BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 11:28 AM

Well,if you lot support fracking you deserve ALL that lies ahead....

Geez!

You all seem to think we have the right to take EVERYTHING from this planet regardless of the damage it does...



You were saying, Will Fly?????????

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 11:04 AM

Sugarfoot Jack: "Except we aren't capable of using them responsibly, and in the case of hydrocarbons they are finite and will become ever more costly to extract. We're not self-sufficient in any hydrocarbons now and in truth if there was an ounce of sense in the government we would be investing in R&D for renewables for when the penny finally drops and green energy becomes a global market. However, the myopia of short-term thinking rules the roost and we blunder on enslaved to energy generation systems that are past their prime, in terms of efficiency, pollution and environmental degradation."


Not being well read on the matter, I'd like to understand the politics and economics behind this countries failure to pursue successful approaches in renewable energy. So far as I know, some Northern European countries have been successfully investing in and implementing positive strategies for energy usage reduction and green or renewable resources for decades now. One wonders why the UK is so attached to models for energy production and usage which - due to the finite resources they are drawn from - are inevitably and increasingly unsustainable?

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 10:47 AM

Lizzie....Stop talking rubbish. Fracking will effect 0.00001 percent of the Earths crust... A Tsunami/Volcanic eruption/Hurricane does far more damage. Go and study some simple physics and learn about the planet. Knee jerk rose tinted reactions don't convince anyone. And crying on the radio does even less.
(I really was trying to resist posting on here, but, your cringeworthy rant on the radio this morning was too much......BTW....I thought you had boycotted all things BBC after the Mike Harding events of a few years ago?)

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Stu
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 10:19 AM

"We have to use the resources that WE have."

Except we aren't capable of using them responsibly, and in the case of hydrocarbons they are finite and will become ever more costly to extract. We're not self-sufficient in any hydrocarbons now and in truth if there was an ounce of sense in the government we would be investing in R&D for renewables for when the penny finally drops and green energy becomes a global market. However, the myopia of short-term thinking rules the roost and we blunder on enslaved to energy generation systems that are past their prime, in terms of efficiency, pollution and environmental degradation.

Wind farms are partially the answer, it's just for some reason the toffs want to destroy that particular industry. Tidal and wave power are less practical and possibly more problematic for already threatened costal ecosystems.

Oh, and there's a huge fuck-off nuclear fission reactor showering our beleaguered planet with nearly terrawatts of energy daily which could be used to heat our water, light and warm our homes and for any other number of things. So put solar panels on the roof of every building in the country, and convection heaters for our water and you're pretty much sorted . . . oh, except the hydrocarbon-sellers and their lackeys won't like that one bit will they?

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 09:50 AM

Amazing day when I fully support a statement by Teribus! Well said sir. Yes, we do have to use the resources we have.
No doubt we need to transition from fossil fuels to renewables. But what energy will we use to build the new green energy infrastructure?
Yup...fossil fuels.
We need them. And we need to use them wisely.
Tight gas and oil could be our get-out-of-jail-free card to be used to get us off our global addiciton to oil...or we could just suck them into our current system, use them up, create more pollution, and put off thunderdome for a few more years.

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 09:05 AM

Thanks for that Rob very informative.

I have no idea why in these discussions it always gets be presented as an either/or case.

Wind Farms and wind turbines are most definitely NOT the answer, neither are wave and tidal power generation schemes. Geothermal looks attractive but expensive and very technically challenging.

The answer will be a combination of nuclear, oil, gas & coal powered generation and the renewables. We have to use the resources that WE have.

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 08:48 AM

Ugh, the potential contamination of our underground water resources, really bothers me. Water is so essential. The Tory's want to go ahead with GM crops here in the UK too, because *sterile* seed will apparently save us all from possible future starvation.

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 08:44 AM

Speak to the people of Pennsylvannia, Rob...

Take a look at the videos of the huge fracking trucks rolling through their towns and villages 24/7, causing them terrible distress..

Tell me, though, WHAT do you intend should happen, when we've fracked our planet to pieces?

ALL most people are thinking about here is 'cheap gas' and THAT is the carrot dangled in front of them. NO thought as to US changing OUR self-indulgent, greedy ways..

