Bishop Hill Preparing the ground
Aug 18, 2013 Energy: gas The Mail on Sunday reveals another UK oil well that has been fracked in the past without obviously poisoning anyone or anything. This time in Nottinghamshire:
The beautiful expanse of grassland on the RSPB’s Beckingham Marshes reserve is exactly the kind of environment antifracking protesters are so determined to protect.
During their ‘Solidarity Sunday’ today in the West Sussex village of Balcombe, thousands of eco-warriors will tell the world that fracking – the process of pumping water into underground wells to ‘fracture’ the rock and force out oil and gas – should be banned to avoid ‘industralising’ the countryside.
In fact there has been fracking here in Nottinghamshire since 1963, the last time in 1989. One well has been fracked four times.
Interestingly, the focus this time is on a proposed development by iGas rather than the greens' favourite whipping boys at Cuadrilla. Spreading the focus of the green disinformation campaign seems to me like a good thing to do.
Bishop Hill
Also well worth a read this morning is Douglas Carswell, whose article on shale and Luddism includes this rather wonderful quote:
Tim Yeo yesterday suggested that we are better at regulating shale gas here in Britain than they are in America. Indeed. Which is why right now we have no shale industry to speak of.
Reader Comments (78)
Tim Yeo! How dare that man show his face in public?
The violence in Egypt has shunted Balcombe of the front pages.Dissapoint the Fractivist.
Original Luddites were afraid of loosing employment to the success of innovation whereas modern ones are afraid of being offered employment* by that same success.
*Circus performers excepted.
BBC 5 Live have just interviewed a Pennsylvania farmer whose land is being fracked for shale. Sadly he wasn't on message and dourly walked the interviewer through what he considered was a successful, almost risk-free exercise.
The poor BBC lady was so traumatised by this crushing dose of reality that she accused him of being a 'cheerleader' for shale.
@ Cheshirered
"The poor BBC lady was so traumatised by this crushing dose of reality that she accused him of being a 'cheerleader' for shale."
Some lowly production assistant in the BBC is going to get carpeted for that. Fancy putting someone up to be interviewed who is not "on message!" In BBC-land, telling the truth when it is not on-message has now been redefined as being a 'cheerleader', apparently.
But it's obvious.
The farmer is obviously in the pay of The Big Gas Conspiracy and Denial Machine.....
Err..yes. That's the point.......
It seems to me that fracking is akin to keyhole surgery - precise and non-invasive. The 'patient' is barely aware that the procedure is even taking place. And post 'operation' its demeanor is totally unchanged.
Compare this modern marvel with open cast mining or a thousand acres of bat-chopping, droning monstrosities - I know which I'd rather have at the end of my street.
Also a good article by Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times. He ends with
"Too late. The self-righteous mob have taken full moral ownership of your pretty village and they are invincibly ignorant"
The RSPB have shown themselves to be little better.
@ cheshirered, thanks for the heads-up re the BBC Radio 5 Live interview: it will be part of my transcript archive. Very measured, thoughtful and fact-based responses from the interviewee, although I fancy I could almost hear the pinging sounds as the facts bounced harmlessly from Anita Anand's mind shield (possibly I'm being a little unfair to Anita.)
By the way, did you catch the report by Andy Moore just before that?
"There's several hundred people here, very colourful collection of tents, the smell of wood smoke mixing with the stench from the portaloos..." Ew...
Yes alluding to Mr. Carswell's quip, synopsis and maybe a metaphor for what Britain has now become.
The UK administration, was so concerned about regulation, bureaucratic niceties and safety that, the hydraulic fracturing of its enormous shale gas plays.................................... never happened.
Someone, the greens in cahoots with the politicians and "big oil"[Gazprom, Statoil] - put our lights out.
jamspid is Fractivist. original? If so I like it
Cheshirered
You should watch Truthland which in the final few minutes has the film of the maker of Gasland admitting that taps caught fire and all the other issues were there before fraccing but "it's not relevant" and looking very uncomfortable.
Well worth sending the link to any wavering friends.
