Bishop Hill Balcombe heats up
Aug 4, 2013 Energy: gas Greens With test drilling now under way in Balcombe, the war of words is heating up. As one would expect, the Luddites at the Guardian are stirring any pot they can find, and Damian Carrington's story focuses on allegations that Cuadrilla trespassed on private land while undertaking geophysical surveys. Mountains and molehills are words that spring to mind, and one is left with the overwhelming impression that there is another side to the story too.
Meanwhile, Twitter also remains dominated by greens, with barely a squawk from anyone in favour, but at least Cuadrilla have now made themselves heard - CEO Francis Egan is interviewed in the Mail on Sunday (scroll down here) and does a pretty good job of relaying the facts.
However, any benefits from Egan's intervention are entirely undone by Energy Minister Michael Fallon, who is reported (at the same URL) as follows:
The Tory Minister responsible for fracking has conjured up a chilling image of swathes of rural England shaking with the sound of drills as a result of the drive for shale gas.
Referring to people living in the countryside who have supported fracking, Energy Minister Michael Fallon said at a private meeting in Westminster: ‘We are going to see how thick their rectory walls are, whether they like the flaring at the end of the drive!’
While it is fair to say that there are going to be some impacts, the remarks about rectory walls are absurd - I wonder whether the story is being embellished by the journalists who have reported the story (it appears elsewhere too) or by their source. It is nevertheless a complete own goal in PR terms.
Facing down the greens and their Luddite friends in the press is going to be pivotal for the government. Failure will have appalling consequences for the country.
It's a pity then that nobody on our side of the debate seems geared up for the fight.
Reader Comments (169)
Luddites is likely too strong as Aug 4, 2013 at 8:51 AM | Unregistered CommenterAnon implies. Actually they're just loons. Luddites, if memory serves, protested because they were put out of work by industrialization. The greenies and such use the culture of fear, fright and falsehoods. In the US, there are hundreds of frack wells. Oh, and with all the same fracking nonsense of the Left out in force baying at the moon, drooling in groups at protest sites all the while showing how barking mad they are. It's all like a very poorly written sitcom.
Not up to the fight? Likely. Fear usually trumps reason if applied in heavy doses and shouted out 24/7.
To win this, one needs to fight fear with fear. Show frozen windmills, dead birds and frozen corpses of children INSIDE their homes by their heaters. That's what no greenie energy means when implemented. Then show the quiet production of fracking and happy, playful kids romping around in the snow with their mum calling out for them to come in where it's warm.
It's all about emotion. You've won the facts. You have to fight the fraud.
Some nice pictures of bird wind-farm interactions here:
http://www.windbyte.co.uk/birds.html
@Anon some BOTTOM LINES
- "the risks" We care about TRUTH here - tens of thousands of fracking operations in the litigious US, and how much compensation have courts awarded ? Zero : the activists "Gasland scare porn" never stood up in court ..see Fracknation
- "some people stand to get very rich" off their own risk & investment as opposed "some people ALREADY rich will get even richer from huge wind & solar subsidies" which TAKES-out of school/hospital funds as opposed to oil biz which PAYS-in "
- Renew-UNABLES are mostly useless scams except the ones that don't need a subsidy
- This is a democracy & we should NOT be supporting direct-action that puts the "drama queening" of the "loud mouth minority" against the rights of all. We have a right not to be ruled by the Eco-Taliban
- So it is disgraceful that shop called Lush Are funding the out of town direct activists & the PR agencies so I would Boycott Lush. Take the products back & get "your money back". the Daily Mail gave the run down on Lush in 2008 Lush smells dirty
- We know the BBC is "in bed with" the professional PR activists and that is not good for democracy... we know most residents are not against test drilling & that the vast majority of protesters are naive non-self supporting, school holiday youths from out of town, yet the phrase the BBC are using today is "residents & activists are protesting"
- BTW where does the family trust wealth of the CEO of Lush North America from from ? ....Guess
Wolverton Securities "his own family fortune is owed to the continued mining, gas and oil exploration industries"
- The activists forced MAD government energy policy which harms both the environment & economy ..we should not let then bully us anymore
Anon:
If you want a risk-free life, then I would suggest that the only way is to find another universe. Even then there is no guarantee.
