Tuesday
Mar182014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Kickoff at Airth
Mar 18, 2014 Energy: gas The public inquiry into Dart Energy's plans to extract coalbed methane at Airth on the Firth of Forth kicks off today. As one might expect, Friends of the Earth Scotland are busy trying to mislead the public, sticking a #fracking hashtag on their tweets so as to kid on that fracking is an issue in the inquiry. In fact the planning permission doesn't involve fracking at all and I seem to remember the Dart guys telling me that the coal seams at Airth are unsuitable for deploying the technique.
We will watch with interest.
Reader Comments (28)
Thats why I asked what the difference is between the two yesterday.
It is about 36 years since I first came across a member of Friends of the Earth. I haven't seen anything other than misleading information come from them since that time.
On the subject of energy:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26617722
The good old BBC is confusing CO2 with pollution...again and also using the standard view into a low sun to make water look like smoke...again. I particularly liked this quote,
'However, those in favour of more investment in green energy are likely to be disappointed. Environmentalists say it could mean fewer wind turbines or solar farms being constructed.'
Excellent, a plan with no drawbacks. Aside from the usual deliberate lies in the article it does acknowledge the burden that green policies are placing on the less well off.
Friends of the Earth like talking to journalists. Why doesn't a journalist ask them the reason for the #fracking hashtag? Either FOE (and what a good acronym that is) don't understand fracking or, having turned "fracking" into a boo-word they are deliberately trying to mislead the public.
Of course, it is possible that some of the FOE are both ignorant and mendacious.
Coal bed methane and shale gas are two totally different resource types. Coal, is made of carbon and may be stuffed full of methane depending upon its maturity (pressure temperature burial history). It is not permeable but is in fact quite porous - lots of little holes that are filled with water, methane and other gasses. A long horizontal well drilled along a coal bed will produce sufficient methane without fracking.
Shale gas is at the other end of the spectrum where shale has relatively low carbon content, say less than 10%, and the concentration of methane in the rock is low. It is therefore necessary to frack the shale to create a large contact interface with the well to produce commercial flow rates.
Coal bed methane production is benign and I'm not sure why anyone sees the need to have a public enquiry.
Roy
See Phillip Bratby's comment (which I wholeheartedly endorse) above. Though in their case it's not exactly lying; it's simply saying whatever it takes to further the eco-fascist cause.
Greenpeace are as bad as indeed (I am coming to believe) are the majority of those, like Sweeney, who claim to be climate scientists but whose academic qualifications do not support their claim.
The end (de-industrialisation, post-imperial guilt, whatever) justifies any means.
[Snip - venting]
We did frack at Airth in 1993 but it wasn't tight shale.
At the time I heard many anecdotes from locals about gas seeping out from the fields. Supposedly attempts at family barbecues had turned into Fields of Fire, and so on. So I imagine anyone looking for emissions/contamination/gas leaks etc will find them easily. My understanding was that commercial extraction of CBM/CSG made the area safer than it would be anyway with random leaks. But I'm no expert on that particular topic.
I can only imagine what the media will make of it.
[Snip - response to snipped comment]
Big green is all about the big lie. Of course they seek to deceive and confuse regarding anything to do with energy:
They lie that wind power helps anything.
They lie that fracking is dangerous.
They lie that the climate is changing in dangerous ways.
The only thing they don't lie about is that they want more power and money.
Martin Durkin is often as bad as the people he criticises for extrapolating way beyond the facts to provide a sagging bolster to his somewhat poisoned point of view. That green nazi essay is just another bundle of heroic leaps from coincidence to evildoing. I've not forgotten him slagging off the NHS as a statist monopoly when in fact anyone can go private if they like: The NHS remit being only to provide a basic and cheap safety net for those who cannot. Good grief I'm a greenie too if I like long bracing walks in the country, dislike belching factory smoke and not that keen on uber-urban expansion - it doesn't mean I'm going to start to kill Jews or perform human experiments! It is useful to note that industrialists really do ritually pollute the air and land when nobody is looking and fishermen really do slaughter dolphins while catching tuna without giving a rats arse about it, etc, etc while only folk like greenpeace or FOE stand up to them for little or no financial reward.
Having seen firsthand just what pollution industries do when they can get away with it I can understand the inbuilt suspicion of it from greens. Alas we need industry for continued prosperity and so we need energy. And I could easily argue with a lot of salient facts that the Tories and Blairites along with their irresponsible capitalist brethern in the City have done more harm to UK industry than any true lefties or greens. If anyone bothered to read the RSPB report on fracking, they only concluded that it needed proper safeguards and monitoring which wasn't there with the current regulations but they did also concede that it was good for growth in the UK.
