Bishop Hill A big day for shale gas
Jan 26, 2015 Climate: Parliament Energy: gas Today sees Parliament consider an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill that would introduce a moratorium on unconventional gas wells in the UK. To coincide with the vote, the Environmental Audit Committee has produced one of its normal sham reports saying that industrial activity will all end in disaster, based as always on a series of interviews with environmentalists and pretty much nobody else. In fact, as Emily Gosden in the Telegraph amusingly notes, they have outdone themselves today:
The EAC also cites evidence from Paul Mobbs, a self-described “freelance campaigner, activist, environmental consultant, author, lecturer and engineer” and former “electrohippie”, who runs a “dysorganisation” called the ‘Free Range Activism Website’.
It's good to know that the views of the electrohippies are not being overlooked.
I gather that the commmittee's chairman Joan Whalley has been all over the BBC this morning, no doubt given the usual free pass by the eco-nutters who present programmes for the corporation.
I'll update this page throughout the day as news comes in.
Bishop Hill
James Verdon notes how Whalley and her colleagues have weighed up the evidence.
The EAC report cites the "Frack Free Balcombe Residents Association":
"The Frack Free Balcombe Resident’s Association raised concerns that 'wells or fractures intersecting with natural faults could easily become conduits for leaking gases and liquids'
but completely ignores the evidence provided by myself and Professor Kendall, which provides extensive documentation from peer-reviewed scientific literature that this is extremely unlikely to happen.
Bishop Hill
INEOS seem a bit annoyed with the EAC:
The UK needs Shale gas and we know that INEOS has the skills to safely extract it from the ground without damaging the environment. We have committed to public consultation and to share 6% of the entire revenue from any of our Shale gas wells with the local community. Without Shale gas, UK manufacturing is starting to collapse so we need to kick start the Shale gas industry, not put it on hold”.
Bishop Hill
The debate in the House of Commons is now under way here. Julian Huppert vocal in favour of banning fracking, Tim Yeo speaking against.
16:30 My impression is that Labour are going to get some regulations to console their supporters. I'm guessing that means that the banning amendments will fail.
Reader Comments (89)
She was on the Today programme insisting that climate change was so important that fracking should not proceed. She seemed unable to grasp that renewable energy alone would not keep the lights on and a backup was needed. We needed to ensure secure and low cost supplies of gas for this reason.
She thought we could burn gas as a last resort if we captured the carbon, glossing over the fact that carbon capture does not exist .She is obviously a true believer, unable to employ common sense or logic.
Note the members of the EAC:
Member Party
Joan Walley (Chair) Labour
Peter Aldous Conservative
Neil Carmichael Conservative
Martin Caton Labour
Katy Clark Labour
Zac Goldsmith Conservative
Mike Kane Labour
Mark Lazarowicz Labour (Co-op)
Caroline Lucas Green
Caroline Nokes Conservative
Dr Matthew Offord Conservative
Dan Rogerson Liberal Democrat
Mrs Caroline Spelman Conservative
Mr Mark Spencer Conservative
Dr Alan Whitehead Labour
Simon Wright Liberal Democrat
The question is: what engineering/scientific/industry qualifications/experience do these members have?
Answers on back of a stamp please.
Example at random, Dr Alan Whitehead, go About Alan Whitehead
I heard the Farming Today item. To be fair, this programme usually invites balancing views, but this time they did not and Joan Whalley had free rein to spout nonsense without opposition.
I cannot help feeling that if the government put the same energy into fracking as they do to cover the countryside in houses and wind turbines there would be wells in operation now.
Unsure about what an electrohippy does, I took a look at an electrohippy collective website.
Smashing shop window fronts in Seattle seems to be considered one of their greatest achievments, though some 1970's football hooligans could make similar claims.
Considering that the actual fracturing process is very brief (under 1 second in duration), I am not understanding why, once it is in production, a well that has been enhanced by fracturing is any different from any other production well. As long as the well casing has not been breached, the result is exactly like any other conventional well once it goes into production.
They seem to act as if they believe that "fracking" is some sort of ongoing process that occurs for the life of the well, or something.
I was under the impression that "peer-review" was the gold standard in climate science.
So Ms Whalley can explain why the Frack Free Balcombe Residents Association (which as we all know was nothing of the sort) gets to be quoted and your evidence doesn't.
And perhaps Andrew Neil would like to have the pair of you on the Daily Politics. I suggest someone ring him and suggest it
Joan Wally.....