The fundamental reason there's all this brouhaha is political and then some. The left ( and here I mean the "hard" ideologically doctrinaire "revolutionary" left) have had some success over the years co-opting and parasitising the eco-movement.
People really shouldn't underestimate the remarkable influence that the film GasLand has had in this matter - the lies promulgated by this POS and the storm of mantra chanting are the scaffolding that keeps this circus tent up.
I clocked GasLand as very dodgy straight away - it was talking about (and spouting egregious lies about) stuff I am very familiar with - so much so - that by the time crowd funding for FrackNation appeared I happily contributed.
What I didn't know at the time was that Josh Fox the man behind GasLand got a generous dollop of funding from now departed revolutionary icon Hugo Chavez - no doubt worried that the Yanquis might not be quite so 'beholdin if they'd got their own hydrocarbons....
Venezuela supposedly has more oil and gas then Saudi Arabia - so who's in the pay of Big Oil? - heh...
The way the Gasland lies get repeated over and over - the evidence suggests that the protesters don't have minds of their own.
They've all seen GasLand but when you say that you've seen both films and suggest they watch FrackNation - they either shut up or resort to an incoherent torrent of abuse.
When I fly back from my environmentally unsustainable holiday in my luxury villa in Vale do Lobo, Algarve, I think I will make up some placards saying things like "Fracking saves lives" and "Greenpeace is a terrorist group", go down to Balcombe and make my point.
Seriously I think we should take a leaf out of the Luddites book and start taking direct action.
Anyone else on for this?
- Polls : we know that 97% of polls turn out to be absolute garbage when closely examined.
We can't trust anything originating out of a bunch of activists knocking door to to door.
"We don't know what the residents feel"..it could be 85,75, 55,35,15, or 5% that oppose the oil company. All that is happening is that an old oil well is being opened up, behind some trees meanwhile the poor residents lives are much more affected by rowdy protesters and the usual media circus. I guess they'd keep the oil operation . it's the ongoing the activist riot around them is what they could do without.. where are the 4000 police when you need them ?
- Free wind energy - this will be FREE oil ..it lives in the ground and when people take it out they pay big taxes ..not take a big subsidy
This whole Carbon Market thing is just one big Connie...
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/
I've said this before, and I'll say it again, it's not about fear or concern for the environment on the part of the most committed greens / AGW promoters. It's about self-regard and tribalism - feeling virtuous and feeling that others outside your tribe are stupid and evil. It's this mindset that the Guardian sells to and it's the basis of political beliefs which have nothing to do with environmentalism. The most effective response therefore is not to tell them that they're wrong, present facts, or show them images of dead birds, it is to threaten their self-regard by pointing out that they're gullible fools. I think "luddites" must have threatened Anon's self-regard, which is why he popped up here.
Anon:
Perhaps you could have investigated these 'earthquakes' here
http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/questionnaire/EqQuestIntro.html
by the way there has been nothing recorded greater than 0.6 magnitude in your area in the last 50 days
(Although the images of the dead birds will probably help too!)
- I've said before that I can come down and put my hammock in the woods for a couple of weeks no problem ... - But what is the best option ? the thing is the longer the activists are there unopposed the more stupid they look as people see they are misinforned, hypocritical, sponging, bullies, financed by pseudo-green business
... but unless people go down there they not appreciate that, cos of the SPIN the media put on the story ...perhaps cos the cameramen/women and reporters need pretty "green" girlfriends or "cool green boyfriends"
Andrew/Anon
I'm a geologist, I've been peripherally involved with the oil industry, I'm semi-retired and live in Japan and I know something about drilling (I'm not a driller).
