I hope I don’t pretend to have expertise on everything. On fracking I have none. My entirely amateur views on the subject are that the major risk appears to be pollution of aquifers. The UK seems too seismically stable for earthquakes or volcanoes to be a serious concern. I am not terribly worried about the local environmental consequences of the installations – human activity of all kinds detracts from the natural environment in a sense. This spot was doubtless a great deal more pleasing aesthetically before Dundee was built upon it. But then Dundee has a great deal more human utility.
It is also plain to me that humans are going to have to burn fossil fuels for a while yet, despite the very obvious fact that we also need to put much more energy and resource into developing renewable alternatives.
So I am not opposed to fracking in principle, which I know will upset some people. But nor can I understand the hurry. Fracking is being undertaken on a very large scale in the United States and elsewhere. Onshore fracking is not actually a new technology at all, but its widespread use is new. Given concerns especially about the effects on underground water supplies, why don’t we just wait for thirty years and see how it turns out elsewhere? That should give time for a good accumulation of evidence.
The hydrocarbons are not going anywhere – they will still be there in thirty years time and I predict will be a good deal more valuable. So my entirely unprofound, non-fundamentalist and dully pragmatic view on fracking is that there should be a thirty year moratorium. Then we can think about it.
“1) You don’t need oil, natural gas, coal or any other fossil fuel to make nitrogen fertilizer.
2) All you need to make nitrogen fertilizer is air, water and energy.”
A lot of energy, a huge amount of energy. World nitrogen demand is measured in hundreds of millions of tons. Without oil the windmills would be working overtime just to keep the lights lit.
An Israeli lawmaker says there is no difference between Israeli soldiers and militants of the ISIL and that both are “armies of murderers with no boundaries and red lines.”
“They (ISIL) kill one person at a time with a knife and the IDF at the press of a button [kills] dozens of Palestinians,” Haneen Zoabi said in a Sunday interview with Channel 2 Online.
____________________________________
At least some are willing to admit the truth.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/10/20/382903/israel-troops-worse-than-isil-israeli-mp/
“A lot of energy, a huge amount of energy. World nitrogen demand is measured in hundreds of millions of tons. Without oil the windmills would be working overtime just to keep the lights lit.”
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That wasn’t the point at hand Fred, the key point was the use of oil.
Greenpeace again. Just received.
Since I emailed you last week, the petition to stop fracking firms drilling under our homes has surged past 120,000 signatures.
This is an incredible result. It almost doubled in the last week alone!
There’s not long to go before MPs will get their say on fracking — so if you haven’t done so already, can you spare 30 seconds to forward this email to your friends and ask them to sign too?
Here’s the link to send to your friends: https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/fracking-MP-backlash
The backlash against fracking has already begun. Just today, The Times reported that more Labour MPs oppose it than support it [1]. Now we need to show all MPs how unpopular fracking is with their constituents, so that they’ll think hard before they vote on Cameron’s plan.
Please ask your friends to sign here, or you can forward them the message below: https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/fracking-MP-backlash
Thanks for all you do,
Richard
——————–
Here’s a message you can forward to your friends
Hi there,
I’ve signed the petition to stop fracking firms from drilling under our homes. It would mean a lot to me if you can take part too:
https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/fracking-MP-backlash
If you’ve never heard of it before, fracking — or hydraulic fracturing — is a destructive process using a high-pressure mix of water, sand and chemicals to blast rocks and release gas and oil trapped underground. Not only have these chemicals been linked to water contamination, but continuing to burn more and more fossil fuels will lead to disaster for our planet.
David Cameron wants to allow fracking firms to drill under our homes, even when they don’t have permission. But even worse: the House of Lords has now rubber-stamped plans to allow fracking firms to pump “any substance” under our homes and property — and leave it there! [2]
This makes a mockery of the prime minister’s claim that UK fracking regulations are some of the most stringent in the world. And it absolves fracking firms of any responsibility for clearing up the mess they create.
Our MPs are now the last defence before the laws are approved, so please can you join me in signing Greenpeace’s petition asking all MPs to vote against Cameron’s plan?
Sign here: https://secure.greenpeace.org.uk/fracking-MP-backlash
Thank you
1. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4241354.ece
2. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/14/uk-to-allow-fracking-companies-to-use-any-substance-under-homes
Who are potentially the most expensive man and woman in Britain, due over the next 36 years to cost this country £1.3 trillion, equivalent to our entire, ever-swelling National Debt?
The man is Ed Miliband, who in 2008 pushed through the final version of the Climate Change Act.
