Tuesday
Apr172012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Fracking to resume
Apr 17, 2012 Energy: gas In an extraordinary development, the UK government has made a sensible decision on fracking, ruling that drilling by Cuadrilla can go ahead.
An independent panel commissioned by the government said the controversial method of obtaining natural gas should no longer be permitted unless a strict new system is set up to detect warning tremors in the rock.
The controversial drilling method is now likely to be given the green light with Ministers set to accept the advice that it could be extended with new controls.
Expect any benefits to the consumer to be swiftly clawed back through tax increases.
Reader Comments (58)
Tony Juniper was frothing away like mad on R4 this morning, saying that it mustn't affect renewables. Er, why not?
UK frakking represents a National windfall.
A sensible Nation would use it to modernise all its infra-structure.
Our lot will be able to squander it all somehow.
With this and reports about scaling back on wind farms, are lightbulbs finally flickering to life in Whitehall?
A 7.25 on Radio 2 this morning (Tuesday), that well-known environmental expert Chris Evans and his 'posse' were discussing this news story. Apparently they've had a deluge of Tweets saying 'Watch Gasland'. So the Travel Bunny (who reads out reports of traffic problems) is going to go away and watch Gasland.
Anyone offering odds on what their reaction will be?
This is great news. WIth the extra 20 - 50 years of energy and money swilling about the economy, we can do all those efficiency savings that we need, new rail infrastructure, develop efficient local energy generation schemes in a careful and timely manner, work on developing a non-travelling working culture, and get a decent nuclear capability in time for the gas drying up as the century closes.
The recommended 0.5 magnitude earthquake limit is absurdly low. Earthquakes of greater magnitudes occur around the UK regularly and are barely noticed: see this interesting site. It is likely to severely limit the potential of this critically important resource.
If successful, it also reduces England's dependency upon Scotland's gas, should the latter decide upon independence.
And it's good news for Scotland too if they decide to go independent (though as an expat, I personally hope they don't) Although unproven, it's likely the gas fields extend into Scotland too. They'd need to rid themselves of their green-mad dictator first, though.
Perhaps it has been realised that when Huhne declared "The lights won't go out on my watch" that was a prophecy and not a promise.
Hurrah! Two cheers because there is just the slightest chance that one day this may mean my gas bill will stop going up QUITE as fast as it has been doing and there may be a few decent jobs in the offing.
With a bit of luck this government will continue to systematically dismantle anything put in place by Chris Huhne. It may only be an expression of political spite, but hey, I'll take what I can get.
ZDB would have us believe that chimney-smashing Earthquakes and radioactive benzine-laden poisoned waterspouts will be an everyday hazard as we take our kids to school if we are to go ahead, but I think I will take my chances.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-14943127
When it turns cold these unwashed middleclass layabouts can always go home to mummy and daddy in a nice warm house
Everybody else who actually have to work or are looking for work will have to find the money to pay their expensive fuel bills
Excellent (and surprising) news. Sanity is slowly being restored.
Are these people really too stupid to realise that triggering earthquakes is a good thing, in the long run? If so then why are they making decisions for the rest of us?
Normally stresses build up until the spontaneous release, but if you trigger an earlier release of energy there will be less build up first, and so a smaller 'quake. I don't think I even need my BA in Earth Sciences to work that out, let alone to understand it. Why is this 'independent panel' not recognising this, and insisting on some form of detection?
The guardianistas are going apopletic with rage as seismic ripples are felt by all greens.
Next in the play book will be legal challenges to this, followed by legal action against the govt or cracking companies, by individuals 'affected' by earthquakes. That'll stop it.
Can't have cheap energy. People might get on with their lives and ignore their intellectual superiors telling them how to live.
I see they have started to add unnecessary conditions that will up the cost of producing the gas - just as they did with nuclear power.
The small cloud on the horizon is still the ability of the BBC and the Guardian to persuade the sheeple that this is a "bad thing" — having the Travel Bunny watch 'Gasland' and report back being only the start of the process.