It goes something like this:
Drillers initially bore down (typically through unconsolidated sediment) until they have penetrated an adequate depth of consolidated rock. They pull up the drill string, and drop in a steel casing (cylinder). The casing is then grouted (cemented) to the solid rock. A blowout preventer is then attached to the top of the casing. A blowout preventer is a guillotine which cuts the drillstring and seals the casing. (It was failure of the blowout preventer which allowed the BP/Gulf disaster but that was geologically an entirely different sack of fish, not comparable in any way).
Drillers the re-enter the hole with a narrower diameter bit. Depending on circumstances the hole may be progressively cased and narrowed until they reach the target. If the hole is successful it will be cased all the way to the bottom, and thermite charges used to cut holes within the length in the pay zone.
Drilling fluid serves a number of purposes. It supports the hole (preventing it collapsing and trapping the string), it lubricates the string and the bit, it cools the bit, and it carries the cuttings out of the hole. With directional drilling, the fluid also powers the bit. The fluid is pumped down the centre of the drill string and returns up the outside between the string and surface of the hole.
Typically, drill fluid is water based. That means it contains hydrogen and oxygen (chemicals!) so you should be very scared. It gets worse. Water (density 1) won't support the sides of the hole so it needs to be weighted. Typically, powdered baryte (density 4.5) is used. Baryte is a common mineral, but it also contains chemicals! Barium sulphur and oxygen! Adding baryte to water doesn't work too well though, the baryte drops to the bottom so you need a thickener to hold it in suspension. Starch works well, so lets add some more chemicals: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen! The problem with starch is that it goes off very quickly. A biocide works well, how about formaldehyde: HCHO? More chemicals. There's a typical drilling fluid.
Radioactivity. Potassium is an element with radioactive isotopes. Potassium is common in minerals (and soils and rock and parsley, dried apricots, dried milk, chocolate, various nuts (especially almonds and pistachios), potatoes, bamboo shoots, bananas, avocados, soybeans, bran most fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. Every time you eat just about anything you are eating radioactive potassium. So when "radioactivity" is added to "scary chemicals" it might be worth asking the question: What is there to be afraid about?
I could go on about tectonics and a-seismicity, but I've bored myself. Tomorrow if you're interested.
@Don Keiller last comment was to you, but the revise comment button has a problem
The fracking earth tremor worry seems to be nicely countered on a recent Resilient Earth post -
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/frack-attack
.. investigating the Ellsworth 2013 study in the July 12 Science edition :
"Is fracking being subjected to unfair criticism? Several new reports and a multi-national study, just published in the journal Science, attempt to take an objective, scientific view of the problem."
"In the end, Ellsworth concludes that the earthquake risk from fracking itself is minimal, and even the threat from wastewater injection wells is not very great: “Long-term and high-volume injection in deep wells clearly carries some risk, even though most wells are apparently aseismic. In contrast, earthquakes induced during hydraulic fracturing have lower risk because of their much smaller magnitudes. The largest fracking-induced earthquakes have all been below the damage threshold for modern building codes.”
I wonder if the Greens will consider dispassionately this "counter-factual" :-)
Lush we learn is"Frack Off"'s main financial backer.
Some might think it a bit rum for a cosmetics company to deliberately set out to destroy businesses in an unconnected industry of which it knows nothing. Others might be wonder whether Lush understands how much unnecessary fuel poverty will be created if the efforts of its beneficiaries are successful.
Lush has more branches than there are fracking sites. It has hundreds of thousands of customers many of whom will be appalled to learn how the profits from their custom has been used. It might be an idea to explain this to Lush and to its customers.
@ Serge
It's worth remembering that coal brought many many risks and damage to the countryside, and oil extraction is very risky too. But then so are windmills when considered dust to dust,
Sorry Serge, but comparing the health risks of wind turbines to coal extraction is nonsense. Wind turbines may be unsightly, but I have never seen them slide down hills and kills hundreds of children by engulfing their school, nor have I ever seen countless thousands of men dying of wind generated silicosis. I can't recall wind turbines causing pea soupers in London or else where. It's also plain that they do not pollute the oceans in the same as Oil tankers occasionally do. They may be inefficient, they may be unsightly and hated by the Conservative elements in society, but get a grip, to compare the risk of wind turbines to coal and oil extraction is just ludicrous.
