Russia ‘secretly working with environmentalists to oppose fracking’
The title of this post is not taken from some right-wing scandal sheet, but from this article in The Guardian.
I have an open mind on fracking, but keep these facts in mind.
- A lot of the bad stories about fracking originate in the United States, where quite frankly a lot of get-rich-quick cowboys got involved in the process, in a manner that would be illegal in the EU and the UK.
- The largest on-shore oil-field in Western Europe is Wytch Farm, which is close to Corfe Castle. I can’t find a report of any environmental damage around this oil-field, since production started in 1979. This proves to me, that we can extract oil and gas safely on-shore over a long period, which in Wytch Farm’s case is without fracking.
- We have some of the best engineering Universities in the world and we should use them to develop better ways of extracting, transporting and processing oil and gas. A big project involving several European universities called SHEER, is looking at fracking on a Polish site.
- Remember that if we need to import gas from outside Europe, we deal with countries with impeccable human rights like Qatar, Russia or the United States.
- Fracking techniques are used in the Highlands of Scotland to extract water out of rock.
- We need a lot of gas to keep us warm in winter.
I may have an open mind, but no-one could deny, that if Western Europe obtained the gas it needs from fracking or perhaps by finding a massive conventional gas field onshore in the UK, that the biggest loser would be Russia and President Putin.
I
The Eden Project, Geothermal Energy And Fracking
In Iceland last summer, I saw the benefits of geothermal energy, with one of the most spectacular being the amazing Blue Lagoon.
We don’t have any volcanoes in the UK, but in places like Cornwall and London Bridge station, projects are starting to test the feasibility of using heat from deep in the ground.
According to this article in the Glasgow Herald, the Eden Project is investigating geothewrmal energy. This is an extract.
Given the prominence of Friends of the Earth in the shale gas debate it often comes as a nasty surprise to local anti-fracking groups that most green groups do actually support drilling and fracking for deep geothermal projects. Only yesterday, the famous Eden Project in Cornwall announced such a project.
Today though, I read in The Times, that this £35million project is now under threat from an anti-fracking amendment in a bill in Parliament.
I suspect that the problem is if you wrote down all the science known by Members of Parliament, it would just about fit on a small postage stamp.
I wonder what will happen when politicians find out about the ground source heat pump at London Bridge could use fracking techniques, to enable it to be built properly and run efficiently.
Fracked Or Fiction
I went to the London Geological Society today to see a lecture called.
Fracked or fiction: so what are the risks associated with shale gas exploitation?
The lecture is described here on their web site.
They will put up a video in two or three weeks, which you can watch to make your own mind up.
My overwhelming conclusion after the lecture was that before we can embrace fracking in earnest, we must collect a lot more information. For example, we don’t know the background levels ofearthquakes and natural gas seepage in this country. So if say it is thought, that fracking had caused a small earthquake, can we be sure that that isn’t one that we habitually get in this country.
A secondary conclusion, is that my engineering knowledge indicated that there are several very fruitful areas for the development of new technological solutions to mitigate some of the possible problems of fracking.
Stopping fracking is probably an easy task for opponents, as it can be portrayed as dangerous in several ways, that appeal to the sensationalist media. And of course the benefits of low gas prices aren’t so obvious, until they actually happen.
You can compare fracking with that other nimby-opposed project; HS2. This can be opposed in terms of noise, vibration and construction and visual disturbance cost, but the benefits of better and faster journeys is easier to understand by the man on the Birmingham train.
Should We Nuke Russia?
The title of this post is not a serious question in the way you think it is.
I was thinking about how we control Russia in its expansion into Ukraine and wondered how much gas we buy from the country. Google found me this article on the Forbes web site. It has the title of Nukes Best Option Against Russian Gas. It however did give some interesting facts about Russia and its gas, particularly with respect to the sale of the gas. The article contained the answer that I wanted in this sentence.
Russia gets about €300 billion a year (US$417 billion/yr) from fuel exports to Europe, almost 20% of its GDP
So it looks like that by its policies and purchases, the EU is strongly supporting Russia. The article also contained these paragraphs.
It is unfortunate that Germany closed down almost half of their nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima, 8 out of 17. Nukes really come in handy during this kind of energy conflict. It would behoove Germany to rethink that decision and to postpone their plans to shut down the remaining nuclear plants over the next ten years, to give them more leverage to address the Russian aggression as they continue transitioning to alternatives.
Until recently, Germany’s 17 nuclear plants produced power exceeding the energy produced by all of the Russian gas entering Germany. With eight shut down, the amount of nuclear energy produced still offsets much of that produced by Russian gas. If Germany insists on prematurely shutting the rest of its nuclear fleet, then the amount of gas needing to be imported into the country will double, even with projected increases in renewables.