There is at present no coherent opposition to the green distortions of the facts such as Zed's selective use of the quote above.
Yes, fracking has been (extensively? not sure about that) "linked to the contamination of groundwater supplies, air pollution and an increased risk of earthquakes", but you've missed out the vital word, Zed, "wrongly".
As usualy eco-luddite lies are halfway round the world before the truth gets its boots on.
Inquiries for the government ALWAYS produce the result the government wants. Consequently, I conclude, the British government has finally got the message so amply delivered recently in Australia : greenery loses votes!
ZDB, a genuine question.
Do you genuinely believe that the benefits of around 50,000 jobs in a depressed region, coupled with reduced heating and electricity costs for the nation would be outweighed by a potential rise in average global temperature in the region of thousandths of a degree, assuming that negative feedbacks do not come into play?
Worth highlighting this bit from the end of the article:
ie: the political decisions on this will (hopefully!) be informed by a joined-up approach to weighing up energy needs and climate change considerations, as MacKay and his teams understand both.
Apr 17, 2012 at 8:44 AM | TheBigYinJames
I hope so too, but I'm not holding my breath.
Heard Richard Black on R4 talking about this and using the words "earth quake" so much more frightening than "earth tremor" although I do accept that the descriptions are inter-changeable.
Doubting Rich : 'Are these people really too stupid to realise that triggering earthquakes is a good thing, in the long run? If so then why are they making decisions for the rest of us?
Normally stresses build up until the spontaneous release, but if you trigger an earlier release of energy there will be less build up first, and so a smaller 'quake.'
I think the point here is that the rearrangements of material down below us due to the fracking process will cause subsequent rock rearrangements that otherwise would not have occurred - albeit, tiny rearrangements! I remember feeling a magnitude 4.1 earthquake about 25 years ago in Bedfordshire - I thought that some workmen on the roof had dropped a heavy hammer!
I suppose we shouldn't expect better from 'our' BBC, but listening to Evan Davis with Tony Juniper on Today you certainly get to know the definition of 'pejorative': what with, 'earthquakes', 'Gasland' and, best of all, from Juniper, 'Fugitive emissions'!!
But then, that other idiot Evans on R2 comes out with the same crap: Gaslands, earthquakes, an so on! And we wonder why our children are so poorly educated. Especially by a man who spent most of his programme (as much as I could stand to listen to) giggling like a schoolboy over the many different ways you could use the word, 'fracking' in a sentence!!
Phillip
"The guardianistas are going apopletic with rage"
Always a good sign, I feel. If their collective explosive blood pressure results in their early demise, then they will have achieved one of their desired aims, perhaps? :-)
Mike J
"no coherent opposition"
I agree, although the current experience in the US and Canada is a bit of a blow to the faithful, most of whom still quietly need a bit of fossil fuel to keep the show on the road.
Richard Betts
It took a few years for the War Office to be renamed Ministry of Defence after WW2 just a matter of time before the cnut naming of DECC being rationalised ;)
Robin
I notice from your link that they don't bother showing anything below magnitude 1. I wonder how easy they are to detect at 0.5?
I notice Damian Carrington has an article bemoaning this news in CiF. Totally content free really, but rumbling on about the underlying earthquake threat being minimised. He shows the demeanour of sulking 2 year old stomping around bashing a saucepan with a wooden spoon :)
Apr 17, 2012 at 9:20 AM | Stuck-record : Can't have cheap energy. People might get on with their lives and ignore their intellectual superiors telling them how to live.
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They're only intellectual superiors amongst their own ... they're pygmies here, with apologies to the pygmies.
Doubting Rich: "...but if you trigger an earlier release of energy there will be less build up first, and so a smaller 'quake. ..."
Go, Doubting! You're a man after my own heart... but braver because you've said it.
Now we gotta tell Santorini to start fracking quick!