Please don't frighten off or abuse posters like Anon/Andrew debate is good and we could all learns something, particularly in this case why people are objecting to fracking.
I also agree with Garethman that its is not sensible to draw ludicrous comparisons which simply undermine your own arguments. Coal extraction on land has been very damaging to the local environments both in terms of subsidence, waste spoil and atmospheric pollution. My father was a coal miner and I am well used to the sights and sounds of a colliery village. A wind turbine is a joy by comparison. However, the objection to wind farms isn't just due to their visual intrusion, it's due to their visual intrusion in otherwise pristine landscapes. Given a choice of a oil or gas production well or a wind turbine in my back yard I go for the former every time.
- Here is where the activists get their "facts" https://www.facebook.com/extremeenergyresistancesussex
- Anon's logic is "this is not fracking", but
- the company might apply for a fracking licence in future"
- and cos Francis Maude (the local MP) "MIGHT" have a conflict of interest
- that Fracking licence MIGHT get awarded unjustly
..then Cuadrilla MIGHT have a accident
- and although the laws mean they would have to clean up properly they MIGHT not afford to cos they are a poor oil company.
- So it's better for the activists to break the law NOW and usurp the democratic process now.
- that's a lot of MIGHTs
I can't see any conflict : Register of Members’ Interests , 8. Land and Property
Rental income from property in South London.Register last updated: 7 May 201
Is that the £3m Anon claims ?
unusual to see MP not troughing on Renew-unables subsidies
- there are 27billion reasons why BP doesn't believe oil the courts are biased in favour of oil companies
I agree - I Tweeted yesterday to try and get a #TellLushToFrackOff hashtag going.
https://twitter.com/Foxgoose/status/363695208770174976
Thanks Garethman and Arthur Dent. To balance the discussion further it might also be worth quoting this guy about regulation of fracking in the United States last year:
George Mitchell died just nine days ago. He's probably too much of a greenie for Bishop Hill. But apparently he "never saw any irony in his dual role as the father figure of both fracking and sustainable development."
Life's always a surprise, isn't it.
I reside in Texas and am about to move into a new home. I brought in the owner of a local moving company to provide me an estimate of the cost. We were discussing generalities following the estimate, and it turned out that he also owned 3 large trucks that were hauling the special sand to use for fracking in South Texas. He indicated that this was where he was really making his living, and he stated that the fracking there was only involved with oil at the moment and had not yet extended to natural gas. He said that they were recovering 7 times as much oil via fracking as had been available prior to fracking. If you will notice, US oil reserves and output are continuing to rise in spite of Obama's policies.
I think you're being wildly optimistic Arthur.
If there's one thing we've learned from the climate wars - it's that it is completely impossible to argue with activists.
They only become activists in the first place because they have a psychology and world view which rejects the compromise involved in democratic decision making.
They're so sure they are right - they put their views above all the mechanisms that exist to achieve a democratic social outcome on an issue.
Their self-worth then becomes entirely bound up in their "rightness" - so that challenge is impossible.
Ask yourself why the same people who are causing disruption at Balcombe have popped up protesting for numerous other "causes" in the last few years.
"Please don't frighten off or abuse posters like Anon/Andrew debate is good and we could all learns something, particularly in this case why people are objecting to fracking."
Well written, Arthur Dent. Anon/Andrew is seeking answers, not abuse (e.g. to call him a hypocrite, as did Joe Public, strikes me as offensive, as well as inaccurate). If you have information to impart - as did Hector Pascal with his useful piece on the technicalities of fracking - or relevant links to suggest all well and good; whereas telling Anon or other beginners like to him to do their own research, without any advice as to where or how, is simply unhelpful.
