irc – Member
We’ll need gas for the next couple of decades at least. In an uncertain world I’d prefer a UK supply. Who is volunteering to stop using gas central heating?

I don’t think it works like that, it all goes into the European market I think?

Turnerguy – ever heard of the law of unintended consequences?

Its just storing up more problems for later on.

Except that natural events are doing this stuff all the time – volcanic eruptions for example.

Or the massive fires in Indonesia which is chucking out loads of co/2 but it people don’t seem fussed about, a lot less fussed than about VW.

It is almost certainly the greatest environmental disaster of the 21st century – so far.

it is currently producing more carbon dioxide than the US economy. And in three weeks the fires have released more CO2 than the annual emissions of Germany.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/indonesia-fires-disaster-21st-century-world-media

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35109393

A little bit pointless having these global agreements but letting something like this happen.

Well volcanic eruptions we can do nothing about and they have two effects – 1 immediate cooling due to high level aerosols and 2 long term warmer due to increased CO2.

We should try to address the things we can do something about and we should target the illness, not the symptoms. Your ocean seeding plan is stitching up the wound without re-setting the broken bones underneath.

I would also be very worried about some possible natural disasters which might just be manageable on their own but will completely floor us if the world is already 2 deg C warmer than it would otherwise have been.

As long as the oil price stays low, no one will be starting any Fracking operations in the UK (bar perhaps an exploratory drill).

I don’t think it works like that, it all goes into the European market I think?

Well firstly, European security of supply is helped if UK and other Euro countries secure their own gas.

Secondly if it came down to houses being unheated and lights going off because of some crisis cutting off supplies from elsewhere in the world I’m sure the House of Commons could rush a law through pretty fast to ensure Britain got first option on UK gas.

+ 1 for the decarbonising our way of life and our economy being the priority but I think political objectives are what’s steering the recent rise in shale in USA and now fracking here.
If we can ruin Saudi and Russian economies (both highly dependent on oil price) we can a) increase our security b) save a lot of money on not having to go to war c) get a desperately needed source of income to help pay of the debt.

So, not ideal, but some very positive and badly needed benefits. Remember, we’re in a crisis and we have to be prepared to try previously unimaginable options and make compromises to get out of it…

We should try to address the things we can do something about and we should target the illness, not the symptoms.

Yes, so why are those Indonesian fires being tolerated – they go on every year although this one is more out of ‘control’.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/indonesia

Your ocean seeding plan is stitching up the wound without re-setting the broken bones underneath.

It’s not my plan, people have been researching and thinking about it for year – pretty sure that it was mentioned when I did A level geology 33 years ago (before my geophysics degree).

The isssue of fracking is a good example of how dysfunctional Britain is.

In Wales, there was supposed to have been a ban on fracking. But nobody seems to know if there really is – or how exactly it would work.

In theory, it’s because, while the UK Government controls mineral licensing, the Welsh Assembly has control over planning.

But the Planning Inspectorate, who would deal with any appeals, is part of UK Governemnt.

Should be a completely devolved matter.
It’s amazing. Shut the pits and people are still whinging a generation later.

Try to start fracking, something utterly benign in comparison, and people whinge. I have no idea what would happen if JC got his way and the pits reopened. Pitched battles with Police?

TurnerGuy – Member

We should try to address the things we can do something about and we should target the illness, not the symptoms.

Yes, so why are those Indonesian fires being tolerated – they go on every year although this one is more out of ‘control’.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/indonesia

Your ocean seeding plan is stitching up the wound without re-setting the broken bones underneath.

It’s not my plan, people have been researching and thinking about it for year – pretty sure that it was mentioned when I did A level geology 33 years ago (before my geophysics degree).

The simple answer is that they shouldn’t be tolerated, however, most people in the west seem to care more about cheap food rather than how the palm oil which goes into it was produced. To flounce off further along this particular tangent, the CO2 from those fires isn’t fossil. Besides which, it has absolutely **** all to do with how we live in the west.

Geoengineering has been mentioned for a long time, you are right in that at least. Its also been debunked for a long time. If you’re a geologist you should know that.

Back to the topic in hand – fracking could be useful in terms of UK energy security but if it ever came to a point where that was a real concern, I think we’d have far bigger worries. Fracking, oil and the rest is the past. If there is any long term future it has to be sustainable and renewable.

As you well know – the issues are unrelated. The pits weren’t shut to save the environment, were they?

If it’s an issue of energy security wouldn’t it be better to leave it where it is for now, until our current supply is insecure?

yes.

‘energy security’ sounds like a nice, boring thing that calm, intelligent grown-ups would say.

But fracking clearly is not about ‘energy security’*, it’s about profit, now. knackers to the consequences.

(*as you say, if it was, we’d leave it till we needed it)

the CO2 from those fires isn’t fossil.

does fossil CO2 have different effects in the atmosphere then ???

I am not sure those ideas have been debunked as they have been shown to work, it is just that they would potentially be very dangerous as we don’t know what the possible side-effects of playing around with Gaia would be.

However it is certain that stopping those annual fires will have a huge immediate impact – they were chucking out CO2 at the same rate as USA!

People, apart from Greenpeace and some of the press, aren’t worried though as the green energy schemes are ways to get more money into business, nothing to do with actually doing any environmental good.

Financially compensating Indonesia, and any other country wreaking huge environmental damage like that, so that they don’t have to exploit the environment so much to survive, would be a lot better use of a green tax than funneling it off to businesses that just want to make money building the kit, whether it is a good idea or not. And politicians who just want to be seen as doing something, so anything short term is good, even if it is not the best idea.