Mark my words. Troffa Tim (Yeo) will soon be in Court.
cheshirered and Alex Cull: The Radio 5 Live programme was Double Take and it's available to listen to at that link for the normal seven days. I'll try and get to it later today. Meantime I'd remind people that Anita Anand used to present the Daily Politics with Andrew Neil and my hunch is that she would as a result be more open to policy sceptics that used to appear there, like James Delingpole, than some others in the Beeb. It's only a guess but please at this crucial juncture let's not tar all with the same brush. The very word deniers should make us think twice about doing that to anyone in any group. And Anand clearly got someone talking sense about shale onto prime time in the UK. She would have had to put the 'other side' as a price of doing that and that's actually quite right, just as Neil did with Ed Davey. Mockery can make us feel smarter than we are. We don't know is frequently a good motto.
Taken as a whole I think the Balcombe protest is going to be a disaster for the green movement and all that stupidly ally themselves with it against shale. This isn't the miners under Scargill at the height of oppressive trade union power. It's North Sea oil the sequel. I'm sure there were a few protesters about that innovation and I expect that we'll talk about these ones almost as much as about those ones thirty years later. Did the Luddites stop the UK leading the industrial revolution? I agree with those like our host and Carswell putting the boot in. But I think the protestors have no chance. The bureaucrats and their cosy deals with renewable energy companies is another thing.
It did not take long for our conflicted friend, Tim Yeo MP and president of the Renewables Industry Association, to get in on the act. Maybe he wants to be president of the Fracking Industry Association, as well.
Presumably, if you are making money from both sides of the argument, you can't be conflicted anymore?
In any case are MP's allowed to suggest that people be bribed?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9311365/Bribe-residents-to-accept-wind-turbines-says-Tim-Yeo-MP.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2395476/Communities-FORCED-accept-fracking--share-windfall-says-Tory-head-climate-committee-Tim-Yeo.html
Steven
Thanks for the link to Truthland, Sandy. Good film.
@ Richard Drake, Anita Anand is married to Simon Singh, originator of the "climate numpties" epithet, so is possibly of like mind, but point taken, maybe there's reason to be optimistic.
johanna @ 1144a.m. 18 Aug says:
"In BBC-land,"
I suggest BBC in "la-la land
The protesters have already scored major victories here, they have stopped Cuadrilla from drilling and they have gained a lot of publicity for their cause. They occupied a field belonging to and needed by a local farmer.
The problem here, as was pointed out in the Balcombe open thread, is our government. Where is the Prime Minister who should be bristling with indignation about this bunch of thugs interfering with something he claims is important to the UK? Where is law and order or even justice? Where is the leadership which Cameron is so desperate to show?
@ Richard Drake:
Meantime I'd remind people that Anita Anand used to present the Daily Politics with Andrew Neil and my hunch is that she would as a result be more open to policy sceptics that used to appear there, like James Delingpole, than some others in the Beeb. It's only a guess but please at this crucial juncture let's not tar all with the same brush. The very word deniers should make us think twice about doing that to anyone in any group. And Anand clearly got someone talking sense about shale onto prime time in the UK. She would have had to put the 'other side' as a price of doing that and that's actually quite right, just as Neil did with Ed Davey. Mockery can make us feel smarter than we are. We don't know is frequently a good motto.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard, she accused someone who talked about their experience in a way that was opposed to the current hysteria of being a "cheerleader". Do anti-frackers get called "cheerleaders?"
I have seen endless examples of this kind of "journalism" on the ABC. For some reason, at the slightest sign of a chink in the armour, some people imagine that it is a beginning of a new dawn. Or they think that a particular journalist is worthy of praise.
Don't kid yourself.
"In BBC-land,"
I suggest BBC in "la-la land
Peter Walsh
Be careful, considering the furore over "B*ngo-B*ngo" land, your "la-la land" might get wilfully misinterpreted as "Al**h-Al**h land". Although surprisingly not inappropriate for BBC.
Ed
In the spirit of non-mockery, I will refrain from comment here, but will just relay verbatim the recent words of Vivienne Westwood, one of our most senior and respected fashion designers, on arrival at Balcombe, as reported by the Telegraph:
"During their ‘Solidarity Sunday’ today in the West Sussex village of Balcombe, thousands of eco-warriors"
Thousands? Where are they?
They don't even merit a mention on the rolling news chanels so far today.
Perhaps the cameramen are awaiting delivery of panoramic lenses in order to do justice in reporting the countless hordes at Balcombe. The lenses currently in use seem only to be able to deliver to us tight shots from cameras that seem incapable of panning.