That said, Anon was evidently wrong to claim that over 80% of Balcombe residents oppose fracking (at least in their village, I presume), and it was appropriate to point this out to him.
@Foxgoose - good on you Re: Lush
- It would be outrageous if an defence company or oil company funded people who obstruct the police & glue locks etc.
- If they did surely the police would try to recover costs from them
- cos Isn't it funding terrorism ?
You can't just give direct activists £1000 and then say "yes the activists actions caused damage to business & jobs , but that's nothing to do with me"
- The Lush owners should be in jail
- They could have funded democratic politics instead started their own party etc.
Jesus Look at this Canadian Page
..they don't mention throwing acid at the crew ..after another attack 4 seamen diedIn Canada they facilitate the funding of "Sea Shepherd Conservation Society" the people who sink your boat
- There already is a boycott : "In 2011 Israel advocacy groups StandWithUs and United With Israel launched a campaign encouraging consumers to boycott Lush products on account of the company's decision to promote OneWorld's Freedom for Palestine initiative." details
Anon
We live 10 miles from Balcombe, and we have experienced earth tremors in the past year. They were real, and they were scary. We rang the council who told us it was likely drilling companies were testing in our area, but they said they didn't know where the tests were taking place. They suggested talking to Surrey County Council (we're near the border) and they told us exactly the same thing.
You are either lying or very sensitive to vibration. No tremors were reported by any of the geological groups either in europe or elsewhere in the world. If you need evidence search for tremors in the uk.
Drcrinum: good point! We need to raise awareness of the potential benefits rather than letting the "debate" drown itself in unjustified scares.
I read an article a week or two back about the colossal growth in Texas's oil output - roughly doubled in a couple of years. If it was a separate country, it would be the 10th biggest producer in the world.
But it is the bottom line which really counts. Oil production is up by roughly 1.2m barrels per day. At $100 per barrel that is $120m PER DAY reduction in the US balance of payments. On top of that there are the taxes paid; I don't know the US rates but my guess would be 40% or more.
And that is just Texas. Overall US output is back to the levels of 30 years ago and is on a par with Saudi Arabia.
At Balcombe Cuadrilla are drilling for oil which, if they find it in viable amounts, will require a small production station. As Nick Grealy has pointed out, this could be like the one at Storrington which is only a few miles away and has been quietly chugging out oil for decades!
So the local folk have had an oil well virtually in their back yard for decades but are frightened about a new one?
Anon/Andrew; as well as the DECC paper already mentioned, you could take a look at the "No Hot Air" website which is a pro-shale blog. It includes loads of hard info on the process and covers the many myths promoted by alarmists.
You might be interested in this post about the Lidsey oil field which is down towards Bognor which has an amusing twist. It was fracked back in 1991 and has been quietly producing oil ever since: http://www.nohotair.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3021:you-ll-love-or-hate-this-fracking-additive&catid=203:shale-gas&Itemid=417
Aug 4, 2013 at 12:04 PM | Unregistered Commenter Hector Pascal
I'm an oil geologist working on drilling rigs and you've summed it up just about perfectly.
"We live 10 miles from Balcombe, and we have experienced earth tremors in the past year. They were real, and they were scary. We rang the council who told us it was likely drilling companies were testing in our area, but they said they didn't know where the tests were taking place. They suggested talking to Surrey County Council (we're near the border) and they told us exactly the same thing."
//
I would like to get the full details of this by follow up enquiries tomorrow.
If Anon is still reading, please do you have the relevant contact details at WSCC or SCC?
stewgreen
The reason that organisations like Lush do not fund mainstream political parties or seek to found their own to pursue their agenda by democratic means is that the ragbag of political beliefs they espouse has never come close to commanding the support of more than a couple of percent of the electorate, let alone anything approaching a majority.
Following the trail of their donations, it is almost impossible to find any sort of coherent political philosophy and the only thing that the examples we know about have in common is that they conform to the touchy-feely, right-on, thumb-sucking wish list of the lefty pseudo-intellectuals.