As you well know – the issues are unrelated. The pits weren’t shut to save the environment, were they?

They’re the same issue.

We’re better off with gas than coal, so there is no environmental argument, other than a positive one.

We’re better off with gas than coal, so there is no environmental argument, other than a positive one.

But there is an on-going argument. There’s no agreement on what the environmental impact of fracking is – that’s why many countries have chosen to hold off until more is known. It seems a reasonable and rational thing to do – and it’s what the Welsh Assembly decided.

To say we should charge ahead because it’s potentially less harmful than coal is daft.

WE HAVE TO LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND !!

but

at the moment every single aspect of our lives depends on hydrocarbons

plastic is everywhere, clothes, housing, medicine, food production, fertilisers, manufacturing, providing utilities, furniture, home appliances, heating and cooking in our homes, gadgets, gizmos and tvs we are all using to type this
(yeah we can use bio materials but that would only mean pulping more rainforrest etc)

and fuel, well without it our entire global economy would stop, the millions of flights a day, the constant stream of container ships from asia to the west full of all our ‘essentials’ all rail and travel
the national grid is so underpowered that the governments recently OK’d a load of new diesel power stations!! (on the QT , obvs)
the shops would be empty, commuting, would be impossible, no more holidays, emergency services stuffed, the military crippled etc etc

Its not just about subsidising wind and solar farms and funding ITER which we should be doing, tho the reality is infact the opposite: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35119173

wed have to start rebuilding every piece of our infrastructure from the ground up and no politician is ever going to spend that kind of money

as for the profit argument, if you take out the money from the North Sea oil boom, then the UK economy has flatlined for the last 30+ years and this year only 2 North Sea oil companies payed any tax apparently!!

Yeah, but that’s all done in faraway places, so it doesn’t matter – as long as we put a few windmills around here and there to produce a few percent of our electricity then we’re ‘doing our bit’ aren’t we, and there’s no need for fossil fuels (unless it stops being windy of course)

If there’s money to be made I can’t see a problem.

You have a glittering career in the tory party ahead of you

Wales is a funny one, currently Welsh LNG terminals accept up to 20% of the UK gas need on ships from Qatar and the pipeline runs under the Brecons National Park.

I’d prefer it if we fracked locally, hence, saving all the energy costs involved with transporting LNG and as an added bonus sending less money to Qatar.

dragon – Member
…saving all the energy costs involved with transporting LNG

i know what you mean, but…

moving things by boat is a very efficient way to do it.

(i can move a 40+ tonne narrowboat with only a little oomph to get it started, i can’t move a 40+ tonne lorry at all)

Turnerguy – the CO2 is the same in the atmosphere yes, but it is not destroying an already sequestered and irreplaceable stockpile. THe forests can be regrown in a reasonable timescale i.e. a generation or two. Oil, coal and gas needs several million lifetimes to replace.

That is not to say its not a big issue but it doesn’t affect our impact.

Enough of the strawman, I largely agree with your last post but you seem to be proposing removing subsidies from renewable tech just to give it to the frackers. I’ve seen first hand what cuadrilla’s attitude is and I don’t like it. There is no acknowledgment that everything is different about the fracking proposed here to the US. Environmentally it doesn’t concern me too much other than the fossil fuel aspect.

Why subsidise a dirty non sustainable energy source at the expense of renewable, sustainable technologies?

And to the original point of the article, why under national parks when the vast bulk of reserves are nowhere near them?

An efficiently way to move gas is via pipelines, not boats.

The National Parks issue is a bit of a Red Herring. What is far more important is the fact that they are looking to frack through some of our drinking water!

In the South Downs they are looking to put those pipes through the only drinking water supply for miles around. So when asked if you want to risk that what do you think the answer should be.

Add to that it is using another fossils fuel and not a renewable resource then the risks start to stack up against using any of this gas as a resuorce.

This government has done everything possible to screw up green energy, and maintain a high fossil fuel future, maybe they have some vested interests.
They have devastated the wind industry, just done the same to POVs, now I do understand that subsidies should be used to stimulate and help develop industries but nuclear FFS.
Then to pull the plug on Carbon Capture, twice, it just defies logic.
Every resource that can be garnered must be thrown into developing an environmently friendly,economical, tidal energy industry, we have in this country some of the biggest tidal ranges in the world and a huge coastline, the potential is huge, reliable, predictable and eternal. We made a start with industry in the 70s’ and the Tories kiboshed it then, otherwise who knows by now we could have been energy secure, and world leaders in a safe energy future.
Will know one think of the children.

but you seem to be proposing removing subsidies from renewable tech just to give it to the frackers

can’t see where I said that – I said our green taxes going to help other countries stop wreaking huge environmental impact might well be a lot more effective way of spending the money than building loads of wind and solar farms that only work some of the time. Tidal is the way to go eventually as they don’t stop.

Every resource that can be garnered must be thrown into developing an environmently friendly,economical, tidal energy industry, we have in this country some of the biggest tidal ranges in the world and a huge coastline, the potential is huge, reliable, predictable and eternal.

Not going to happen. If people object to something as unobtrusive as fracking just imagine the outrage that destroying the habitat for a few ducks will generate.

Not going to happen. If people object to something as unobtrusive as fracking just imagine the outrage that destroying the habitat for a few ducks will generate.

people who want to protect their local environment will have to commit to spending a couple of hours a day on treadmill farms.

How unobtrusive is poisoning the water supply?