It made us the only country in the world legally committed between now and 2050 to cutting our emissions of CO2 by a staggering 80 per cent. Even then, the Government projected that this would cost us up to £734 billion. The latest figures from the EU and the International Energy Agency suggest that, for Britain to reach this target, it would now cost even more: £1,300 billion.
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To think the clown Miliband could, potentialy be the UK’s next PM.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/11171445/Ed-Miliband-and-Baroness-Worthington-the-most-expensive-man-and-woman-in-Britains-history.html
Pollution of aquafers is but one risk.
Even with an ‘o’-level understanding of Britain’s geology, we know that our land is anything but seismically stable. Lincoln Cathedral was felled by an earthquake about a thousand years ago – there are volcaninc plugs in the Firth of Clyde, coal measueres originally laid down is flat layers are now heavily folded etc, etc.
However, your argument is way too simplistic.
It is easy to consider a simplified view of fracking and come to the conclusion that there seems to be no inherent problem ith it. Sadly, the devil is in the detail.
The water demand to perform fracking is huge – so expect that all our water bills will rise to cover the extra demand (parts of Texas are becoming near desert due to fracking demand).
The EROIE is at or near negative for even the most allegedly profitable wells, and the current drop in oil prices will renders most fracking unprofitable and could well bankrupt some of the drillers.
Finally, the promised reserves are not being borne out by reality and it is not the saviour technology, nor even the stop gap that the environmental plunderers would have you believe.
Had to look that one up.
ENERGY RETURNED ON ENERGY INVESTED (EROEI)
Unprofound thoughts? The USA has an Environmental Protection Agency.There have been over 1 million frackings in the USA. If there were real dangers they would have been reported. Gasland, the film, is known to be a fraud.
With fracking the oil and gas industry is feeling its way around the geology in different areas. The industry is learning the most effective way to conduct operations. I believe that is why large debts exist. Companies hope to manage depletion rates and production techniques better.
I do not think there is any method of energy production that is without risk of one form or another.Corners are cut. Miners of coal die daily. Oil rigs burn and oil spills pollute.
Wind energy robs the poor to pay the rich. It is about 23% efficient and intermittent. As a result it requires constant back-up running simultaneously, usually gas. The gas plant, not producing energy, has to run at less than efficient rates affecting its longevity. The gas plant also produces carbon dioxide, so wind energy does not in practice much reduce carbon dioxide.
Colin Gibson, former director of the National Grid has produced “levelised costings” – comparisons of the comparative costings of energy production from different forms of energy, coal, nuclear, wind and so on.Wind energy is much more expensive to produce that either coal or nuclear.
We all pay for renewable energy through the bills. The poor have more difficulty meeting these additional charges than the better off. For some it is a choice between heat or eat. Those who benefit from wind energy are those who receive the subsidies we all pay. They are: dukes, royalty, big landowners, big energy companies like SSE (Lord Smith), politicians – Gummer, Yeo (massive conflicts of interest) and the families of politicians (Cameron’s father-in-law and Clegg’s missus). Nice work, screwing the poor. And deat5hs from hypothermia are on the increase.
It is ar
I have no strong views on fracking, because it is extremely difficult to get any honest, unbiased information on the subject. I can accept, that it has almost certainly resulted in unacceptable levels of pollution in the USA, but that is because Americans are insane. Large American Corporates do the equivalent of blowing up the the mountains and hills of our English Lake District…in their own areas of outstanding natural beauty…causing the most horrendous pollution and devastation..and then not even using most of the coal in the USA..but export it to China. I don’t think we are yet that completely insane in the UK.
I do however, think the UK needs to be far more self-sufficient in its own energy supplies, than it currently is, and I think we should be re-opening at least some of our coal mines, and the coal stored as a strategic reserve (the same applies to food). We have got no contingency, no disaster recovery plan, and are complacent because, for example no major disaster has happened for a few hundred years…but it could at any time. It could be as simple as a major volcanic eruption in Iceland…which devastated farming in Europe for a few years – by literally blacking out the sun. It was largely responsible for the French Revolution..because people in France were starving. Population levels then were very much lower then, than they are now..
An EMP attack – even a natural one…from the Sun..could almost completely devastate us..by wiping out virtually all electronics (including virtually all cars)..and electricity distribution…computers and financial systems.
We would have been O.K. in the 1960’s…because there were hardly any electronic systems…and what there was..the valves would probably survived…Now we would be totally screwed. All it needs is an over-excited Sun…don’t even need a nuke.