Frack Off, Plane Stupid, Sea Shepherd, Freedom for Palestine says it all. Not a coherent thought in their heads.
Richard Drake
I endorse your point though I suspect that Garethman has slightly misunderstood serge's point about "dust to dust". The winning of rare earth metals, especially (as I understand it) in China, is every bit as hazardous as coal mining and these are essential for the construction of wind turbines. The "full-life" cost of these things is not as free of health risks as their supporters like to make out.
That aside the only way to convince Anon, and others who come to the table with a neat set of pre-conceptions, is to remind them that some sort of evidence is preferable to assertions that Maude and Osborne have a vested interest in shale gas (especially when what we are talking about is oil!) and that flinging out easily disprovable allegations about the source of (non-existent) earth tremors does nothing to help convince most of us on here that they are worth engaging with.
I can't agree with Cassio - it is plain that Anon isn't seeking answers at all. He has made up his mind based on the propaganda he has been fed by the activist eco-Left and is not willing to question its veracity.
Why else come here -a place where he must know he will find people who have studied the subject - just to repeat the dusty myths and tissue-thin fabrications about fracking that an hour's proper research would have disproved?
Plainly, he hasn't researched the subject and yet he bristles with sufficient righteous indignation to preach to people who have.
These are not the actions of someone who is amenable to rational argument. They are, however, every inch the actions of the activist.
Activists believe what they want to believe for the reasons Foxgoose (above) touches on. This is a mindset they have got into (been indoctrinated with) and it is usually impermeable to facts, however hard. As one 'issue' crumbles, it is soon replaced by another.
That they all stem from the same impulse that gave us hair shirts, original sin, self-flagellation and other manifestations of neo-puritan misanthropy and self-loathing, suggests we need a more refined approach than trying to reason with them. As we have seen from the climate debate - reason just doesn't work with people who have abandoned the very concept of reason. What needs to be addressed is why they believe the nonsense they do.
Handy summary of the extraction and manufacture of windmill magnets. Am sure anon would welcome this at the bottom of his garden. Otherwise he would be a hypocritical racist who is prepared to see people of another colour pay the price for his beliefs no?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
Anon, if you're practical-minded, and you favor wind and solar over fracking and fossil fuels as the primary sources of energy for large populations, you are, for all intents and purposes, a luddite. Wind and solar fail as energy delivery systems, and if fossil fuels are not available, people will return to previous method of burning wood, denuding forests in the process, to heat their homes and cook their food. And they will suffer for this shift. Trust me on this, even people like you will not like the way that looks. Fracking is about costs and benefits, too, not just about environmental or sociological purity.
Also, not that you're unique in this, but assuming polls accurately reflect political realities in the current climate (sociological climate, that is) is a logical fallacy. It's a well known fact that 97% of polls by environmental interests are biased, and therefore basically useless (I made up that 97% statistic, just like the 85% invented by the source you quote). There are times when public policy should, to be fair, give higher weight to the opinions of locals when they would likey suffer a disproportionate share of the negative effects of that policy. But when we're talking about oil and gas recovery, the exploration and recovery processes must go where the oil and gas is located, where the removal can be easily done. Later, as fossil fuel reserves become more rare, the trade-offs we're willing to make and the price we're willing and able to pay will rise, and the risks we're willing to take to mine in deep ocean basins will increase as well. This is just basic economics.
If you think that environmental purity will trump common sense and economic realities, and that people will revert to agrarian, so-called "sustainable" lifestyles, you are a luddite. Within the environmental movement, there are even more severe pressures than being a luddite. There are anti-human interests, interested in reducting human populations, who'd be willing to force that issue catastrophically. You must be careful to distinguish opinions that promote those goals from a milder goal of mitigating unnecessary environmental or societal damage due to public policy.