This explains the title of the article.
The writer has a point. Whether we like it or not, Europe and especially Germany is playing the Russian’s game, by buying more gas and giving Putin the funds to be aggressive.
The sooner we stop buying gas from Russia the better. We need to start fracking and build more nuclear power stations.
Using The Power Of Water
We’ve seen enough rain this winter and it has caused a lot of damage at places like Dawlish. This story from the BBC, shows how to make working safe at Dawlish, the Devon Fire Brigade is using water to bring down an unsafe landslip. Here’s the first bit.
Fire crews are pumping sea water on to the cliff at Dawlish to bring down 350,000 tonnes of potentially unstable rock and soil in a controlled landslip.
Network Rail called in firefighters to prevent a “catastrophic” collapse that could have posed a risk to workers repairing the main Devon railway line.
What I find interesting, is that lots of people are against hydraulic fracking or fracking, which on a grand and more open scale, Network Rail are doing at Dawlish.
Winning Over The Anti-Frackers
Edmund Marshall is a retired MP. In a letter to the Times today, he talks of his part in the Zetland County Council Act 1973 and the effect of the Act, on the Shetland Islands. This is talked about here on the Scottish Government web site, with this paragraph being the most relevant.
Closer to home, we have an example of the way in which one local community – Shetland – was able to accrue a legacy for its future on the back of oil and gas exploration. Shetland Islands Council showed foresight in securing via, primarily, the Zetland County Council Act 1974 a lasting revenue stream for the benefit of the islands from the development of the Sullom Voe terminal. The result of this Act and subsequent contractual negotiations is that Shetland today has a lasting legacy of around £216m. 7 This figure is over and above the funds contained in the Shetland Reserve Fund, administered by Shetland Islands Council.
30. The Shetland Charitable Trust, established in 1974 to manage the income stream accrued to Shetland, today provides funding to a number of charitable organisations and projects where there is a clear benefit to the Shetland community. Over the years, the Trust has made a contribution to creating a modern, positive and healthy community in Shetland. Shetland Charitable Trust’s financial strength has also given it the power to establish joint venture projects to move into the renewable energy generation market.
Dr. Marshall finishes his letter, by saying that fracking could be dealt with by similar provisions.
It would lead to some rather heated arguments in some councils, as to whether to accept the fracker’s shilling. It is a choice about whether you want lower Council Tax and new community facilities, or fracking.
I very doubt that a similar Act will happen in the greater UK, as payments like this really get the Treasury’s ire. I’m surprised that they allowed the Shetlands to get this independent finance! Perhaps none of the Treasury’s mandarins had been north of Watford and Shetlands meant Rockall to them.
Are Wind Turbines Not What They’re Cracked Up To Be?
The news this morning that RWE Innogy are not going ahead with the Atlantic Array of 240 wind turbines is to some surprising.
The developers cite engineering difficulties and that it is not the right time for the project, although others are saying that there are financial problems with the project.
If we are going to have wind turbines, which I’ll admit, I think are an eyesore in the British landscape, then offshore is probably the best place for them.
I think that this array might well be built at some time, but only after new and better technology has arrived.
It would be wrong to increase the subsidy for the project to get it built.
If subsidies go anywhere they should go into energy research.
1. We should try to find better ways of getting the gas out that is there, that would otherwise use crude fracking techniques.
2. Our buildings are notoriously badly insulated and research should be directed to find better ways of cutting energy use.
3. Research could also be directed towards better ways of generating heat and power, to widen some of the techniques used at places like the Bunhill Energy Centre.
Just using subsidies to put up wind turbines, is like giving an alcoholic or drug addict, money to fund their habit. It might give some a good feeling, but it does nothing for the overall good of society.
Brent Bans Fracking
This story about how Brent Council is going to ban fracking, must be the most silly of the weekend. It’s a bit like me saying, I won’t allow someone like Kate Moss to come round to my house for a cup of tea and some scones. Fracking needing to take place in Brent, is probably just as likely! Or should that be unlikely?
Blackpool Suffers A Couple Of Tremors
This report on the BBC says that Blackpool has been shaken by a couple of earthquakes.
They must have been really major, as BBC Breakfast isn’t reporting the tremors this morning. Perhaps, they couldn’t find a reporter and film crew, who wanted to go!
I wonder though how many people believe this is all down to fracking? I did check comments on a report in a tabloid and there were a few comments, suggesting that the anti-frackers will blame fracking.
The Fracking Story Is Now Dead
We won’t get much on fracking for a few days, weeks and even months, as the papers have decided to dig up that old chesnut of a story designed to sell newspapers; who actually killed princess Diana. Even that royalist rag, the Independent has the story.
Still as her death didn’t happen in Sussex, the police of that county must be very relieved.
The Anonymous Widower 