But I'm really not sure how Greenpeace squares it's local CHP plans that must perforce rely on gas with it's pathological opposition to obtaining that gas from our own reserves just because it will inevitably mean less wind or solar power. I'd say windpower here has already reached it's peak anyway and solar panels aren't really much good in Falkirk or Fife.
Or you could accept that there are what Chandra calls "externalities". To whatever we do to make our lives a bit more liveable than subsistence farming. In this case dolphins happen to be "collateral damage". Just because we choose to anthropomorphise them ... like polar bears ...
Durkin's article is grounded in fact. If you don't like Durkin (quite irrelevant if what he says is accurate) then find another source.
Why should anyone read a RSPB report on fracking? What would they know? Will you be bothering to read Dart Energy's guide to birds of Britain?
Of course there are proper safeguards and monitoring already. Of course any activist group will "conclude" (before they even start) that "more" is needed. That is not news.
Why is it "venting" to compare Ecofascists to the Nazis?
They do it all the time by calling those who do not share their catastrophic views as "deniers".
Bitter&Twisted: Let me answer that for you, without even having seen the post that was snipped. It's venting because the host says so. Simple as that. Conclusive as that. Move on. There'll be other opportunities to discuss how we deal with 'denier'. Matt Briggs for example took a fairly robust line in It’s Time To Lynch Those Who Deny Climate Skepticism two days ago. But this obviously wasn't the time, the place or the right way. It's hardly worth asking.
Euan: "Coal bed methane production is benign"
I'm not sure that is true. It depends how deep the coal seem is. How deep are the coal seems. If they are shallow they are closer to ground water.
In Alberta CBM does involve fracking (which is fine by me).
" In some cases the wells are drilled horizontally and the coal seams are often stimulated or "fractured" to make the CBM flow more freely. Standard drilling and extraction technology is used or adapted as conditions require."
"In 2012, nearly all coalbed methane wells drilled in Alberta have targeted the thinner coal seams in the Horseshoe Canyon (ultimate gas in place 179 Tcf) and Belly River coal zones along the Calgary-Red Deer corridor. Wells targeting these seams tend to produce gas with little or no water, with production referred to as "dry CBM". The first commercial production of CBM in Alberta was from these coals, and they constitute the majority of CBM reserves booked. The depth range of these coals is 200 to 800 m.
The remaining CBM wells drilled have targeted the deeper Mannville coals (ultimate gas in place 321 Tcf). These coals tend to be thicker, deeper, and more continuous with substantial saline (salt) water production. The depth range of these coals is 900 to 1,500 m.
Most CBM wells in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation are vertically drilled wells, whereas most wells in the Mannville Group are horizontal wells."
http://www.energy.alberta.ca/naturalgas/754.asp
Bitter&Twisted - to add to Richard's remark:
Because Nazism is too much of a cliche.
Because Nazism was fundamentally a statist, nationalist movement while watermelon totalitarianism may have statist methods but it's fundamentally international.
Because Nazism preached economic growth while the raison d'etre of watermelon totalitarianism is deindustrialization.
I think the real key with all the intentional sloppiness of terminology (coal-seam vs fracked shale, etc.) and moving goalposts (CO2 -> carbon -> carbon pollution -> pollution generally) is to ensure that all carbon-bearing fossil fuels can be demonized equally.
Mar 18, 2014 at 7:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterJEM
Why don't the 'enviro' organisations try and shout down genuine in operation North sea oil/gas rigs then?? They are much easier to get to than Russian rigs in the Arctic and have been 'polluting' for decades now.
Mike Jackson:
Yes factories would pollute "ritually", as a matter of course, automatically; unless stopped from doing so. Not because they want to but because it costs money not to and if everyone else is allowed to do it then the one who doesn't is financially disadvantaged. Pure economics! Have a look at Chinese pollution to remind yourself that there is only less pollution in the West because of legislation preventing it. Sure it's a fine line between regulation and over-regulation and if we had been so anal about it previously then the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened, but everyone benefits from clean air.
You should be more skeptical about Durkin. His diatribe contains only facts entirely irrelevant to his unhinged argument which was to link nazis to greens but there was no credible link other than noticing that the nazis liked the countryside. Well I imagine almost everyone on the planet enjoys the countryside. This extremely spurious correlation is also easily brought down by the fact that the nazis were very obviously and extremely pro-industry. Quite why Heidegger was brought in to the argument is unclear: Never has any philosopher been able to move anything greater than a good crap.
I'm also happy to inform you also that it is possible not to slaughter dolphins and still make a good living as a tuna fisherman and that is largely what happens now, which is why you can easily buy dolphin-friendly tuna. It didn't actually take much to change things; just a little less stupidity, which 'collateral damage' is often an excuse for. I know it's easy to get angry about the green menace to energy supplies but let's not go over the top here.
kellydown:
"Why should anyone read a RSPB report on fracking? What would they know?"
