all I have said to demolish IPCC climate science because of its incorrect physics, most astonishingly the belief in imaginary 'back radiation', there is no proven case for unrestricted CO2. This is because ocean acidification, until proven otherwise, is a real danger. The RS report, unlike their pathetic atmosphere stuff, is challenging. There are vulnerabilities but it’s necessary to do much quantitative work on the kinetics of ocean ecology to prove them.
The reason is that Sagan'e aerosol optical physics is wrong so the real GW mechanism must involve phytoplankton. Stop them growing and we accelerate the next ice age. Shale gas may be just a temporary respite; we may be more likely to freeze than burn!
@FarleyR
You can transport gas as LNG (or CNG); this makes the gas market global. So gas prices might increase, if the gas is transported by ships, and when no local shale gas is exploited.
However, seems that SHELL and Quatar quite long time ago have predicted that gas prices will go down, while prices of diesel oil (low sulphur) would skyrocket. So SHELL has built a factory converting gas to diesel oil.
http://www.chemicals-technology.com/projects/pearl-gtl/
This rather clearly shows what big players think about price structure for gas vs. other sources of energy
I left a slightly whiny 'appeal to authority and consensus' around here somewhere. If anybody finds it could they let me have it back.
Europe burning coal at its fastest since 2006. We will die in a sea of irony.
Gas and oil prices WILL come down globally, new gas discoveries are everywhere, both conventional and unconventional, most countries will not need to import and will have few opportunities for export.
Global oil resources are growing at an incredible rate.
Nick Grealy reports that he contacted the professor who confirmed that his presentation was provided by FOE. So the content is hardly surprising.
“Shale gas is unlikely to be a game-changer in the UK” concluded Professor Bradshaw.
That just might go down in history in a few years time when we're all burning shale gas rather than killing off our old age pensioners with overpriced energy.
Bishop Hill
Drive-on /drive-off ships have been delivering drilling rigs and frac fleets to the remote regions of Siberia and Africa for many years.
The lack of drilling rigs and frac pumps is not an obstacle. What is an obstacle is that no-one will spend the money to send equipment over there to sit idle while your politicians make up their minds. And if they decide Gaia is more important, that money would have been wasted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iihzvWO_g0Q
Britain is sitting on 300 years worth of Coal that is too deep to dig it out
But you can still sink pipes down to it and get the Methane Gas out
Good news for the decimated proper Working Class Ex Mining Communities that can get some new manufacturing jobs back
I don't know if it was clear to others (it wasn't to me) that the Bradshaw talk at the RGS in Edinburgh is based upon the "report" published by Friends of the Earth for which Bradshaw himself is listed as sole author!
So before I saw that I thought it was ridiculous that an academic geographer was citing the "grey" advocacy literature of a FOE report as his source for his talk, but now it turns out that he's citing himself.... his own report for FOE... which is ridiculous in another way, since the "public" does not usually expect (I hope) that a balanced objective scientific (sic) report is written for a radical advocacy group like FOE which already knows the politically correct answers it requires.... a group which wants as national policy in the UK that "renewables" will provide 74.5% of all UK electricity by 2030!! (see Table 9, page 30 of the Bradshaw FOE report at 2nd link below). Most "interesting" ....
Bradshaw cites report published by FOE
Michael Bradshaw's report for Friends of the Earth
The aim and "quality" of FOE policy work on shale gas can be seen in another recent document:
FOE "Briefing" in March 2012: Shale Gas: Energy Solution or Fracking Hell?
Briefing:
Shale gas: energy solution or fracking hell?
[concluding section of FOE briefing report]:
Anyone who can say
is talking rubbish.
"Tidal" energy has a huge insurmountable problem: high tide and low tide mean 4 lengthy periods every day with no power. Not sure if wave power is serious either: it reminds me too much of TV's "Tomorrow's World" - you could guarantee that anything featured on the program would never ever appear in the real world.
It really looks like FoE would rather talk about a dream of perfection rather than take practical steps towards a solution.
my hyperlink to the Friends of the Earth "briefing" report on shale gas was broken somehow, try this:
repaired link for FOE briefing paper on shale gas
Not sure if wave power is serious either.
It isn't really. Waves are caused largely by wind. So in general any time there are waves there will be winds, and windmills are always going to be more effective.
Putting any mechanical device into a part of the ocean with large swells would seem likely to be impractical at the best.
It really looks like FoE would rather talk about a dream of perfection rather than take practical steps towards a solution.
Indeed.
The UK signed the UN Agenda 21 at the first Rio summit. It therefore agreed that NGOs MUST be involved in both deciding and implementing policy. Sustainability.
It seems that fracking will go ahead in the UK since 2 reports have now cleared it as being safe. The next problem will be managing what will eventually be recognised as massive resources of natural gas and large resources of oil.
What the government has to realise is that shale gas is not an export opportunity, shale is everywhere. In the short term the USA will be able to export shale gas as LNG in the period during which the rest of the world catches up.
Should the UK government allow fracking in all the shale deposits we will soon have gas coming out of our ears just like the USA but unlike them we will not be able to export it. The current natural gas price in the USA is stll below $3 per million British Thermal Units, Current estimates of break even are $5 - $6 per mBTU. So much gas is being produced in the USA that storage facilities are full and wells are being plugged so we should learn from their mistakes as well as their pioneering attitude.
There is oil shale in the UK as well as gas and obviously the government should encourage oil production to the maximum.