Don't hold your breath. I watched the papers review last night on both SKY and BBC world last night, when the lack of understanding on this issue and anything to do with AGW was on show. However, remember that every party will have a green tinge in coming months and the collapse in oil prices makes shale less of a viable option in the short term. Natalie Bennett's self immolation yesterday by unwisely parading her manifesto in front of the only objective journalist on mainstream television, Andrew Neil - may well have placed a modicum of doubt in MPs minds that the Greens are simply bonkers.
Cameron needs to follow Obama, the Greens favourite politician, who preaches CAGW yet wholeheartedly supports fracking.
Jamesp posted the following link on unthreaded:-
Marcellus: U.K. may be out of natural gas by April
It would appear our Parliamentarians file away such information as "not wanted on voyage"
Oil & Gas UK has issues a response headed: "Ill-informed political battle over fracking is threatening one of the UK’s most vital industries"
http://www.oilandgasuk.co.uk/news/news.cfm/newsid/1168
Oil & Gas UK has issues a response headed: "Ill-informed political battle over fracking is threatening one of the UK’s most vital industries"
http://www.oilandgasuk.co.uk/news/news.cfm/newsid/1168
This is a blog post by a geologist who was part of a group which gave evidence to the Wally's Committee: http://frackland.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/environmental-audit-committee-on-shale.html
'The CCS inquiry received 38 written submissions. It called 18 witnesses to give oral evidence, over a period of 3 months, starting several months after the written submissions had been received. The final report was released more than 3 months after the final session of oral evidence.
In contrast, the EAC fracking report received 71 written submissions. Nevertheless, it only called 8 witnesses to give oral evidence, and did so only 2 weeks after the written evidence had been gathered. The final report has been released only 1 week after the evidence sessions.
The speed of this release suggests to me that the EAC went into this inquiry having already decided on their course of action - a call for a moratorium - and that they have not properly considered the evidence in front of them, nor sought a proper breadth of representation from their oral witnesses.'
The Wally is shroud waving.
I turned off after some wally being interviewed referred to the future energy mix as "heavily subsidised nuclear, and renewables". (Oxford comma inserted deliberately) What she should have said, to be honest and truthful (sorry, naiive, I know) would have been "subsidised nuclear and economically suicidally subsidised renewables"
As I said, I had to turn off, 'cos I was driving to work, and one of our notices says "arrive safe, work safe, leave safe" and I was in danger of breaking the first.
SimonJ
Oh my god, I've just looked up the cv of the wally being interviewed, Clearly I must bow down before someone far more qualified than I (BTech, Aeronautical Engineering & Design, CEng, MRAeS) to judge the safety of engineering processes.
"At the University of Hull, she gained a BA in Social Administration. From the University College of Wales, Swansea, she gained a Diploma in Community Work Development. From 1970-3, she worked on an Alcoholics Recovery Project. From 1974-8, she was a Local Government Officer for Swansea City Council. She worked for Wandsworth Council from 1978-9. From 1979-82, she was a Development Officer for NACRO."
And we are governed by these F****g W****s!!!!
SimonJ.
I see that Walley is standing down at the May elections.
I also note her strong (UNISON) union connections. I'll bet she would be a strong supporter of the miners....
I've been reading the comments. My god how the young and uneducated have been fooled. One idiot thinks that solar will be fine, another that we should reduce our population and hence our consumption to meet the level of green energy supply.
I feel for you brits. Bad times are coming unless you do what the greeks have done and throw out the clowns.
Jan 26, 2015 at 9:41 AM | Unregistered Commenter
Trefor Jones
I caught a little of that interview. Enough to scream OMG. She is a total loon. Absolutely bonkers and Neil led her by the nose to the chopping block. What a clown. BUT you are being governed by these dangerous idiots.
I think readers should review many episodes of Yes Minister, to realise that one never has a public enquiry unless the outcome is known beforehand, & never talk to people eminently qualified to talk about the subject matter in hand, talk to eminently unqualified people instead, thus ensuring a balanced outcome is arrived at!? And it's getting worse!
I don't see any evidence of the government haste that she is concerned about, nor does she seem to realise that we already had the moratorium she demands - 2 sodding years of it - with all the due and intensely slow deliberation she now claims is necessary again.
I'd would have been nice if she even listened to the points made by the INEOs spokesman on 'Today', Gas is required whatever we do, including as backup for windmills, but we are heading off a cliff-edge with coal and nuclear shutting down soon and it is nearly too damn late to avoid it. A bit more haste is required!
According to Emily Gosden in the Telegraph, not only did the EAC get evidence from the "electrohippy" whatever that might be, but also from an organisation called Frack Free Fife.
Never having heard of them, I had a look at their website and found that they are advertising this treat on Jan 28th for anyone with a strong stomach who lives near Grangemouth. Just look at the list of those involved..
http://frack-off.org.uk/event/falkirk-greens-fracking-info-evening-grangemouth/
Haven't we been under a "fracking" moratorium for the last five years or so already?