Meanwhile, Cameron is left looking foolish and far from statesmanlike with his skirts hitched up upon the kitchen table in abject terror of a mouse that squeeked instead of roared.
@Athelstan
"The UK administration, was so concerned about regulation, bureaucratic niceties and safety that, the hydraulic fracturing of its enormous shale gas plays.................................... never happened.
Someone, the greens in cahoots with the politicians and "big oil"[Gazprom, Statoil] - put our lights out."
But think of the grandchildren: the shale gas isn't going anywhere. If the protesters manage to stop fracking now, it just means future generations will benefit, assuming common sense eventually prevails.
- That Fracking report is 41:35-50:00 mins into the BBC 5 Live prog
- She is just naive rather than malicious
- farmer earns $10-15K month from it
- The farmer is clearly pro-fracking so she shouldn't be surprised (Marcellus Shale)..
- "We started a long time ago, After I read up I didn't have any fears."
"Are you able to grow anything on that land is it now all industry ?" God she must be poorly prepared. Doesn't she know about the process ? (maybe gets background from activist emailers etc.) that you set it up and then they go just using 1 acre for the rig etc.
- She pushes again on water "ooh ist's so water intensive ?"
- Farmer explains no problem with water, cos the frackers got it from creek and hauled some in 5 years ago and mostly. Now they mostly recycle the water and truck it to new sites
- "the cheeleader" comment - is just her poor use of English , it's tone is not malicious
"no dash for cash camp" is that another fumble, "for gas" she means
- Oh people asked why USA gas got so cheap. The best explanation I read was that The US infrastructure is quite different from UK, where we can put it into pipes and sell it anywhere. They often get gluts as rather than build huge new pipelines, companies just try to sell it locally.
"There's several hundred people here, very colourful collection of tents, the smell of wood smoke mixing with the stench from the portaloos..."
Let the "enviromentalists" stay there as long as they want, and leave all means of exit open (apparently there's a railway station nearby) but blockade all the access roads to prevent delivery of supplies of all kind. And where did they get the wood? If they pick up the merest stick on that land, throw the book at them. That's should surely be a more effective role for the police to do than "keeping order".
Alex Cull on Aug 18, 2013 at 2:57 PM
"Vivienne Westwood: God knows what's under there, and probably nothing - it might all be sending up stuff into the environment for no good at all, for all we know. We need a proper debate - you can't rush these things through, change legislation so that councils can't do anything about it. And you've just absolutely got to stop, because all it's doing is storing up trouble for the future, if we do do it, especially the environment - we're all going to fry, eventually, not so long, even, but also economically, it's just going to - all these mad weather patterns and things - we've had a bit of that this year even here, extreme cold then very hot, and - but it can be much worse. Anyway, and it's terrible in the rest of the world, the ice caps melting and - we're in for trouble, but especially financial trouble soon, if we do it. I mean, it's mad. Thank you...
1) Vivienne is correct, God does know what is under there. But he won't tell us, which keeps Geophysicists in employment. They, with other scientists and engineers do work out what is there, but they cannot proceed if drilling is not done. I used to be surprised that the Greens could not see the illogicality of their stance, but not now. Logic is not one of their strengths!
2) It doesn't sound if Vivienne knows much about this fraccing business. I am sure I heard Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, making the same point ('we' don't know anything) on her local radio a few weeks ago.
3) I have found a lot of information about the subject on the Internet, and understood it! Much of the Science is at school level, so there should be no reason for ignorance, especially when they manage to get on the radio or TV.
4) I realise that every new well, every new field, is a new development, just as in a medical operation: nothing is guaranteed, nothing is certain. There are unknowns, there are risks, but that is what Engineering is all about! Yet here we have Green Activists who want a debate, yet have boasted that they 'know nothing'. How can you debate with the ignorant with any hope of rational discussion? Yes, how can you?
5) Maybe the inevitability of higher fuel bills and power cuts will bring the British public to their senses!
Good points, RC. Perhaps they should be reminded of how their ancestors opposed rail (which they now love) because it would frighten the cows and stop them from giving milk.
So who, I ask in anguish on my knees (not least because of being less young than I was - but I digress) - who is advocating for Mollie and her calf when the Greens put through their latest high-speed rail proposal?
"No answer" was the cold reply.
Alex said,
"one of our most senior and respected fashion designers"
Right.
