Here we go- I’m after non-polarised, balanced and well-reasoned information, views etc. I’m happy to admit that I’m playing ‘catch-up’ here, I really should know better but to date STW has been pretty good with OT queries.

I need to catch up PDQ on this one.

Background information.

I’m a geology graduate, now a science (biology and physics)teacher in a secondary school in Llanelli Borough, an area that is being considered by some as ripe for gas extraction via fracking. I need to know more about this method of gas extraction. Pro’s and Con’s, advantages and disadvantages, benefits and detrimental effects etc.

I’m out of date with stuff like this. I’ve gone round and round and round in circles and interlinked sites on Google- my brain is really cooked from the often highly emotionally charged tones from some of the stuff I’m reading.

Can anyone direct me to a lucid, reasoned and unbiased set of views about this issue? And if such information were to be GCSE friendly- I’ll buy you a pint/ chocolate/ doughnuts next time we meet 🙂

Much appreciated, Ambrose

I’m after non-polarised, balanced and well-reasoned information, views etc.

And you ask on here ? ffs

Good luck btw

A balanced view

It’s great

It’s cr@p

Is that any good? 😉

I don’t know how accurate the often polarised reports are. Example – it made poison gas come out by water tap, and alternatively, its not proven to be harmful in any way.

But I’ve heard that the extended life of the North Sea and near shore Atlantic oil and gas fields will be heavily reliant on fracking to make them work. There’s a lot of benefit to the nation in keeping those fields operational.

There is a (very) good and in-depth report on it from the Royal Society:

http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/shale-gas-extraction/report/

Are there not journal articles etc on the subject? You know, bit like doing some kind of proper research? 😛

Steady on grum, he’s a geology graduate, like me. The fact he can walk and talk should be viewed as some kind of triumph, so lets not get all academic too soon…

Firstly I think the term ‘fracking’ gets banded about a little too easily. Here around central Scotland where the now closed coal pits were(polmaise etc) there are companies engaged in gas extraction but this is simply shale gas or methane extraction which doesn’t involve a fracking process. It may be the same for you in Wales. Firstly you need to clarify if its fracking or unconventional gas extraction.

The BBC did a Horizon documentary. Edit: found it on YouTube.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v02pX-lBp0g[/video]

Also, Gasland:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8[/video]

Somewher to start, anyway…

Cheers folks- I thought I made it plain enough, but maybe not plain enough. I’m after shortcuts here.

Grum- can you perhaps be a bit more concrete. Do you know of any suitable sources that might suit? Cheers in advance.

Ambrose

You need to decide whether you are looking at it from the UK or US perspective too – quite different approaches. In a nutshell there will be much tighter controls over it in the UK at all stages from what chemicals they pump into the ground (they don’t have to tell in the US but will have to and I think from a restricted list in the UK), and also in the UK the HGV, waste water treatment/disposal, landscape and visual and site remediation issues will be much more significant, largely because we have less space more densely packed with people as well as the tighter legislation. Other issues such as huge water consumption, massive amounts of HGV traffic and releasing giant tremor detecting man eating monster worms from their ancient rock tombs will be equally valid here.

Stick to ‘legit’ sites rather than fanatical anti sites for your research. We had a good presentation at work recently but I wouldn’t be able to share that. Don’t read anything anyone says on here.

Surely you’re a salt-of-the-earth welder or brickie crikey?!

Ambrose – a quick google shows an article in Nature. It requires a subscription but maybe you have access to one at a library somewhere? You did do some reading/research in your degree right?

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7364/abs/477271a.html

Surely you’re a salt-of-the-earth welder or brickie crikey

Nope, I’m an Honours degree Geologist who got stiffed by oil price rises in 1983, hence my nursing career…

A newspaper article by the Prof who headed the Royal Society enq.
Summary – Drilling can be safe if we follow the rules.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10266881/Prof-Robert-Mair-Here-are-the-facts-about-fracking.html

I’m after shortcuts here.

A shortcut

Not very “non-polarised” though 🙂

Just had a couple of pints with one of the main brains in the UK on shale gas, really nothing to get upset about IMO, well unless you read the daily mail.

and don’t forget to add in, that any ground tremors experienced are something that generations gone by had quite often due to mining operations, its only in recent years that due to the reduction in mining in the UK that things have settled down.

Just had a couple of pints with one of the main brains in the UK on shale gas, really nothing to get upset about IMO, well unless you read the daily mail.

he would say that wouldn’t he 😉

Drilling can be safe if we follow the rules.

obviously a non-UK company employing sub-contractors based in the lowest contract bid on temporary installations is the best model.

how much more money are the EA getting to monitor these paragons of environmental protection?

Pfft, balls to your links. All you need to know is this.

It’s crap, expensive, will probably poison your dog and make your taps explode.

But it’s still better than buying it from Vladamir Putin.

At least thats my almost certainly inaccurate take on it.