Tony
Wide spread fracking has potential to result in environmental and social and ECONOMIC catastrophe.
1. the large sedimentary basins in the UK contain not only the hydrocarbon containing muds and shales but also water baring rocks. Many large companies, small businesses and farms and households have their own licensed boreholes drilled into these aquifers.
2. Very, very large quantities of water are needed in the fracking operation. So, even assuming that the relatively shallow aquifers do not become contaminated by methane, fracking chemicals from the deeper fracking operations or accidental spillages of fracking fluids then …
3.what about draw-down on aquifers from ground water abstraction and potential loss of supply or indeed the effects upon river flows and their ecology from surface water abstraction?
4.Very large quantities of contaminated water which are a byproduct of fracking can be treated in industrial waste water treatment plants but not local sewage plants or can they? Does this mean the transport of contaminated water by tankers, many many of them?
5. The avoidance of water pollution during fracking operations will require the ‘best available’ engineering solutions being operated by the ‘best available’ managers and the ‘best available’ technicians and even then accidents can still happen AND is there anyone out there checking any more?
The onus lies with the polluter to police themselves since the replacement of command and control water pollution legislation with light touch voluntary codes that assume the ‘best available technology’ will protect the environment.
If wide spread fracking goes ahead UK rivers will ultimately revert to pre Control of Pollution Act conditions (1974) when there was hardly one fish to be found in the rivers of south Yorkshire and yes, wide spread fracking has potential to result in environmental and social and ECONOMIC catastrophe.
Republicofscotland
Thank you very much!
Thanks Sam for putting it all into perfect perspective.
Miners are saved from employment and dying in the coal industry by fracking which does not put food on the table but undermines the foundations of their homes and poisons their water supply but ultimately they pay smaller energy bills which they cant afford as their teeth are falling out due to polluted water and because the clean windmills are subsidised.Think I’ve got it.Shouldn’t have had that last Tsipouro.
Yes ,the US has an eviromental protection agency,they also have a Department of Defence,do you see what I am getting at ?
Nobody can put a final cost on nuclear energy yet,because its going to be thousands of years before the final bill becomes apparent.Fracking costs cannot be properly measured because no-one has any idea of what damage will have been caused to that thin layer that we live on.
Tesla claimed 100 years ago that there was energy everywhere and he spent a lifetime proving the impossible.Westinghouse destroyed him,because Tesla wanted to give it away for free.We’ve come a long way in 100 years,but we are still paying for energy.
Rape and pillage of Global resources will continue without a hitch because the people want convenience and no one in power wants to deal with a transition away from oil/gas even if fossil fuels are depleted. It will be too late for a transition when that happens
But as we discussed above, maybe humans will join the list of extinct species which at this point in time is 90% of every life form since the Earth saw the beginning of life. That bullet with humanity’s name on it is already loaded and the hammer is cocked.
Sam Maccomb: “Gasland, the film, is known to be a fraud.”
Oh, really? Well thanks for clearing that up! There are no problems, because if there were, they would have been reported. And since all such reports are total frauds – by definition! – then there is no problem.
Perfect. And I’m sure you’re not an industry stooge (or one of their useful idiots either), because you would have declared same, even though you do a frighteningly good impression of one.
Johnstone,
The environmental standards in the UK, have improved dramatically over the past 50 years…particularly in the North of England…but that was mainly because we were blessed with North Sea oil and gas…and we shut down almost all our heavy manufacturing processes…and exported the lot to what were then third world countries…such as China and India…and moved all our pollution there too.
Sure that was highly desirable as far as we were concerned in the U.K. in terms of our physical health..When I was a kid in Oldham..all the birds were the same colour of soot…and I got all the childhood diseases going…at least some of them..were directly due to the levels of air pollution…So we have cleaned up our act..but only by dumping our crap on the Third World…which we still do….Guess what is in those container ships going back to China…All our Recycled Rubbish…We are pretty disgusting really…
The way to solve all these problems – including energy production is via science and technology…but most of that has now been corrupted…and absolutely everything is going wrong and it really is unsustainable. The psychopaths in power…only have one solution…which is mass genocide of the human race…by multiple different on-going means…We should be much better than this….
But this is what we are. This made me cry the first time I saw it. It still does. This is us.
“Dead Can Dance – The Host Of Seraphim”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1J6TFHCevg
Tony
Republicofscotland
“Thank you very much!”
__________________________
Okay now you’ve peaked my attention, thank you for what exactly? though I hesitate to ask, Greeks bearing gifts and all.