@Andrew/Anon @Garethman This VIDEO is what you are looking for
.. finally 2 weeks ago under oath to a senate committee
an EPA expert lists every single occasion of groundwater contamination being caused by fracking.
- It's clearly a fake video isn't it ? ..what do you think ?
I think the response to Anon has been pretty close to the response Realclimate would give to a denier attempting to post on their website and what do we think about RC?
Anon may be an activist or he may genuinely be someone who has read gasland type propaganda and be seriously worried. Why don't we start out by assuming he is honest and then changing our minds if we see something different?
There are so many lies out there and they quite understandably worry people. I remember reading a Gasland type website early in my search for info about fracking, it said there was a list (held by the US government) of between 600 and 700 chemicals used in fracking and about 100 of them were carcinogenic! The information made me worried that my support for fracking might be misplaced so I read more about it. I found that the list was real and that the number of carcinogens was real but I found out more.
The chemicals listed were those used since fracking began although the website led you to believe that they were all used in a frack. The chemicals used in a frack are determined by the geology of the site but usually no more than three are used in one frack. I read the Cuadrilla website and they use only one chemical in the Bowland shale, the chemical is regularly used in UK water treatment plants. I do not know what chemicals would be used in Balcombe should fracking be needed but you might well find out on the Cuadrilla website :)
Arthur Dent on Aug 4, 2013 at 12:43 PM 'coal and windmills: ludicrous comparisons?
Or not so ludicrous:
In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale
"This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what's left behind after making the magnets for Britain's latest wind turbines... and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
or here:
When Green Energy is not so Green
http://www.tw312.org.uk/?page_id=474
or here:
In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: pollution on a disastrous scale
http://www.windfarmaction.com/neodymium-mining.html
Dung; I read an article about those claims of 6 - 700 chemicals, many carcinogenic/toxic, yadda, yadda. Then it was pointed out that, in one case, the water came from a local source and the drilling company had only added a few specific compounds (all run-of-the-mill stuff). All the rest were already present in the water which the locals had been drinking since forever. The key was, of course, that these hundreds of chemicals were present in minute quantities, as is often the case for drinking water.
Dung
It's looking a bit doubtful that we can assume everything Anon says is truthful. Checking with the British Geological Survey data confirms that there has been no tremors detected in the Balcome area in the last two months so unless Anon can supply information on these mysterious tremors it very much looks to me that he is making things up for propaganda purposes. Not very clever when accurate data of all tremors is recorded
@ Cassio Aug 4, 2013 at 1:08 PM
" ....Anon/Andrew is seeking answers, not abuse ...."
So why then, presume & label him with the perjorative term ".. a beginner"?
How else would you describe a user of a commodity or service, who wishes to deny those benefits to others?
According to this article there are already over 200 drilled and fracked wells on shore: http://www.nohotair.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3021:you-ll-love-or-hate-this-fracking-additive&catid=203&Itemid=417
I don't remember seeing 200 communities complaining about drinking water and earthquakes.
People have already posted links to the British Geological Survey (BGS) showing the number of earthquakes in the UK. I am sure many people think we don't have earthquakes but many are recorded. Why did you believe the council when it blamed your quakes on drilling? Does drilling usually cause earthquakes that can be felt several miles away? Jumping up and down in the playground causes earthquakes.
Yes, the birds do suffer:
Environmental 03/07/2010
Portland, Dorset, England UK
"Portland school turns off wind turbine to halt seabird slaughter". A £20,000 6kW wind turbine has been turned off after taking the lives of at least 14 birds in six months. The manufacturer stated one fatality per year. Pupils reported to be upset when the birds were killed at lunchtimes and playtimes.
