Bishop Hill All-party group on unconventional oil and gas
May 15, 2013 Climate: Parliament The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Unconventional oil and gas is holding its inaugural public meeting. From Twitter, we can learn some of the details:
Advisory panel of APPG Unconventional O&G announced: Consumer Focus, WWF, PWC, Richard Davies, Peter Atherton, IOD, Ineos, UCOG #appgUCO&G
'We are not holding back the #shale industry, our job is to create the right framework to accelerate it in a responsible way' says Fallon
Fallon stresses UK has "similarities" to the UK [sic] geological situation, and says BGS study will be published pre-recess #appgUCO&G
'Unconventional gas and oil can attract inward investment, contribute to exchequer, reduce coal usage and boost energy security' says Fallon
'Shale gas development here is part of a historic continuum of our domestic resources' says Michael Fallon #appgUCO&G
Bishop Hill
Some more:
Viscount Ridley asks: is the Govt sitting on the BGS report until Energy Bill has passed through HL? No, says Fallon #appgUCO&G
Peter Atherton asks how govt will keep industry economic, i.e costs below $12. 'Good challenge' says Fallon #appgUCO&G
How does the Govt see shale gas actually bringing down bills, asks @GreenpeaceUK? Fallon says we can't be sure it will #appgUCO&G
Reader Comments (15)
'Shale gas development here is part of a historic continuum of our domestic resources' says Michael Fallon
Historic? Or, as the Romans used to say, "fuerat!"
Pleased to see Viscount Ridley is involved.
I am 100% sure that whatever happens in the shale gas industry in GB it will not bring my gas bills down. Life does not work like that.
It just might keep them from continuing to skyrocket, I suppose, which I guess is the most all us poor schlubs could possibly expect.
I have noticed it is only the things that people are in a position to make a choice about which ever get cheaper in price. I can do without a big screen TV...but I am always going to need to buy gas.
I think the question and answer were "How does the Govt see renewable energy actually bringing down bills, asks @GreenpeaceUK? Fallon says we can be sure it won't".
I see that Viscount Ridley has just made his maiden speech in the House of Lords.
Pleased to see that Graham Stringer is a member. Full list:-
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/unconventional-oil-and-gas.htm
What worries me however is how clued up technically they are about the subject. Hopefully, they will arrange for presentations from across the spectrum of technical disciplines. I would go for highly experienced independent consultants in the petroleum industry - petroleum engineers, geologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists, geochemists, and /legal/negotiation/contract experts.
Finally some "important" government or industry person who acknowledges that shale gas will not produce cheap energy!
It is not just that shale gas is not cheap: a $10 million dollar well that produces 3 bcf of gas costs $3/mcf, and I think you will find that ratio about right for the UK and the States at a field level. (No taxes, handling, profits for developing and handling are in there, note.) The UK has a real mix of cheap and expensive energy sources, which causes the price of the cheap o rise towards the price of the expensive for several reasons.
In a market where we are forced to have both cheap and expensive, we choose the lesser devil over the greater devil, but allow the lesser more wiggle room because we price-compare. So cheap doesn't have to be as cheap as it could be before we stop complaining. We also have investors and industries that have fingers in competing pies: it is not good at a personal, let alone governmental level, to have one industry ruined while another wins all the prizes. The nuclear and solar and wind have to have their slice of the profits, too, even if they are slim. So higher prices for cheap allows adequate prices for expensive energy.
Our governments also tax by percentages. And they spend more than they receive. So higher prices bring in more gross dollars than lower prices.
What can be done about energy prices is a slight of hand, though. If NG is priced to the consumer low, the government can provide either straight-out incentives that negate taxes (thus creating a "profit") or by nationalizing certain aspects, like transportation or nuclear, effectively remove those portions from a specific accounting, especially long-term maintenance.
The UK government recently purchased some wind farms with this in mind, I believe. By getting electricity into a basic "service", some of the costs disappear into a mess of managements. You'll never know what the wind energy really costs, just what you are charged overall.
Transportation would be the service I'd nationalize for this trick. It would become almost free for the selected providers, and expensive for the others. And since it is everywhere but everywhere has different local costs, how can you ever break it down for comparison? It would be like roads: some portion costs just to keep the country together, but that also includes the nice highways to the resorts our governors, not us, use. Try to figure out what those additional perks cost ...
lol. Is that what is called a post-ironic question by Greenpeace?
Only when I see Satan and all his drones handing out free lemonade-slurpies on every street corner will I believe that Greenpeace want energy bills to go anywhere but up into the stratosphere.
mike fowle mentioned Matt Ridley's maiden speech. Its a corker. On the GWPF mainpage now and Hansard here
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldhansrd/text/130514-0001.htm#13051441000438
Pharos, thank you for the link. With his maiden speech now out of the way (along with the custom, to which he refers, of avoiding controversy in his first words to the House), I trust that Viscount Ridley will return to his theme frequently and even more forcefully.
My worry is that DEFRA and especially DECC are now stiff with apparatchiks who owe their ascent to the prevailing dogma. Even if the process of their defenestration were to start today, it could take a generation to complete.
Here is a study which cannot find contamination of ground water from fracking.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/15/groundwater-unaffected-by-shale-gas-production-in-arkansas/#more-86352
No doubt there will soon be accusations that the study was funded by "Big Oil".
Pharos: from previous occasions, which I have queried to no effect whatever, the government will ask advice on technical subjects concerned with fossil fuel matters from WWF, Fiends of the Earth, Greenpeas. and Renewables UK.
May 15, 2013 at 9:51 PM | Pharos
At 5:01pm in your link, Lord Oxburgh jumps in pitching for a seat on a new gravy train that he wants to be established:
14 May 2013 : Column 303
The existing arrangements have demonstrably failed. [. . . . ] I believe that an energy strategy committee should be established by Parliament. It would comprise people with experience of different aspects of the energy industry, finance and energy policy. They would serve for relatively long terms on a board that could be chaired by a Minister. Acting within high level policy guidance from Government, the role of the committee would be to propose a long-term energy strategy and to advise the relevant departments on the timescales and practicalities of achieving it.
My guess that we will get shale gas, but the cost difference of producing ecofascist power versus conventional power from shale gas will be equalised via tax. The proceeds of shale will go to the state in tax and the cost of power will be levelled upwards to the least-economic.
The rationale will be emissions reduction based on cooling denial, and no party will depart from this consensus.
This development, if this article is roughly accurate, should dramatically improve prospects for shale gas and oil..... New digital and fiber optic data technologies increasing USA gas and oil production by 200% to 300% in certain fields:
Smart Drilling Revolution