Ms. Westwood's muddled utterances on any and on most things but particularly when she drifts and vacuously into passing comment on matters green, of climate catastrophe. For me, a fleeting moment - invokes and conjures a memory - of what is euphemistically named 'the Scottish play', 1 scene one - "A desert place" - where Viv would have fitted in nicely with the other ladies.
On fashion, far be it for me to offer valid comment.
I can only offer an onlookers opinion.
In that, the world of haute couture - is one of vastly overpaid mannequins being hung with outrageously bizarre tat. Shoddy, for which people, who really should know better, the 'glitterati' expend astonishing amounts of faux stupefaction - whilst the charlatans, those rapacious courtesans of design in the fashion industry, divest them [their gullible audience] of vast sums of money, which they [the purchasers] did not deserve to be in possession of in the first place.
As it is said, A fool and his[her] money are easily parted.
If Viv is one of our best, then I can only emphasize and repeat what I have just written.
I'm reminded of the gentleman who thought he would improve his odds at Russian Roulette by filling all the chambers.
Just been watching a report, on BBC TV news on iPlayer, from Andy Moore in Balcombe:
Renewable "reserves"? I'm not too well up on the subject - can we be said to have "reserves" of renewable energy? Where is it stored?
Quite frankly I cant take your site seriously if you quote this DM article. You have just shown yourselves to be involved in nothing more than an excited little circle jerk.
If you actually wanted to use facts and debate this issue you would know this this is a half truth aimed to mislead, excite the readership and get lots of hits (the DM's online business model btw.)
'Fracking' (a nebulous term for several methods of unconventional oil/gas extraction), originated in 1947 however the current controversy is based around the modern process ( certainly less than 20 years old and having several variants) of high volume slickwater horizontal hydraulic fracturing.
Having now listened to the R5 fracking interview with the Pennsylvania farmer, I was grateful that Anita allowed him to expand on his points without interruption - especially when he explained that the groundwater was 150 feet down, but the well was 6-7000 feet down, and that, apart from the sheer distance between the two (over a mile), the well was triple-lined in steel with concrete between the layers. That kinda shut up Anita's flow. Wonderful!
Athelstan, in all fairness, Ms Westwood is pretty good at what she does. A few years ago I went to an exhibition of her work of the last 30+ years with someone who understands fashion, and more importantly, the engineering of good clothes, and she was very impressed - although she didn't like it. It is a mistake to treat someone like her, who has risen to, and stayed at, the top of a very competitive profession like an idiot.
People who work in the creative arts almost always fall for every "cause" going.
There is some interesting work on why this is so, but this is not the place. It's what they do, and it doesn't mean that they are dumb (although quite a few of them are). Suffice it to say that it is no accident that so few creative types are conservative and rational. But, do not make the mistake (and insult) of claiming that it means that they are stupid.
Mr JH
For your information 'slickwater' (water + guar gum + sand) was first used for hydraulic fracturing in 1997. It has been used on a large scale together with directional drilling since 2002. Experience has shown that it is the most effective fracturing agent for very low porosity rock formation at great depths. Other agents (e. g. nitrogen or hydrocarbon based) are usually used for shallower depths and/or more permeable rocks.
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) means fracturing rocks by hydraulic pressure and is not at all a "nebulous term".
johanna
I am amazed by your defence of Westwood?
Only an idiot would "almost always fall for every "cause" going."
Only an idiot would speak out on a subject he/she knew virtually nothing about.
Aug 18, 2013 at 7:35 PM johanna,
Nowhere, did I imply that, Ms. Westwood is an idiot, on the contrary in her trade she has demonstrated a remarkable longevity, so she must be doing something right.
However, when the remarkable Ms. Westwood drifts into sermonizing on matters in which through her discourse she amply manifests an ill-considered ignorance - and worse, couched in the banalities, language and jargon of the unsophisticated eco-warrior.
Perhaps, if she took the time to read round the basics and to attempt to properly understand the crux. That of, the supposition of man made CO2 is speculated to be warming the planet. Maybe then, to realize that, the arguments put forwards by the warriors of green do not stand up to even the merest scrutiny, perhaps then, she'd understand.
Furthermore johanna, in my [above] piece, I intimated that the fools are the buyers and not the designers. But would you not agree with me, that, the money involved at the high end of the fashion industry - its rewards, payments and abusive drug addled culture - is an obscenity.