There’s pretty interesting film about fracking in America, starring Matt Damon, called Promised Land, worth renting or even buying.
Here’s the trailer.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=promised+land+trailer&rlz=1C1DVCA_enGB329&oq=promise+land+&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j0l5.7615j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8
geomannie @ 20 Oct, 2014 – 1:02 pm
wrote:
“… My point is that there is nothing new in small anthropogenic earthquakes: we have been generating them for as long as we have been deep-mining coal. I don’t remember these earthquakes being a particular problem in the past, so why should they be considered a major problem now? …”
Why should they be considered a problem?
Not for the damage to buildings etc on the surface but for the potential to change the way water moves in the underlying strata. eg: a small fault underground slips and allows two permeable layers to connect and polluted fracking waste move to move in an unpredictable way and maybe pollute an underground aquifer. This is especially important as the Government seems set to allow the fracking companies to dispose of their waste by pumping it back into the ground.
The UK has a lot of varied and complex geology in a small space with some areas of very old and stable rocks (eg: North Scotland) but other areas (where the fracking will occur) much more complex with with different ages of strata, some folded and faulted.
Chapter and verse on fracking on Dissident Voice.
http://dissidentvoice.org/search/?cx=004699754223191941067%3Adjkep-0myaa&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=fracking&sa=Search
O/T RoS This yesterday too. A sweet little girl is no more. There is a previous history of similar incidents.
Israeli settler runs over, kills 5-year-old Palestinian girl
Monday, October 20, 2014
A young Palestinian girl who was struck by an Israeli settler vehicle earlier Sunday has succumbed to her wounds, medics told Ma’an news agency.
Einas Khalil, 5, died after being hit by a car driven by an Israeli settler near the central West Bank town of Sinjil, medical sources at Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah said.
Khalil and another young girl, Nilin Asfour, were walking on the main road near the village when they were hit, and were taken to the hospital in Ramallah where their wounds were described as serious.
Einas passed away hours later.
/Full article:
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israeli-settler-runs-over-kills-5-year-old-palestinian-girl
Republicofscotland
“Republicofscotland
“Thank you very much!”
__________________________
Okay now you’ve peaked my attention, thank you for what exactly? though I hesitate to ask, Greeks bearing gifts and all.”
_______________________
I was thanking you for proving once again, RoS, that it is impossible for any thread on this blog not to be polluted, sooner or later (usually sooner), by some off-topic guff on Israel/Palestine: your post at 18h51 refers:
“An Israeli lawmaker says there is no difference between Israeli soldiers and militants of the ISIL and that both are “armies of murderers with no boundaries and red lines.”
“They (ISIL) kill one person at a time with a knife and the IDF at the press of a button [kills] dozens of Palestinians,” Haneen Zoabi said in a Sunday interview with Channel 2 Online.”
____________________________________
GOTCHA!
PS – needless to say (but you don’t), Haneen Zoabi is an Arab member of the Knesset.
DoNNyDarKo, Great Film. I’m not knocking Tesla cos he was undoubtedly a Bright Spark…but all he was really into was extremely High Voltage (Yes I like AC/DC too)…but not High Energy nor “Free Energy”..cos such a thing does not conform to the fundamental principles of physics. There’s no such thing as “Free Money” either. All money is really for is to motivate people to do something useful. At the moment, money it is being used by powerful psychopaths to do something evil (on a vast scale).
However, there is potential to do something which is a little bit like Free Energy…though its not really…It’s kind of like doing what the sun does..and it might actually be possible to make Fusion Power work safely..eventually…and that would solve an enormous amount of problems..because very high energy (and possibly even very high voltage – to get things started…I’m giving a bit of a nod to Tesla there) …could be used to do all sorts of wonderful things…like the equivalent of nature turning shit into food. At the moment…all this stuff we destructively mine…ens up as broken IPADs, computers and the rest in landfill… High energy could refine all this shit..back to its constituents..without having to dig any more holes in the ground…
But before that we really should give Thorium Nuclear Power a shot…because that can use as a feedstock..all these nuclear weapons and waste we have produced over the last 70 years…which is only designed for us to kill each other.