Well that's what I thought too - much like the WWF telling us about energy policy, but the pamphlet seemed reasonably well-researched and largely even-handed. Like it or not, these people have political influence now. On windmills they write:
"We are involved in scrutinising hundreds of wind farm applications every year to determine their likely wildlife impacts, and we ultimately object to about 6% of those we engage with, because they threaten bird populations. Where developers are willing to adapt plans to reduce impacts to acceptable levels we withdraw our objections, in other cases we robustly oppose them."
I'd guess they have a say in fracking applications too, so they have a duty to actually consider it carefully.
I think I'm with Walport here in that there is some red meat being thrown out with some posts and it exposes a fair degree of nastiness from some commenters. I doubt it's helpful in dispelling the idea of spittle-flecked, right-wing, conspiracy theorists. Anger is fine but don't just make stuff up and call it a fact. That's what is causing all the problems with energy policy.
James, fracking happens way underground, unlike wind turbines, not in birds' habitat. There is no more reason for the RSPB to be listened to on fracking than on the channel tunnel or large hadron collider.
JamesG: "Have a look at Chinese pollution to remind yourself that there is only less pollution in the West because of legislation preventing it"
Tell that to Paris.
As for China, a lot of their problem is cars (like Paris) and the following policy:
"For 30 years, from 1950 to 1980, the Chinese government provided free coal for home and office winter heating systems for anyone living north of the Huai River and Qinling Mountain range. Central planners chose this demarcation because the Huai River follows the January 0°C (32°F) average temperature line. The policy has had a long-lasting impact, because so many of the long-lived heating systems remain in place. Coal is no longer free in the north, but it is still subsidized, while there are still very few cities in the south with heating systems like those in the north.
Though the policy's purpose was to provide warmth in winter to those who needed it most, the result—the new research shows—was a dramatic rise in mortality due to cardiorespiratory illness."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/07/130708-coal-burning-shortens-lives-in-china/
@ Bruce - I stand corrected. I don't know the specifics at Airth, but on the Firth of Forth you are close to the sea and to sea level. The coal mines used to stretch out under the sea. As a student I was once down a coal mine in that area - can't recall which one. I'd be surprised if many were dependent on groundwater for drinking water.
JamesG, if you think the RSPB report is balanced and fair then have a read of a "peer review" of it by James Verdon at http://frackland.blogspot.co.uk/
Euan - the field we were in at Airth was within sight of the Forth, near Letham and the Pow Burn. Elevation given as 8 metres. The ground was quite spongy. I remember a big truck coming in one day and rolling around like it was driving over a waterbed.
To repeat, I was told at the time that there had always been gas seeping from the fields. Anyone alleging that new activity causes it needs to compare with past gas levels, not just flaunt the existence of gas leaks as proof of CSG Evil.
And media needs to educate themselves and ask that question, not just reprint FOE press releases.
Kelly, when you say "we" does that mean you work for Dart? I used to run a company that amongst other things did gas isotope analysis. On occasions now I wish I hadn't thrown in the towel in 2002. I actually know little about CBM (see comments above) or the geology of the Firth of Forth.
What I do know is that concerns about ground water contamination need to be taken in context - is there a risk that an aquifer that supplies drinking water may become contaminated? Or is there a risk that an aquifer feeding surface springs may be contaminated?
I'd also guess that old mine workings and their subsequent subsidence may release large quantities of gas into the "water table" and this gas could take decades / centuries to reach the surface. Sedimentary basins leak gas (CO2 and CH4) to surface all the time.
I am interested in bringing "objective sense" to the environmental debate. Happy to be in touch.
E
No, as far as I know Dart didn't exist then - I think they are recent offshoot of Australian CSG firm Arrow. (Dart, Arrow - geddit?).
The CSG interest was by a family firm called Hillfarm Coal. I think Dart bought their interests.
I was with a service company doing some work for them. We did fracking but back then it was not "controversial" as it is obligatory to describe it now. The locals were friendly and glad to see us. If the people objecting now really are locals they must be suffering severe amnesia.
This is from memory - any googling of Dart and Airth is hopelessly polluted by pages of anti-fracking links.
We can chat over coffee in Aberdeen sometime but I'm an operations person and no subsurface expert.
http://www.oilvoice.com/n/Dart_Energy_welcomes_start_of_Public_Inquiry_into_Airth_Coal_Bed_Methane_Development/733df2dd6486.aspx#gsc.tab=0
Kelly, I see that it was Dart who wanted the enquiry to expedite their planning application. Local and national governments have really got themselves into a mess worshiping instead of deriding environmental campaigners. Do we want an oil and gas industry or not? Do we want transport, heat and light or not?
I live in the West end. You can make a wild guess at my gmail address if you want to discuss this crazy world.