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Bishop Hill Jun 10, 2015 Energy: gas Take a look at Fox News's interview of anti-fracking campaigner Josh Fox. I'm not sure I've ever seen an interviewer called a liar live on air. I must say, I think you would have to be a bit less shifty-eyed to carry it off.
Bishop Hill Jun 9, 2015 Energy: gas Labour The news that unconventional gas has become an issue in the Labour party leadership campaign is interesting. Andy Burnham is generally seen as something of a moderniser - he has proposed abolishing inheritance tax and tough law and order policies among other things. However, he has also been associated with the Brownite left from time to time and might therefore be best seen as being a man of flexible principles.
It's hard therefore to know what to make of his decision to come out against unconventional gas, apart from observing that his comments on the subject - saying we need stronger evidence of its safety, and that licences are handed out "like confetti" - suggest that he is quite remarkably ill-informed.
Bishop Hill May 6, 2015 Climate: Parliament Energy: gas Ethics There is a really violent undercurrent to this election:
Vandals targeted a Conservative MP days before the election by deliberately flooding her garden with 1,300 litres of sticky oil.
Last week cars belonging to Ms Leslie and her elderly father Ian, 70, were daubed with paint and the words 'Tory Scum' were scrawled along the bodywork.
Charlotte Leslie has written about her shock at finding that vandals had punctured the oil tank in her garden, causing her parents' entire heating supply for the year to seep into the ground.
The thuggery seems to have been prompted by Ms Leslie's support for unconventional oil and gas development. In other words it's the environmentalists again.
Bishop Hill May 5, 2015 Energy: gas Greens The New York Times is reporting today that fracking chemicals have been found in drinking water in Pennsylvania.
Fracking chemicals detected in Pennsylvania drinking water
An analysis of drinking water sampled from three homes in Bradford County, Pa., revealed traces of a compound commonly found in Marcellus Shale drilling fluids, according to a study published on Monday.
The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, addresses a longstanding question about potential risks to underground drinking water from the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The authors suggested a chain of events by which the drilling chemical ended up in a homeowner’s water supply.
In related news, BH learns that health food stores are selling fracking chemicals to unsuspecting customers! Housewives have been washing their children's clothes in fracking chemicals! And fracking chemicals have been detected in deep space, worrying evidence that the oil industry is taking over the universe.
Sheesh.
Bishop Hill Apr 29, 2015 BBC Diary dates Energy: gas Greens The BBC is going to look at fracking again today, with a programme by Scotland Environment Correspondent David Miller.
Scotland has a decision to make: to frack, or not to frack. The controversial technique could be used to release gas and oil from the shale rock which lies beneath central Scotland. Large energy companies are keen to do this, and say it is important for both our economic growth, and energy supply needs. But fracking has a bad reputation. Its opponents believe it is dangerous, with the potential to cause pollution and even earthquakes. The Scottish Government has announced a temporary ban, but for some that is just not enough. David Miller reports from the front line in the war over fracking, where the two sides are locked in a fierce battle for the hearts and minds of the nation. He sets out to find out whether shale gas extraction can be safe, and whether Scots can be convinced to give it the go ahead.
What's the betting we see the "flaming faucets" on screen again? There are some clips here to whet your appetites.
Bishop Hill Apr 24, 2015 Energy: gas In a startlingly misleading article today, the Telegraph is trying to insinuate a link between oil and gas drilling and earthquakes. It's one of those articles that is so bad that nobody wants to own up to having written it. It's an agency piece, but without even the name of the agency!
Richard Black and co are trying to hype things up of course:
Scientists more certain than ever that oil, gas drilling causes earth tremors
...but you wouldn't look to ECIU if you're interested in the facts. If you read a little further it seems that this is an article about wastewater injection.
"The picture is very clear" that wastewater injection can cause faults to move, said USGS geophysicist William Ellsworth.
Until recently, Oklahoma - one of the biggest energy-producing states - had been cautious about linking the spate of quakes to drilling. But the Oklahoma Geological Survey acknowledged earlier this week that it is "very likely" that recent seismic activity was caused by the injection of wastewater into disposal wells.
They are beyond redemption.
Bishop Hill Apr 2, 2015 Energy: gas Greens Some interesting developments on the Mike Hill front. In this post I will discuss an email received from Hill's wife, saying that I have maligned her husband. I am happy to bring her points to readers' attention.
She raises a number of specific issues, which I will address one at a time.
1.Articles to which you refer do not indicate a job application to Cuadrilla.