You CANNOT Blast Mother Earth apart without real problems happening!

We are destroying our planet purely to feed our insatiable desire for Stuff and 24/7 party life-styles...It's INSANITY!

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 08:39 AM

Hmm, there are 2 sides to every story:

There were indeed 2 small earthquakes attributed to the initial fracking. They were of the same order of magnitude (1.4 and 2.3) as most of the dozens of small seismic events that occur naturally in England every year. The report into the investigation stated:

''This combination of geological factors was rare and would be unlikely to occur together again at future well sites.

''If these factors were to combine again in the future, local geology limits seismic events to around magnitude 3 on the Richter scale as a worst-case scenario.''

This level of activity is also typical of the many small man-made seismic events that occured due to coal-mining, when that was a major UK industry. Over many decades these caused negligible problems (not talking about subsidence events here where former mine shafts that were built over collapsed later, etc, which *were* problematic). The larger of the 2 Lancashire quakes was about 1 12 billionth the size of the Fukishima quake and caused no damage to surface structures at all.


In fact, the Committee on Climate Change warns that relying heavily on gas for future electricity supplies would leave households vulnerable to higher bills in the long run as the price of gas on the international market is volatile is something of a contradiction. Domestically produced gas would reduce reliance on volatile international markets.

The CCC has examined the potential impact on bills of different energy systems and predicts that subsidies to renewables and nuclear would put about £100 on household bills by 2020, but that by 2050 a gas-based electricity system might cost people as much as £600 extra. that's assuming no shale gas exploitation inthe UK, and I note that you're not comparing similar timescales. What would be the impact of renewables and nuclear by 2050...ie, if you're going to compare costs, it's nonsensical to use different baselines.

They say fracking will generate much more opposition in the UK than it has in the US as it involves turning green fields into nindustrial sites. It may or may not, but the opposition is likely to be of the sort of knee-jerk and non-analytical reaction experienced with such things as Brent Spar, when the amount of pollutants was vastly over-estimated by Greenpeace and the eventual land-based decommissioning championed by "environmentalists" actually ended up releasing more toxic pollutants than the original deep water sinking plan would have done. As for "turning green fields into industrial sites", the long-term visual impact is actually quite modest, once the rigs are gone. And who says the work will necessarilty be done over green fields? Emotive language.

Environmentalists are more cautious following incidents in the US in which fracking has been associated with pollution of water through the chemicals involved in the process, as well as leakage of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas as well as a local air pollutant. Yes, a valid point....we have to take care here that controls are in place and properly monitored to minimise these possibilities.

They also worry that an abundance of domestic gas will tempt politicians to abandon targets for cutting greenhouse gases, which are rising inexorably globally to the alarm of scientists.. Shale gas extraction in the US (since gas is a much smaller CO2 producer than coal or oil) has actually reduced the US's CO2 emissions below the level that (would have been) required by the Kyoto Agreement (if the US HAD signed up).

A poll suggested that people would prefer to have wind turbines on the horizon than gas rigs. What kind of poll? And were those polled aware of the difference between the initial drilling phase, where gas rigs are on site for a limited time, and the production phase, where the rigs are replaced by much less intrusive "Christmas Tree" valve arrangements for extracting and pumping the gas? Were they also made aware that the "choice" may be between a single gas rig on site for maybe 60-90 days v several dozen wind turbines in place permanently, with all the low-frequency hum effects etc that accompany them?

I work in the energy sector, yes, but my remit runs to both fossil fuels and renewables. I'm working right now on projects associated with offshore windfarms, so I have no axe to grind either way on the fossil v renewables debate, as both generate work for me.

However, what we do need, and are not getting very much of, is to be adult about these things. We can't go back to a pastoral society given the population we have to support, so our development choices need to be considered in a mature way, and with recognition that the simplistic approach advocated by many is not achievable. The problems we face in meeting energy requirements are complex. Renewables (specifically wind-based renewables) are inconsistent and unreliable,and need on-line back-up from consistent sources (at present oil, gas or coal). This on-line back-up has to be kept "warm" so is idling and wasting energy while wind turbines are working, making them less "green" than many would like to believe. The number of wind farms needed to make a significant contribution to UK energy supply is enormous. And in the last 3 years we've had 2 periods of 2 weeks, both in the dead of winter, where there was no significant wind at all and not one wind-turbine was turning, nationally, over the whole of these periods.