I'm not at all convinced that this is a victory for common sense, more like a "stealth killing".
"Under a proposed "traffic light" control system, a "red light" would be triggered by any tremor measuring 0.5 local magnitude or higher, meaning fracking should stop and safety procedures such as allowing water to flow back to the surface should be carried out."
According to the Richter scale an earth tremor of less than 2 is described as "micro", "not felt" and "continual".
Hence fracking will be hamstrung by background tremors.
Marvellous!
We'll, Richard, it's always nice to start the day with a touch of your trademark sunny optimism - but some of us old curmudgeons will remember Prof Mackay's previous life (now edited from his personal website) as a left wing activist and wonder if he is really going to preside over a "joined-up approach".
Judicious use of the "Wayback Machine" reveals all, however:-
Prof MacKay is apparently a man of strong opinions and he has lent his weight to a number of political campaigns over the years:-
He hates cars and supports "any organizations that agree that cars stink".
He is a campaigning cyclist.
He campaigns for the anti-smoking fascists ASH
He helped lead a campaign against the conviction of two social workers who allowed open heroin dealing in the care facility they were responsible for.
After 9/11. he campaigned against the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, illustrating his website with an anti-war quote from Tony Benn, an (inaccurate) allegation that the west supplied WMD to Saddam - and a curious cartoon showing Jesus beating up George W Bush.
quote
ie: the political decisions on this will (hopefully!) be informed by a joined-up approach to weighing up energy needs and climate change considerations, as MacKay and his teams understand both.
unquote
Professor Betts,
The problem with decisions about this subject is exactly that, they are political, not based on science or, dare I claim this area of my own expertise, common sense. The concerted opposition is only interested in opposing something which wll make wind power look even more unaffordable. As to the value of cheap gas, well, we could use it to replace all of our coal-fired power, sell it to Germany so that they can drop their plans to burn lignite (lignite! The dirtiest fuel ever used by Man and they seriously prefer it to nuclear power!), siphon off the C2 and C3 fractions so that I can replace my Polish coal-burning Rayburn with a clean and less carbon intensive fuel. No windmills, time to do some proper research on non-CO2 warming inputs, time to develop the Canadian CANDU reactor to use thorium fuel... Etc. And this is opposed violently by the usual suspects, trying to frighten listeners to the Beeb with talk of Gasland, a video which even its own maker has admitted plays fast and loose with the truth. What is wrong with these people?
But I digress...
While you're here, I've had some help (very polite, quick response, impeccable service) from the Met Office giving me websites to look at satellite images of a huge oil/surfactant/why smooth on the way to Madeira on 12 Mar. I got some interesting shots with a camera phone of tens of thousands of square kilometres of smooth and, using firm confirmation bias, I could see the smooth reducing stratocu formation. However, it's very subjective without better images, and not being an academic or funded by NERC the appropriate site won't let me in. Any help appreciated -- I'm julian... at.. floodsclimbers.... uk if you have any ideas.
Ian E, I've sat through two earthquakes, the first in Cyprus when I was too p*ssed to notice and the second in Kent when I had flu and it did not register above the coughing. Both were larger than anything expected from fracking.
JF
@ Charlie
You have more fortitude than I if you can sit through a Chris Evans radio show.
What I find mystifying about him is that he seems unable to broadcast without a large troupe of "laughers". These laughers contribute no discernible content, but merely laugh hysterically at everything Evans says.
I really cannot imagine what it can be like to be an Evans laugher. Imagine waking in the morning, looking at yourself in the mirror and asking yourself: What do I do? How would I describe myself? What are my skills? If I want a mortgage, car insurance, a credit card, what do I put in as my occupation?
Imagine the existential gloom of being a laugher. After the "show" presumably they all do a bit a debrief.
Laugher #1: I thought you did pretty well today, #2.
Laugher #2: Cheers mate. Yep, I was in the sweet spot today with the laughing.