Bishop Hill Apr 2, 2015 Energy: gas Ben Webster in the Times is having a lot of fun at the expense of Greenpeace, whose poll on public attitudes to unconventional oil and gas rather rebounded when it emerged that more people were in favour of developing a shale gas industry than were against.
Paywalled here.
Bishop Hill Mar 31, 2015 Energy: gas Greens Prominent anti-fracking campaigner and prospective parliamentary candidate Mike Hill has been very good at promoting himself in recent years. But media attention can be a double-edged sword, as Mr Hill has found to his cost in recent days. Last week he was the subject of a two stories at Guido Fawkes blog, when it emerged that he had once applied for a job at Cuadrilla, that he had pretended spun things so as to present himself as an adviser to the European Union, the Royal Society and DECC, when his role had been little more than to be involved in discussions with them.
Today he is in the Times, which reveals that Mr Hill helped produce a report on fracking that persuaded a doctors' organisation to take a stand against fracking. However, Mr Hill's anti-fracking background was not revealed and with his colourful background now revealed to all it could be argued that the doctors' statement is now a dead letter.
Bishop Hill Mar 26, 2015 Energy: gas Greens "Just being anti-fracking is nonsense to me and always has been. It's purely a reaction and not a positive one. Often in response to utter gibberish news stories or propaganda set off by Frack-Off and co. I am up to the eyeballs with it. They want me to add professional credence to this utter nonsense."
Antifracking campaigner Mike Hill's job application to Cuadrilla. Seriously.
Bishop Hill Mar 20, 2015 Energy: gas Greens James Verdon points us to what appears to be a clear case of anti-fracking activists inciting assault against academics whose results are inconvenient to Gaia's cause.
As James notes, since throwing things at people (even water) is potentially assault it's hard not to construe this as incitement.
Talk Fracking is funded by Vivienne Westwood and Lush Pharmaceuticals.
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2015 Climate: Parliament Energy: gas Energy: oil George Osborne has announced that he is to cut the Supplementary Charge - the supertax on UK oilfields - from 30% to 20%. He has also come up with a few other tweaks to the system that will allegedly encourage investment.
With oil prices apparently set to remain low for some time to come, I can't imagine that the North Sea is going to become price-competitive any time soon. If that's the case then there aren't going to be any profits to tax, so the difference between 20% and 30% is essentially nil. Onshore operators are not yet in a position to take advantage either.
Still, the move has annoyed the greens, so I suppose we should be grateful.
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2015 BBC Energy: gas I was on BBC Radio Scotland's Kaye Adams programme this morning, discussing unconventional oil and gas and INEOS's recently announced charm initiative. Audio is available here. The fracking slot was right from the top of the show.
I came in after ten minutes or so, facing off against an American green called Joshua Brown who came out fighting and left abruptly, apparently with his tail between his legs. I fear that between us Kaye and I may have left his reputation a little the worse for wear.
Bishop Hill
James Verdon tweets to point out that most of the injection wells in Oklahoma are actually not even peripherally related to fracking. It comes from a process related to conventional production in areas where the well contains high levels of water. By dewatering, the oil becomes extractable.
The dewatering process is one which allows for extensive oil and gas production in fields generally known to contain oil and gas but bypassed by certain other operators due to high water saturation of reservoirs. Dewatering is simply the removal of these large volumes of water, which in turn reduces the pressure on trapped hydrocarbons and allows them to move to the wellbore (a physical hole that makes up the well), for recovery.
Bishop Hill Mar 12, 2015 Climate: Parliament Energy: gas Energy: wind So the Energy and Climate Change Committee are having their end of term shindig today, with a variety of subsidy junkies explaining why the country needs more expensive power (and why it should hand over more subsidies too, no doubt). Twitter feed here.
We gather that Tim Yeo has said we should have shale gas (one wag asks if this means he has got himself a seat on the board at Cuadrilla) and that we should not oppose onshore wind because the alternative is offshore wind at twice the price. Personally I reckon our choice might be slightly wider than that. I also wonder if Mr Yeo shouldn't get a copy of David Mackay's book.
Catherine Mitchell, the eccentric energy policy activist prof from Exeter is pushing demand-side management - but I'm not sure whether she is from the "switch off the factories" school or the "switch off the peasants" school.
And Jeremy Leggett to come. I can hardly wait.
Bishop Hill Mar 10, 2015 Energy: gas Some interesting developments on the UK shale front this morning, with Ineos buying a share in iGas's UK shale assets. The deal will bring a great deal of capital oomph to iGas and gives Ineos a stake in the Bowland shale.
Not a lot of use if they can't drill anything though.