Let's have a mature debate, by all means...and maybe at least consider the possibility that fracking may be one of the "least bad" ways forward, rather than jumping in with knee-jerk condemnation backed up with contradictory and ill thought-through statements.

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 07:34 AM

Press Release from BIFF

The BIFF Facebook page....(Britain and Ireland Frack Free)


And the list Vanessa speaks of, above:

List of the Harmed

Subject: RE: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 07:22 AM

On for 7 days, the BBC programme from this morning. There's a lot of very interesting information on here from both sides of the argument. Vanessa Vine is at 19.36 in and continues through a few calls and she's wonderful! I'm at 28.36 and again at 34.25, but I lost the plot I'm afraid, because I'm so deeply upset at what they're doing here, so I found myself trying to talk through my tears. I'm just Beyond Belief at the way some people refuse to see the Whole Picture and refuse to live their lives for the Next Seven Generations and Way Beyond.

I feel desperately sad today...and even more Desperately Angry!

Today, is a Black Day for my Country....and for Mother Earth too, for with every country that joins up to the Fracking Insanity, the damage to her gets ever bigger and goes ever deeper.....

Feck my Species and I apologise to all the Innocent Species that we will, more than likely, take down with us one day in the not too distant future....

Nicky Campbell's BBC Radio 5 show

Subject: BS: Fracking now give the go-ahead in the UK
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 13 Dec 12 - 05:19 AM

I have no words...too gutted!

>>>"The government has given the go-ahead for a firm to resume the controversial technique known as fracking to exploit gas in Lancashire.

Conditions have been imposed to minimise the risk of seismic a
ctivity.

Fracking involves creating little explosions underground, then injecting water and chemicals to release gas trapped in cavities in shale rocks.

The firm, Cuadrilla, was stopped from fracking after two small earthquakes.

In the US, exploitation of shale gas boom has sent energy prices tumbling, and the Prime Minister has expressed hopes that the UK can enjoy a similar boom.

But government advisers warn today that shale gas may be unlikely to bring down energy prices much in Britain.

In fact, the Committee on Climate Change warns that relying heavily on gas for future electricity supplies would leave households vulnerable to higher bills in the long run as the price of gas on the international market is volatile.

The UK won't benefit from substantially lower prices unless the rest of Europe decides to back shale gas too, as Europe has a gas grid that allows gas to be traded to the highest bidder.

The CCC has examined the potential impact on bills of different energy systems and predicts that subsidies to renewables and nuclear would put about £100 on household bills by 2020, but that by 2050 a gas-based electricity system might cost people as much as £600 extra.
Infographic

Today's fracking decision has created political excitement as the Prime Minister the Chancellor and some business leaders have spoken enthusiastically about shale gas.

Environmentalists are more cautious following incidents in the US in which fracking has been associated with pollution of water through the chemicals involved in the process, as well as leakage of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas as well as a local air pollutant.

They say fracking will generate much more opposition in the UK than it has in the US as it involves turning green fields into industrial sites.

They also worry that an abundance of domestic gas will tempt politicians to abandon targets for cutting greenhouse gases, which are rising inexorably globally to the alarm of scientists.

A poll suggested that people would prefer to have wind turbines on the horizon than gas rigs.

Steve Radley, Director of Policy at EEF, the manufacturers' organisation, said the UK should do whatever possible to keep energy costs down: "This is a major threat that needs to be addressed now as we cannot continue to load industry with costs which are in excess of our competitors.," he said.

Caroline Flint MP, Labour's Shadow Energy Secretary, said: "Labour has always said that fracking should only go ahead if it is shown to be safe and environmentally sound. If the Government believes that this is the case then we will look carefully at their proposals.

"But the idea that this form of gas extraction can have the same impact here in the UK as it has had on gas prices in the United States is considered wishful thinking by most experts."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20707574