Friday
Jun282013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Fracking with Marmite
Jun 28, 2013 Energy: gas Nick Grealy has a must-read story about a well near Bournemouth that was fracked in 1987. There were no earthquakes involved and the water supply was not contaminated either.
Which is just as well, because the fracking fluid consisted largely of water and Marmite.
Reader Comments (27)
Marmite! That'll polarise the debate.
Bognor not Bournemouth.
Last night I went for Marmite on toast. First time in a while. Now this.
But Marmite has "chemicals" too in it. That is how the BBC would turn the story to ferment their "controversial" meme.
PS
Has anyone else noticed that Marmite is slightly runnier than it used to be? I haven't heard this blamed on global warming yet, but it's only a matter of time (Actually, I quite like it that way.)
Why can't the consumer have the choice of which condiment to be used in fraccing?
I've prefer seville marmalade if possible. Or coffee and vanilla.... or would that mean it would be Frapping?
Thinking about it a bit more, bio-fracking is an intriguing concept. I would use Japanese knot-weed, or a cellular GM version.
Bugger Bognor.
The BBC couldn`t resist this little snippet at the end of a shale gas piece on news at ten.
http://s446.photobucket.com/user/bobclive/media/Rec061_zps78436c04.mp4.html
Link is another effing blog presented with a pale grey typeface on white. Growl. It seems to be de rigeur blogs these days, and rules out anyone with poor eyesight from reading them. Effing pisses me off. Anyone ever wondered why books are printed in BLACK and white and not pale grey and white?
/rant
It is worse than we thought when it comes to yeast. When you make bread the yeast starts to eat the carbohydrates in the flour (the latin name for yeast is Saccharomyces 'sugar fungus') and excretes that well known pollutant carbon dioxide. This causes the dough to rise and creates the 'air' holes in the finished loaf.
So the mad hippies who boast about baking their own bread are in fact evil planet murderers. Stick that in your bong and smoke it, hippy.
@Jeremy Poynton
I'm with you on that. Google chrome has a High Contrast addin, Presumably other browser do to. The Google one is switchable so decently designed sites can be viewed as normal.
Try here
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/high-contrast/djcfdncoelnlbldjfhinnjlhdjlikmph?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon
should install automatically and a little half moon appears in top right corner, click that for options.
I have a lifetime's supply of marmite in a jar somewhere in my pantry. I would be happy to donate it to anyone who wants to start fraccing.
Bio-fracking? Did I hear bio-fracking?
I can support that initiative wholeheartedly.
Grab a bunch of warmists, pack them full of water and Marmite, and wait for the gas to come out.
Perfect solution.
The future direction of the UK off shore Renewable Energy Sector.
http://www.ehow.com/how_8764261_make-seaside-windmill.html
Wasn't there a Tim Vine gag about Marmite?
Something along the lines of "Marmite? It's OK...I can take it or leave it..."
Marmite: Denmarks says spread could be illegal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13536479
The Greens will say this proves that fracking is dangerous!
I heard about this from a reservoir engineer about 20 odd years ago. IIRC the theory was something to do with stimulating yeasts or bacterial activity to alleviate well skin damage or something. Anyway, it didnt work but the main punch-line was that a compaint about the offensive smell from the well or its drillmud pits was lodged by none other than an angry representative from the nearby sewerage plant.
Michael Hart
If your observation about marmite is correct, then fracking or fraccing (don,t know which is the correct spelling) will spread that much quicker. LOL
@ michael hart at 4:09 PM
"Has anyone else noticed that Marmite is slightly runnier than it used to be?"
It probably has a similar viscosity to Heavy Fuel Oil, 3,500 Redwood Seconds, and certainly looks similar.
Some would probably argue the taste is similar, too.
I always wondered why eating marmite made me give off large amounts of methane.
Told you!
@Michael Hart: Seriously, the main non-water ingredient most fraccing fluids is guar bean paste, which is used as a thickener (just as it is in many processed food products). The point is to keep the fluid and the sand grains it holds from running out of the fracture seams, so they can be held open to get at the gas.
Down south we use fracking Vegemite. Much more efficient. And tastier.
I had never heard of Marmite, so I looked it up:
gt@janis:~$ dict marmite
1 definition found
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
marmite
n 1: soup cooked in a large pot
2: a large pot especially one with legs used e.g. for cooking
soup
What is it that you call Marmite?
@SandyS - cheers, I'll install that, tho' I wish Blog creators would have more awareness of accessibility issues. We're not all young!
Gary Turner,
Marmite is a brand-name yeast-extract, the culinary merits of which can divide British friendships, marriages, and families, more deeply than politics or even how the word "scone" should be pronounced.
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Curt,
Seriously, I doubt it not. The surfactant properties of many bio-chemicals can be remarkable. I was being tongue-in-cheek about the knotweed, but I believe GM products have a significant future in what might be thought of as engineering (in a more traditional sense of the word.)
Jun 29, 2013 at 11:16 AM | michael hart
Thank you. We have (or had, don't know if it's still in use) a yeast extract that's used in agriculture to break up heavy clay soils. It's reasonable then it would help to break up the indurate clay lamina that make up slate.
~gt