"Clearly, more studies are required" ... ad infinitum.
Why do they take the views of people who are avowedly against all hydrocarbons, aka "fossil fuels" ?
They are not against shale exploitation because they care about water, or farmers, or noise, or any other pretext - they are against it because it could produce gas or oil. Fine, we heard you the first time. Your views have been noted and since you know nothing else about the actual process except what you read on activist websites, which anyone can read, you have nothing else to contribute.
Just remember, there will still be time to sell everything and move to where you won't freeze to death in the winter.
Should it be the Fact Free Balcombe Residents Association?
Presumably all the members have demonstrated their commitment by disconnecting from mains gas, and only use electricity, when renewables are producing more than a modest 5% of the national demand. They would not want their credibility questioned, by accusations of hypocracy.
Ask any body over 35 name 3 things Mrs Thatcher did right.
1 The Miners Strike .She won
2 The Falklands War .She won
3 The Right to Buy Council Houses .She Won
Which one had the biggest Social impact the Right to Buy obviously.
It finally defined Working Class Tories created Essex comprehensive school Barrow Boy Yuppies and Loadamoney wiped out Micheal Foot, the trade unions ,Neal Kinnock and traditional socialism ,good work.Alf Garrnett proved correct.
Tony Blair and Mandleson then had their own Clause 4 moment.
If Cameron or Nigel Farage wants their own Right To Buy moment
give the British public Private Mineral Rights let the ordinary people own whats under their land
what is rightfully theirs.Spend their profits back into their local communities.
UK Shale and UK Private Minerals Rights cant have one without the other.
Is ElectroHippy a term used to describe those who require jumpstarting of a morning, to get them out of bed, following a night/week/lifetime of combusting and evaluating organic tobacco substitutes? (In the name of pharmaceutical research, such products should NOT be tested on animals)
Details here.
At least the Today interviewer asked Ms Whalley what it would take to make fracking acceptable. Since she is dogmatically opposed to it, it wasn't a question she could answer. The Ineos man made a good fist of his brief time allowance, mentioning the benefit to CO2 production that switching from coal would produce (clearly something that the audit committee hadn't considered), the requirement for wind backup, the 85% of households who needed gas for heating, the 20 years of US experience, etc. I don't think the Wally had any answers to those, either.
steve ta
The beauty of your link (to the Daily Mash) is that it is almost indistinguishable from the real Green manifesto! I think Ms Bennett and her 'devoted sexless windbags' have just made life a lot harder for the satirists...
The EAC is "Licensed to ill" inform MP's, and the electorate, about science.
As was ever the case - initially most of "our" pols seem to think that "do nothing" is the safe option - trouble is ... this lot are so monumentally stupid and ill informed that they think (if that's the correct term) - that's what they're doing here....
I echo the W-T-F sentiments above. The blob PR crew must be a bit smug today.
GS
Thank you for repeating my link. Having roughly worked out the daily electrical output with the help of Gridwatch, I wonder if there's an equivalent site showing gas consumption?
I thought the way the BBC reported this was disgusting - absolutely no balance whatsoever. I saw it on their breakfast program just after 8.
Nick Grealy of No Hot Air blog (he needs some climate debate etiquette training) has a take on the situation here:
http://www.nohotair.co.uk/index.php/shale-gas-2014/223-energy-policy/3223-the-fracking-rush-to-judgement
Peter Aldous declares his interest in "the family farm" but does not declare his interest in a 12.3MW solar farm.
See here:
The planning has been approved
Neil Carmichael declares his interest in two farm in Northumberland but does not mention the four wind turbines on the farm.
Allowing the Greens to hijack the moral high ground against fracking has been a disaster for the government.
The single biggest obstacle here is demonstrating fracking is safe and environmentally secure. The Greens spread FUD based on speculation and propaganda in order to scare people into opposition. The government should have offered local authorities £1 million 'test fees' to drill test wells around the country, which would have had authorities falling over themselves to apply. Once gas extraction was shown to be safe enough to proceed then the biggest obstacle would have been overcome for effectively pennies, allowing a national roll out.
Instead they now have a mighty battle to drill so much as a single well. Madness.
"We as a family had to make a decision about whether we went along with it"
That must have been difficult. One large trough filled with FIT's vs a large empty field...
BTW, how does one 'cultivate' renewable energy? Is there a little solar farm alongside that needs weeding?
JamesP
Renewable energy is fertilised by spreading good, old fashioned, organic bullsheet and fairydust, through the BBC and Grauniad. This is a great example of recycling, how something well past its sell by date, can be revitalised, by fresh injections of tax payer funded cash (obviously Private Trust Funds, in the case of the Grauniad)
Nothing needs to be overcomplicated, if someone else is paying for it.