Reported by Dorset Echo on 3 July 2010 and in the Telegraph Online on 4 July 2010
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=wind%20turbine%20school%20playground%20birds&source=web&cd=10&cad=rja&ved=0CGgQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk%2FSchool%2520accidents.pdf&ei=Gob9UbfICcbJOanVgPgB&usg=AFQjCNGyXo9oxiL8Z0SLqJ_j6xSIWm5eug&bvm=bv.50165853,d.ZWU
Anon's OPEN MIND : he opened with
ahem I suspect he has only watched Gasland !- as usual I see people investing time carefully explaining FACTS and almost zero insults here ..
then we often find the person is not interested in facts cos they already have their GreenDream Dogma
@Garethman - your analogy is false you can't compare old coal against wind, especially if you don't compare the full life cycle ..coal is used in the manufacture of the wind turbines, and pollution is created in the mines for the magnetic material etc. ..turbines have often fallen down workers do die in the operations and magnitudes more concrete per MWh generated than fossil fuels like gas.. so more construction accidents etc..
SUPPORT THE NON-FRACKING in Balcombe
- Are we going to go down and protest in support of this "non-fracking" operation Cuadrilla is doing ?
#FrackOffLush #Balcombe #FrackOn #GetFracking #LetsGetFracking #RenewUnables
@John Marshall @Mike Jackson I'd favouriteyour posts if I could
Tis good, will help the flow rate.
Thanks Jimmy, I try my best.
Dung. Andrew/Anon is probably a troll, but he has been given serious and considered responses.
If you want to make a case about carcinogens being knowingly and willfully used for hydraulic fracturing, then let the world know. I'm sure I speak for everyone here. We want to know what evidence you have for carcinogenic chemicals being spread, by oil companies. for fun.
Top Tip
Opposed to a new wind farm ? go down to the planning office and put in a planning permission request for fracking in the same place
.. job done loads of greenies will turn up the next day in their mates cars to stop it.
- The activists get 5 fracks stopped , and the 97% of sane people are going to let the 5000 windfarms get built, and pay the subsidies
Do activists think that is the endgame ?
Balcombe residents send the damage/cleaning up bill to Lush ...look the address up on the net
For those of you that have not seen it..... FrackNation has a toe-curling segment where some folk vociferously claim groundwater contamination and confront almost "Deliverance" style - some officials from the EPA of all places saying their multiple analysis can't find any contamination and the folk start raving about dee-plee-tud you-rayn-yum in their water - they are I suspect the same folk that Josh Fox features in GasLand - so the imaginary earthquakes of anon fit the FUD MO.
stew:
Balcombe residents send the damage/cleaning up bill to Lush
yep - that would be fun.
.
@Hector Pascal "oh carcinogens ooh scary"
- until you know : just about everything is carcinogenic in sufficient quantities ..and cancer MOSTLY hits you right at the end of your life once you have survived all the other diseases that used to kill the cavemen off.
- Yesterday an activist gave me proof that diesel is a registered carcinogen. They never expect you to check the reference they give . On the same list in the same class as diesel was : sunlight, wood dust.
- Whatever circumstances have given us more cases these days of end of life cancer have been the same circumstances that have also resulted in much longer lifespans.
(Shutup Stew ..yeh OK)
Seems to me Anon did an excellent job of diverting this into a well trodden path, he's probably on a good bonus now he seems to have left the scene.
For what's it's worth and not wishing to restart the diversion, according to Wikipedia.
The Luddite movement emerged during the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw a rise in difficult working conditions in the new textile factories. The principal objection of the Luddites was the introduction of new wide-framed automated looms that could be operated by cheaper, less skilled labour, resulting in unemployment among skilled textile workers.
The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding industrial towns, where they would practise drills and manoeuvres.
So Luddites sounds about right to me. Also their close relations saboteurs (throwing shoes into machinery)and Swing Roiters.
The problem is quite simply that it is easy to protest violently against something and create a storm of news from a sympathetic media like the BBC; protesting violently in favour of something is regarded as fairly pointless by supporters of a particular policy. There are exceptions of course normally involving race or religion; but only one side of this debate have religious zeal, with all the chicanery that goes with it.
I suspect that with the real world check carried out on recent tremors in the UK, the anonymouse has bolted down the mouse hole and unlikely to reappear...