Laugher #9: It sounded almost sincere.
Evans: Sincere? Don't make me laugh.
Laughers (all): Gaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha!
Someone called PT_2208 posted an informative comment today on at 07:28 the Bishop's linked Telegraph piece. Cuadrilla's frac job seems likely to have triggered slippage on a nearby small fault that already had built up naturally accumulated stress. Very unusual, apparently from prior historical frac experience.
Firstly, I am blissfully unaware of whatever "Gasland" is. Hopefully, if my aroused suspicions are correct it is just another eco-trendy propaganda exercise aimed at brainwashing our children with garbage. Secondly, I am equally blissfully unaware of what a "controversial" activity fracking actually is, I have seen NO SCIENTIFIC evidence to demostrate a possible issue, other than isolated coincidental incidents spouted as evidence. The only way something is controversial is to just say it is! Thirdly, how on Earth is anyone going to accurately measure a 0.5 "quake" & attribute it to anything other than natural occurrences is beyond belief! They happen all over the world all of the time! BTW, the BBC are an taxpayer funded entertainment organisation, they employ entertainers to, well err, entertain, they do not do science or technical things, the prolateriat are too simple minded for that sort of thing, or at least, that is their core belief system, they being the intellectual onanists that they are! Yours truly, a Chartered Engineer.
Fracking? Cheap gas and energy? My GOD we can't have that, can we?
http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/van-sant-and-damon-attack-fracking-with-the-promised-land
Will this new Matt Damon film be a gentle remake of Local Hero
Gasland by Josh Fox got a 98% rating on Rotton Tomatoes film review site
On Deadly Ground starring Steven Segal and Micheal Caine got a Zero % rating
Strangley they are both pretty much the same film except that Steven Segal goes around shooting mercenaries who are the bad guys hired in by a Ruthless oil company out to pillage the land and the
native peoples . These script just seem to write themselfs
Steven Segal is a poor mans Chuck Norris but Under Siege when hes on the battleship Brilliant
Now that the cold war is over and South Africa no longer has Aparthied and Iraq got invaded and North Korea is trying to keep it Nuclear weapons to itself and Bin Laden got fed to the fishes
Hollywood screen writers have run out of ethnic stereotypes to typecast as the bad guys
So they have turned to Big Bad Old Oil and now Gas ( J R Ewing With Cowboy Boots and a Stetson and the evil smile)
Have Hollywood producer ever wondered where the public gets it money from to actually go to the cinema and buy the Blueray DVDs and actually pay to see their films
Should be interesting to see what rating Frack Nation will get now that it got all its pledge money to be made including some of mine
Apr 17, 2012 at 9:57 AM | James P:
Well spotted. And this "Timeline" is an eye opener. I had no idea we had so many earthquakes in the UK - and none (so far as I can see) below magnitude 1.0 is shown. Whatever is all the fuss about?
As Don Keiller has indicated, the 0.5 limit would seem to be an absurd obstacle - "stealth killing" may be a good description.
It is a sign of the times that even at the grauinaid, the ecofascists aren't having it all their own way any more. There are a fair few rational posters who haven't (yet?) been cast into the eternal flames for heresy.
Even a year ago such views would never have been permitted. Could it be that the new owners want the place to appeal to a wider variety of people than just the London N1 Politburo Cadre of GreenPeace International? And that completely alienating anybody with a car isn't likely to help the sales of AutoTrader?
Further to my post above, I see the "Timeline" map key indicates that they don't bother to list anything below 1.5 in magnitude.
But nearly 2 years have been wasted, while the US has moved back into growth purely because of shale gas. Nor should we expect that the government will not make another U-turn into parasitism if the pressure eases. That is the problem when government is so overbearing that it spends most of the money in the country - we absolutely depend on it showing occasional bursts of sanity.
The UK is "aseismic". That is, there are no significant faults (thrust, tranform or normal) storing strain and likely to be released in a catastrophic manner. The earth tremors that occur are a result of crustal adjustment to such influences as earth tides, sediment loading etc.
