Monday
Aug112014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Public thumbs up for shale gas
Aug 11, 2014 Energy: gas The UK Onshore Operators group has released the results of an opinion poll on shale gas, finding that 57% are in favour of going ahead, with only 16% against. Whether said survey is any more reliable than the windfarm one that claimed that the public were overwhelmingly in favour of carpeting the countryside with turbines is anyone's guess. But it should be good for a headline or two.
Reader Comments (13)
Bishop
Not hard to answer these positively
Q2. “How much do you personally agree with each of the following statements on a 0-
10 scale where 0 means you do not agree at all and 10 means you agree completely?
a) “The UK needs to use a range of energy sources to meet the country's energy
needs.”
b) “Britain needs to be able to produce its own energy so it isn't reliant on gas from
other countries.”
This is a bit of a long question for a survey
Q3. “Natural gas from shale is found both onshore and offshore, typically a mile or
more underground. For the rest of the survey please answer in relation to onshore
shale only. Producing natural gas from shale uses a technique called hydraulic
fracturing (often called fracking). This involves creating tiny fractures in the rock
deep underground, freeing the gas. Fractures are created by pumping a fluid
containing 99.5% water and sand and 0.5% approved non-hazardous chemicals down
at high pressure. The British Geological Survey has estimated that the UK has 1,300
trillion cubic feet of natural gas from shale. If just 10% of this could be recovered, it
would be enough to meet the UK’s demand for natural gas for nearly 50 years or to
heat the UK's homes for over 100 years. From what you know, do you think the UK
should produce natural gas from shale?”
Overall, 57% support the production of natural gas from shale in the UK, compared
with 16% who oppose and 27% who are undecided.
• In every region of the country, at least 52% support production, and in no region do
more than 20% oppose production.
• Amongst male respondents, 67% support and 14% oppose production. For female
respondents, the figures are 47% and 18%, respectively.
More detail here
http://www.ukoog.org.uk/images/ukoog/pdfs/Public_attitudes_to_production_of_natural_gas_from_shale_BRIEFING.pdf
The BBC and the rest of the MSM insist on adding the adjective 'controversial' every time they mention fracking. Controversial in whose eyes? They should either drop this deliberately misleading word or qualify it by stating it is controversial as far as the greens are concerned.
When there isn't a continuous stream of media distortion, the public are quite pragmatic. Windmills were sold as free, clean and invisible, whereas they're expensive industrial machines, littering the most dramatic landscapes. Fracking is portrayed as polluting, ugly and visually horrific, whereas the reality is very different. Once the hype dies down, the public are left with the simple choice - do they want reliable energy or not?
I was woken up to the dulcet tones of MP Caroline Lucas, ranting about this on AM so it must have hit the spot. Personally though, in terms of addressing the energy crunch shale could well prove to be a "curate's egg" in terms of expectation. The only answer in the short term is new coal stations ( as in Germany) sincethe crisis is next year not a decade hence - that would be controversial.
Q3, on which the headline is based, is from the Sir Humphrey school of opinion polling.
Interesting questions and I find question 5 the most interesting .
Although over all the majority approve (42% approval), the change in the law, some area are less approving than others (e.g. Eastern UK ~36%).
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Off-Topic-ish
Also of note today, according to gridwatch (http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/), at 09:45 GMT, the windmills are supplying approximately 15.93% (5.35GW) of UK electricity requirement. This must be a record or something.
That makes a change from their usual 0-2%.
Serial enhanced gas recovery knockers The Press Association dutifully churn another press release.
They also dutifully drop in Gweenpiece's response:
and Dr. Lucas gets some too:
Yet again showing the sort of balance that subjectively they've applied to shale gas stories in the past /sarc which are piped out to the overwhelmingly pisspoor Gannet Media local rags across the land.
The beeb ran a story back in May using a different opinion poll:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27480950
This was headlined as 'less than 50% support fracking'. But in fact, it showed significantly more people were in favour of fracking rather than against.
I expect that the University's Geography department is a hot-bed of green opinion, so the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle between the two surveys.
NickM
using my own highly unscientific polling method - challenging people who say :
It causes earthquakes
It pollutes drinking water
It's radioactive
It creates more CO2 than "other stuff"
It damages house prices
It causes headaches
It won't reduce gas prices
It hurts fluffy things
The trucks destroy infrastructure
etc., etc....
I'd say that the disinformation and scaremongering about enhanced gas extraction from shale has been remarkably effective. It's not on most folks radar really - and they form opinions trivially from what they pick up from the bulk of media coverage - which is, and largely remains either overtly or insidiously negative as the the Green Blob pumps extraordinary amounts of toxic PR sludge into the public consciousness....
I just wonder exactly how much coverage a pro-fracking article WOULD be given.... tends to be few and far between in my experience.
Who gives a rat's *** what Caroline Lucas says? She's a tiny tiny minority, who's likely to lose her seat in 2015 leaving the Greens wiped out. She's as insignificant as a gnat on a horse's behind. It's only the BBC who give her any airtime, and only as a mouthpiece to voice their own bias.
"Producing natural gas from shale uses a technique called hydraulic fracturing (often called fracking)" strikes me as the most fair and balanced summary description you could have. It is not controversial (except in environmentalists' minds), and not unconventional as it's been happening in the US for ~50 years.
The question is: do we want a reliable domestic gas supply, generating tax receipts, with wells that, once established, are small and can be well hidden to make them discrete, or large swathes of rural land and near-shore ocean covered with unreliable wind turbines, consuming taxes via subsidies, that stand out like sore thumbs and have now well documented health impacts?
Trefjohn: How absolutely right you are and especially in the light of today's news about the shut-down of the nukes. WE NEED NEW COAL. There is no other option. The practical issues of shale gas production haven't even been addressed publicly. "Fracking" is just one version of well stimulation which, by definition, means tight pay zones with low deliveries. I won't go on about the thousands of wells because I know the reactions I'll get from the usual head-in-the sand posters.
Left Foot Forward is trying to run its own counter-poll in conjunction with Greenpeace here:
Poll article
I'm sure they'd appreciate the views of readers here....