Problem is in America they were fracking close to water tables, which resulted in liquid contaminants in the water supply and methane in the supply which resulted in the gas vaporising from taps etc. Coupled with the fact that they do not need to disclose what chemicals used in the fracking process so who knows what they were pumping down the well is anyones guess. This is where the problem lies, no matter where fracking takes place the benchmark has been set. Thanks America

Have you tried the geol soc website? And the BGS were planning before and after surveys, streams and such.

Truthland…

… an answer to ‘gasland’.

On the tremor front, largest experienced so far was 2.3, last year a 2.5 occurred in SOT due to a mine collapse and 3 people reported it…..

Hopefully we will set a benchmark on this country on the quality front and the world will look to the UK as an example

Or we just sack it off and build 100000 new wind turbines

Or we just sack it off and build 100000 new wind turbines more newkleer powa stayshuns, innit

😉

A friend of mine is a Geologist working on fracking. To sum up:

“Safe if properly regulated (like UK) where Fracking occurs at depthm, with a layer of solid rock can between fracking and surface.

Unsafe if not properly regulated (eg. US) where fracking can happen at any depth.”

I watched Gasland recently and though it doesn’t present a very balanced view it does give a picture of what can go wrong and in 99% of cases it’s down to the appalling health safety and environment culture in the US. There is simply no way you could even think about getting away with that here.

I don’t understand why regulations make it safer?
Nuclear power is regulated but people seem to think that that is unsafe.

Nuclear power is regulated but people seem to think that that is unsafe.

And it’s really not.

I watched Gasland recently and though it doesn’t present a very balanced view

Not a balanced view? It’s been panned as being nonsense by anyone who knows anything about the industry. The only positive comments I’ve read have been from film critics and whilst that may well make it a well made film, it doesn’t make it true.

The amount of water required to do it seems a highly contentious issue…

This recent article seems to have stirred the hornets nest (see comments at bottom)

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/09/13/fracking-update-these-are-the-texas-towns-running-out-of-water/

I don’t understand why regulations make it safer?

Quite simply the design, construction, practices, and more than likely the drilling muds used in the UK will have to be much much safer than the American companies are portrayed to be using. The HSE and the Environment Agency will be entitled to have any operations deemed to be unsafe shut down.

The amount of water required to do it seems a highly contentious issue

Will be especially so in the UK, nevermind sourcing such huge volumes to begin with, here it will have to be treated as wastewater rather than just poured away as in the US, so will either have to be massive water treatment works on site, or driven by (thousands of) tankers off site to some kind of treatment facility.

George and Dave’s pals from Eton stand to make a packet out of it. So it’s fine. (it’s much better controlled environmental pollution wise here (that and the technology is more mature anyhow)but due to the additional depth, sparsity (rather than scarcity) of the deposits will be more difficult and expensive to extract so the ‘lowering your energy bill’ bit is cobblers). Carbon wise not suer what the extraction cost is but i bet it’s not far off open cast coal. That said gas burns ‘cleaner’ so if it’s for energy generation rhater than end user it’s better than taking all the cut price coal we get from the US cos fracking has undercut their domestic market. The seismic ‘risk’ is scaremongering guff. Six of one, half a dozen of the other – balanced enough?*

Yours

Fellow geology grad

*all of the above based on probably even less actal reseach than my dissertaton

Forget everything else, we can’t afford to burn the fossil fuels we already have access to, getting into new extraction methods just makes things worse.

Yes lots of people will make a lot of money out of it, including companies like the one I work for, indirectly.

If you are talking about a ‘balance’, I guess the only true ‘positives’ in fracking are provision of more energy, and creation of revenue/some jobs for some non-UK and UK companies. Everything else is pretty negative.

Forget everything else, we can’t afford to burn the fossil fuels we already have access to

Why not? I take it you don’t own a car, fly, or have gas or oil fired central heating.

We are going to keep burning fossl fuels. Relatively clean UK gas is better than coal or than being at the mercy of Russia for gas.

or than being at the mercy of Russia for gas.

I really wish people would stop saying things like that. We’re not at the mercy of Russian gas and we never have been. Pipeline imports via Europe excluding Norway represents less than 10% of our total imported gas and only some of that will have originated in Russia. That’s just imiports and does not include our own production. We are far more dependant on Qatar and Norway for gas imports than we are Russia.

We are far more dependant on Qatar and Norway for gas imports than we are Russia.

Yeah but to be fair more people are scared of the Russians than they are of the Norwegians and Qatarites. So claiming to be at the mercy of Qatar and Norway wouldn’t have the same ring about it. Saying we’re at the mercy of the Russians makes much more sense.

500K us gallons per well is teh water consumption i believe or thereabouts, not earthshattering 😉

Dont think its just the UK looking to do it to fill a void, which of course we are, quatar, dubai, scandanavia are all going to follow.

And you cant build a nuclear powerstation in a year unfortunately.

Yeah but to be fair more people are scared of the Russians than they are of the Norwegians and Qatarites.

The Norwegians have certainly gone downhill (in scary terms at least) since the times of Eric Bloodaxe.