In Japan (where I live) we classify earthquakes by the Shindo scale. That is, the effects encountered where you are, rather than the energy release at the point of release.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Meteorological_Agency_seismic_intensity_scale
(The Richter Scale is obsolete, replaced by the Moment Magnitude Scale. Anyone who uses Richter is uninformed).
The "Cheshire Earthquake" registers 2. "Felt by most people indoors. Some people awake." (I don't think so). "Hanging objects such as lamps swing slightly." Scary stuff. When we get a 2, the house creaks slightly, and if I'm alert I can see the pullcords on our light sway slightly. It's the equivalent of a truck driving past.
For reference, I'm in northern Japan and last years earthquake (here) was 5+ magnitude. "Many people are considerably frightened and find it difficult to move." Yes. "Most dishes in a cupboard and most books on a bookshelf fall. Occasionally, a TV set on a rack falls, heavy furniture such as a chest of drawers fall, sliding doors slip out of their groove and the deformation of door frames makes it impossible to open doors." Yes. "In many cases, unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse and tombstones overturn. Many automobiles stop because it becomes difficult to drive. Occasionally, poorly-installed vending machines fall." Yes.
http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=7387
Google Frack Nation
and if your a mid west poor dirt farmer let the Gas and money flow
" get the pick up out where going to Vegas baby" From Crystal Meth to Crystol Champaign
God Bless America ( and England )
Richard Betts is cheerfully sanguine with DECC and the 'joined up approach' of MacKay's teams.
Well in my opinion DECC is now hopelessly compromised from any balanced view of its supposed mandate, being institutionally obsessed, ridden and infested with environmental zealotry. One only needs to endure a few minutes perusing its website to discover this. The whole set up should be disbanded completely, and a sensible, moderate and practical authority created in its place to manage and regulate the nation's energy sensibly. The DEn used to do it well. Those days are long gone.
Ian E
That is actually not exclusive to fracking, and can happen in normal extraction. In normal extraction the pressure in the rock is used to drive the fuel to the surface. This relieves the pressure and can certainly allow settling. In the event of fracking there is some pressure exerted in order to fracture the rock. The fracturing weakens the rock and can of course cause settling, but the pressure change is not so great.
But all those tremors will be trivial. Triggering a 'quake in an existing fault is the only way to make a damaging Earthquake.
Perhaps it has been realised that when Huhne declared "The lights won't go out on my watch" that was a prophecy and not a promise.
Apr 17, 2012 at 8:56 AM | simpleseekeraftertruth
I thought it was a projection instead of a prediction ;)
I trust similar seismic restrictions will be placed on captured carbon storage schemes...
Surely, it is not time to celebrate until the Climate Change Act of 2008 is repealed and buried in a landfill, where it belongs.
Thanks Don Keiller for that attention to the small print about small tremors. At least the government now clearly wants to be seen to face both ways for the benefit of its confused electorate: as green as can be and just loving newer, cheaper, cleaner forms of energy. Something has to give with such contradictions at the heart of policy - the best option I can see is the emergence of a New Green movement which rejects spurious science linking CO2 with catastrophe. I admit that I'm no expert on fracking but I assume Ridley and the GWPF have it right because they've been much more balanced on CAGW, a subject I've looked into. Exciting times.
Another term for the New Greens that came to me yesterday was the Clean Up Greens. There is certainly science to clean up but much more seriously the terrible human consequences of policies like biofuel subsidies. Most green groups no longer support such subsidies - what they're not doing is making a real noise about ending them. The Clean Up Greens would and would happily take on board those unconvinced that CO2 is leading to catastrophe. Such alliances would be world-changing. Please don't call me a dreamer - the consequences of the status quo for the poorest are too grave for that. We need to re-imagine old categories and rhetoric. And shale gas is a wonderful piece of good news as we do.