Could Fracking Be The Saviour of the North?
I can remember a documentary on the BBC in probably the 1960s about how a Scottish company extracted oil from shale rock. I don’t know whether they still do. I have just found this museum to the industry and it says it closed in 1962.
According to today’s Sunday Times, there is enough shale gas in the shale deposits mostly in the north of England to last 70 years.
Now I know extracting shale gas is controversial, especially, where the process of fracking is used. There was controversy in the Blackpool are, as fracking was blamed for a couple of small earthquakes. Read about it here.
But then there was controversy, when horseless carriages first arrived on British roads and they had to be preceded by a man with a red flag.
I’m not saying there is no risk from fracking, but I do think, that with proper research fracking will be safe to use in many places in the world.
And eventually, it will be used in many places in the UK, when the problems are sorted out. After all, we mined coal for years, despite the subsidence risk nearby.
And remember that for the same amount of energy coal produces forty-percent more CO2! This is because coal is pure carbon, whereas natural gas is a mixture of Hydrogen H2 and Methane, CH4, so it produces a large proportion of water when it burns.
Hopefully, I’ll know more later in the week, when I have gone to the Geological Society of London to hear a lecture.
The other thing about shale gas in the UK, is that it is located where we need jobs; in the north of England. So it becomes a vote winner for whoever wants to play the shale gas card.
Any extraction of shale gas, should be linked to two measures.
1. A local extraction tax, that goes directly to the local authorities over the extraction. This was proposed in the seventies, by someone I knew, as a means of pursuing oil extraction in places like Surrey, which in his knowledgeable view was one of the most likely places to find oil in the UK. Imagine the fuss it would create if large quantities of oil were found under say Epsom. But if Surrey got enough money to build everything they needed, the reaction of some might be different.
2. Full insurance for any buildings damaged by extraction process.
Politicians and the press will see it as a simple black and white issue. Most will be against! I see it as a multi-coloured jigsaw, that must be based on sound technology.
I would start by setting up an well–funded Institute of Fracking, at a university that has the reputation to recruit some of the best researchers in the world. It may prove that fracking is a dead end but if it showed that it was economically viable in the UK, we would reap the benefit in spades.
I have just found this article from the American Consumer Institute. It makes a lot of interesting points. Note that the United States has a local extraction tax in some or all states and this seems to push opinion in various directions.
I think the worst thing we could do is ban fracking, with the second worst being to ignore it.
Whatever we do, because we have so much of this gas, we should set up some form of research institute.
There is also a page of expert opinion to the Qradilla report on the links between fracking and earthquakes at Blackpool.
The French Prove They Shouldn’t Have Had the Olympics
The French were peeved that we got the Olympics for 2012, especially as they said they had all the stadia ready.
But when they built the Stade de France, they forgot one important thing; undersoil heating. In fact because of the design of the roof, they may have actually made things worse in cold weather. This is from Wikipedia.
The tinted glass in the center reduces the contrast and distributes natural light. It filters out red and infrared radiation, however, it allows blue and green lights, due to their necessity involving the health of the turf.
So perhaps their design actually made matters worse by stopping red and infrared radiation.
I suspect there will be small arguments going on all over Paris tonight. How many Irishmen for instance have come over for a long weekend with their wifes to give them a Valentine’s Day treat on Tuesday? And how many French are wanting to get back the South-West, where most of their rugby is placed?
It’s just been said on BBC Radio 5, that the reason the Stade de France has no undersoil heating , is that it was built on an old rubbish dump and methane rises out of the soil.
Type Santorum into Google
This idea was broadcast on Fighting Talk this morning. You don’t get what you expect, but the result of a spat between Rick Santorum and someone who disagrees with his views.
It is a masterful illustration of how to use the power of Google.
If you have a nervous disposition, make sure you have a small glass of Scotland’s finest to hand.
The BBC’s North-Western Bias
I listened to all of the BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast Show this morning. Only one of the Premier League matches was mentioned; Manchester United v Liverpool.
You’d have thought no other matches were being played!