The Mail article makes the RSPB position on fracking look pretty stupid. Combine that with wind turbines on their land and you have the makings of a good story...
Small error in Mail article: incorrect about 2000 onshore wells in last 30 years, its 1065 since 1980 according to DECC records (2000 in total since 1909).
Anyone who accepts the pronouncements of a fashion designer on matters other than fashion is hopelessly blinded by the cult of celebrity so central to the BBC.
Like the best parodies, "Absolutely Fabulous" was heavily based on real people.
Mind you the fashion business is a huge self sustaining fantasy anyway, so not all that different from CAGW.
The best way to outflank the greenie protestors is to start drilling in lots of sites all over the UK at the same time. As there are relatively few of these protesting critters they could never cover more than a couple of sites.
Thank you "tty" you have proven my point entirely. The DM article quoted at the top is utter bollocks by your own admission. Fracking as under debate, cannot have been used for "50 years" showing this is indeed nothing more than a circle jerk..
Alex Cull: 'Renewable "reserves"? I'm not too well up on the subject - can we be said to have "reserves" of renewable energy? Where is it stored?'
Surely you know! Cucumbers (vide Swift's Gulliver's travels)
SandyS
Thanks for the link to
It's at 32min 30sec in that video, so you can have them click right on the admission.
'No-one yet knows, but we're willing to test and examine evidence to find out.'
is, I suggest from bitter experience, a better one (and you may have an even better one), simply because baldly admitting your own current but temporary ignorance to those who would choose to be ignorant gives them a propaganda weapon for argument or soundbite repeats out of all proportion to the discussion.
?
CRU Hubert Lamb Centenary
Re Accuracy of DM report, what report in any newspaper is factually correct? Just because the Daily Mail has a different view from the Guardian it doesn't make either right. Although I suspect most regular readers here are aware of that and only those with blinkers regard the Guardian as a source of truth and light - environmentally friendly light at that.
Mr JH:
Hydraulic fracturing was first performed in 1947. Since 1980 in the uk onshore 1065 wells have been drilled (source: DECC). Approximately 20% of those have been hydraulically fractured (source: Royal Society). The DM article rightly gives an example of a producing field where many hydraulic fracture processes have been run. No harm to the environment, no earthquakes, no pollution of groundwater.
Trying to pretend that "fracking" for shale gas is somehow a different sort of hydraulic fracturing is just plain nonsense and misdirection. Perhaps you would like to discuss UK onshore coal bed methane and all the earthquakes, groundwater pollution and so forth that haven't happened with that?
These are facts, as plain and simple as the nose on your face. What are you talking about?
The only substantive risk to aquifers is a failure to properly case and cement any well that is drilled. That is any well, irrespective of whether it was drilled for oil, gas, shale gas, coal bed methane or geothermal energy. And that risk is strongly regulated and managed which is why, despite over a thousand onshore UK wells and over 200 wells subject to hydraulic fracture in the UK onshore there are NO documented cases of environmental harm resulting. The same is also true in the USA - the EPA has admitted there are NO proven cases of groundwater contamination in the USA from shale gas drilling and fracking.
If you think there is a case to answer, provide a reference to, say, a court case in the USA where fracking was shown to be the cause of harm, or a link to an EPA prosecution. Perhaps you can find an example in the UK where HSE or DECC had to take action against an oil company following hydraulic fracturing? Or an example of groundwater pollution? Look forward to hearing from you when you give us a specific example of harm. And please specify what is "different" about fracking for shale gas as oposed to any other hydraulic fracturing, carried out on a routine basis by oil companies for over 50 years.
SandyS: The only factual error I can see in the DM article is the number of wells drilled in the last 30 years in the UK onshore. They quote 2,000, which is actually the total number of all wells drilled in the UK onshore ever (since 1909). Since 1980 the number of wells drilled is 1065. The factual error is not material to the point or conclusions of the article.
So what are these "factual errors" that are being referred to? Anyone like to cite a specific example?
Phillip Foster "can we be said to have "reserves" of renewable energy? Where is it stored?'"
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind...
This adds scale to the fracking argument:
http://exploreshale.org/
This comment was posted below the Carswell article. I think its very good and so I am reposting it here:
That's pretty much the current political situation in a nutshell.