BBC news just now Cameron has made another statement in favour of fracking ..and did they hom..no they chose to play a clip of Bianca Jagger squeeling that we cant risk the nations health with fracking.
... OK I will continue my boycott against having sex with female BBC news producers
I find the behaviour of the committee so unscientific, so unreasonable and so shocking that I wish they could be made to pay for all the damage they are doing. Some hope. I'm reluctant to emulate the Green Blob and revert to "ad homs", but am sorely tempted. Quite disgusting.
Muck spreading
I would like to apologise for any confusion, to any farmers who practice traditional techniques of muck spreading, to increase soil production, to help provide affordable food, and stop people from starving to an early, and preventable death; with muck spreading journalists and activists, who celebrate famines as great opportunities, that need to be exploited, to champion whatever it was that they were told, by the environmental lobbyist with an attractive smile, over some of columbia's finest, last week, in a quiet corner, of a desertified wine bar.
I would also like to apologise to all people who hate long sentences., apart from MP's, Journalists, Activists, who deserve long sentences.
I heard Ms Whalley this morning. She seemed incoherent, wittering on about more time needed. At no stage did the interviewer challenge her, try to pin down why more time needed, what exactly the problem was/might be. The Fourth Estate might flatter itself about its ability to speak truth to power etc, more often than not it seems to me its happy to let power just waffle on. It would be fun to take just one of Ms Whalleys sentences and try to parse it, to try to answer the question 'what exactly does she mean?' Probably Ms Whalley is a devotee of the 'words mean whatever I want them to mean' school of thought so any such exercise would be a bit of a waste of time. In the end, she's just using random-ish bundles of words to get across the idea that she's not keen on fracking, the words providing some flimsy bulwark against accusations of ignorance or spite or stupidity or wickedness or any combination of those: sounding high-minded is a cunning way of not being thought half-witted.
Enemies of the poor.
Member Party
Joan Walley (Chair) Labour
Peter Aldous Conservative
Neil Carmichael Conservative
Martin Caton Labour
Katy Clark Labour
Zac Goldsmith Conservative
Mike Kane Labour
Mark Lazarowicz Labour (Co-op)
Caroline Lucas Green
Caroline Nokes Conservative
Dr Matthew Offord Conservative
Dan Rogerson Liberal Democrat
Mrs Caroline Spelman Conservative
Mr Mark Spencer Conservative
Dr Alan Whitehead Labour
Simon Wright Liberal Democrat
Just how many of these have a degrees in the Arts, Humanities, Law, or the dreaded PPE?
They are scientifically ignorant.
It is a pity that prospective members of parliament are not obliged to pass a basic intelligence test before they are allowed to stand for election. That would weed out most of our problems.
This country is run by lunatics. We have an exploitable natural resource that science and real data from the US shows to have little risk attached to its extraction and they are considering banning this.
I just cant get my head around the arrogant stupidity of politicians and the eco loons that they listen to.
Not such a great day for Putin's enviironmental pawns or those MP's in the Commons raking in their renewable industry money.
They will be back with the determined effort to destroy the UK economy.
The Green Taliban are determined to destroy our industry and economy and our gullible MPs are doing their bidding.
Here is their educational qualifications:
Joan Walley: BA in Social Administration, Diploma in Community Work Development.
Peter Aldous: Degree in Land Management
Neil Carmichael: Studied politics
Martin Caton: Attended Norfolk School of Agriculture, and the Aberystwyth College of Further Education
Katy Clark: Law degree
Zac Goldsmith: 4 A'levels
Mike Kane: Former primary school teacher, has A'levels
Mark Lazarowicz: Degree in Law, MA in History
Caroline Lucas: BA in English Literature
Caroline Nokes: Degree in Politics
Matthew Offord: Doctor of Philosophy. Thesis: ‘Rural Governance and Economic Development: The Changing Landscape of Rural Local Government’ is an academic examination that considers whether changes introduced through the Local Government Act 2000 has introduced a measure of uniformity in the way rural councils work.
Dan Rogerson: Studied Politics at University of Wales Aberystwyth
Mrs Caroline Spelman: BA European Studies
Mark Spencer attended Shuttleworth Agricultural College
Alan Whitehead: PhD Political Science
Simon Wright: BSc and PGCE. Taught Maths
Walleys are capable of producing as much, if not more rubbish, than any other left minded idiot. Most of it, will have been recycled many times already, unfortunately, much of it will go on to be recycled ad nauseam. They know it makes sense, not to waste a good lie. It is for the environment, you know.