The only other match mentioned was Crystal Palace v Doncaster because it had been called off.
So let’s hope no north-western team wins anything this year!
This Awful Cold Weather
Yesterday and Wednesday as well, I hardly left the house, as it was so cold. Today, it’s no better with -1 at 06:00 and -3 at 09:00 forecast for tomorrow. And that -3 comes with fog. At least it gets sunny in the afternoonafternoon, but temperatures are just hovering above freezing. Ipswich isn’t any better with temperatures a couple of degrees colder. So I suspect that I’ll stay in bed as long as I can.
I remember a similar day some years ago, when C had plenty of work to do and wanted to get rid of me for the afternoon, so she found two pairs of thick tights and I wore those under my trousers.
I just about survived.
It’s funny how attitudes to practical transvestism have changed. A man would have never done this in the sixties, but now if needs must, men do.
In fact in the 1960s, Bobby Moore tried to sell Man-Tights and I can remember the adverts for them on trains on the London Underground.
I also remember a story from a friend, who was a very keen caver, who told me to keep warm, they generally wear several layers of tights. Once in the 1970s, a friend broke a leg badly. whilst caving in France and they had to carry him out all the way. But the worst bit, was removing his tights, as he didn’t want to go to a French hospital wearing them.
I have no choice today, as I live alone.
So it’s either go and freeze or stay at home and keep warm.
I think I’ll do the latter!
You really do miss your late partner for the smallest and silliest reasons!
Give Mothers tax break for home help, Cameron told
This was the headline on the front page of The Times today.
Lt is not a new idea, as I heard it from a senior civil servant in about 1980.
He was in the Department of Employment and had proposed that if you employed someone properly out of your salary and paid their taxes accordingly, then you would get tax relief. It wouldn’t be just for cleaners, babysitters and gardeners as in the current plans, but for any legitimate purpose.
Thus, if you were in a high paid job and perhaps felt, you’d like to start a small business, then you could employ someone to investigate if it was feasible.
As it says in today’s front page, it would cut the black economy and raise extra revenue.
It was eventually dropped, as the government’s model of the economy had no knowledge of the black one.
I hope they do now!
A Lock Is a Gate
This is a mini concept album and drawing project for the Central Line. These pictures were taken at Bethnal Green station.
There is more on the project here. Note the poster for the Stairway To Heaven, which will commemorate the 173 people who died in the Bethnal Green tube disaster in 1943.
Is This Optimism?
I took this picture on a very cold day outside Carluccio’s in Islington.
Outside Tables in the Cold
Is it the height of optimism to expect people to sit outside?
Lottery Fever in Nottinghamshire
Over the last few months, there have been a couple of large ottery wins in Nottinghamshire. The last one is reported here.
There has been the usual mutterings about regional bias, but it’s just a statistical freak.
Of course now, a lot of stupid people in the county will play, as they think the area is favoured by the draw.
I never play the lottery or scratch cards, as they are just a tax on the poor and the stupid.
QE is Bad For Your Pensions
I don’t mean dear old Liz, as I think the longer she lives, the better it will be for the economy and my pension. But the link is the opposite with Quantitative Easing, which according to several commenators will mean that long-term annuity rates will fall. This article is from CityWire. Here’s an extract.
On the one hand there has been uproar from some experts about the impact on people’s pensions. This is because QE is used to buy back government bonds, or gilts, which reduces their yields and in turn lowers annuity rates, which are linked to gilts and which determine the amount of pension many people receive.
However, others argue that annuity rates were already dropping before QE begun; that while we are hostage to the broader economic backdrop which includes QE, the eurozone crisis is what really matters. ‘It’s the broader backdrop that is most relevant,’ said Tom McPhail of Hargreaves Lansdown.
It doesn’t look good does it. I suppose I could put in a stove that burned paper and just put my pension in it, a bit at a time. I would at least be warm.
On the other way, I’ve sort of created my own annuity using Zopa, where I put the money I got from selling C’s Boxster.
The Anonymous Widower 