But are we sufficiently intelligent to pull that is off. To turn Evil into Good?…We already know how to solve exponential population growth…because we have already achieved that in most indigenous Europeans…we have less kids than the number needed to replace us..In some countries Birth Rate is considerably below 2.1…particularly Italy (so they obviously don’t take much notice of their Pope when it comes to sex)…Yes I know this really upsets CanSpecky…but the fact of the matter is that us lot have spent the last few hundred years at least…behaving disgracefully to the peoples in foreign lands who are now replacing us…Now that really is Blowback..but we bloody well deserve it…Of course they are having far too many children…and it will take them awhile to dump their stupid religions too…but they will get the hang of it eventually. The fact of the matter so far as I can see…is that there is no real difference between any races in the World..We are simply at different stages of development…and nearly all of us are suffering from religious dogma which might well have been completely valid 2,000+ years ago..because childhood death rates were exceedingly high. They still are in many parts of the world due to example Malaria (which is easily solved). But education needs to come first…and that isn’t happening even here in the West.
The current standards of education are so dire now compared to 50 years ago, my Brother-in-Law (also from Oldham) who has been a teacher all his life in a posh private school has finally given up in disgust. An average Secondary Modern in Oldham…gave a Far Higher Standard of Advanced Education…than even the Very Best Most Expensive Schools now in The UK.
Everything has gone wrong. Glad I was born when I was. Its exceedingly likely to get distinctly horrible…even worse than World War I & II. The coming one is likely to be Terminal for The Human Race…If we really are that stupid, that is exactly what we deserve. The cockroaches will inherit the Earth (they have already taken control of Western Government)
Tony
Tony_O
Yes, science has been corrupted because in contravention of Newtons Law of Gravity the crud has risen to the surface while the cream has sunk to the bottom and I am not referring to water pollutants this time but to a society where the politicians and people of influence, whom you very rightly refer to as psychopaths, are the crud and we, the rest of us, the cream.
Yes you are right it is us..
Habbabkuk (La Vita È Bella) !,
Are you here for only one purpose, which is to defend the complete evil lunacies of some extremely old, extremely primitive, extremely racist religion that results in a lot of in-breeding and very high cancer death rates…You Lot should Try Fucking Some of Us Catholics…rather than going for the Title “Most Stupid Arseholes in The World”…who Have Been Kicked out of Nearly Every Place on Earth you have moved to cos you simply cannot get along with any other culture cos you think you are God’s chosen people…
You complete idiots.
God’s chosen people come from Lancashire…Not Eastern Europe and Russia
We invented nearly everything..including being exceedingly nice and welcoming.
Tony
I think Tesla’s practical work was in wireless transmission of energy, tony. But he was a massive genius, even though a poor businessman. Edison’s namesake Souther Caliifornia/ Con Edison Edison is the evil heir to his legacy of arrogance and pride.
Southern California Edison/ Con Edison.
Speaking of evil utilities. I happen to have a mid-size wind turbine on my property. For two years I fought with SoCalEdison for information regarding what I generate; an Excel spreadsheet or some such would tell me how cost effective it is when hooked to the grid.
Nothing. Even contacted the Public Utilities Commission and got nothing. The utilities don’t want the population to be energy independent.
That’s clear.
If you do your own, stay off the grid. Buy some batteries with the turbine, and when charged fully, shut off your main breaker.
It’s the only way to be sure you are getting your money back.
Cheers Tony !
Tesla just knew how to tap into what was and is already there.All his patents were swallowed up and hidden on his death.
Had a friend who was a rocket scientist and he was working close to Oxford on plasma power stations.He said that the technology was almost ready… that was in 96.WTF happened with plasma ? Why are we not using it yet? What was interesting was that the power stations could be any size.I lost touch with him as well.A mathematical genius from the Tamil part of Srilanka.
As for iPads in landfill… my business is to make sure that doesn’t happen.It all ends up back in the land of the manufacturer.China.
Yeh, I know..it really upsets me…seeing the brown turds floating in the cream…but what can we do about it…O.K….I will expand on that..cos it could be completely misinterpretated…
When I moved from Lancashire to London over 30 years ago…I got the job (after being on the dole for nearly 12 months) over the people..who were already working there…despite my extremely RAW Working Class, Very Heavy, Lancashire Accent…
And so I was now The Leader..of these Extremely Talented Kids…only a few years younger than me…so what did I do…on my first day in my job…well of course I turned up all suited and booted…but somewhat late (it wasn’t my fault honest)…so I introduced myself…Hi I’m Tony. You guys have got to help me here…I know absolutely nothing about your job..You guys are doing it..here..and I am elated I have got the job…but we’ve got to work as a team..You have got to help me to teach me your jobs..cos I haven’t a clue about what you do..This is completely new to me…(sure I knew the technology – but I didn’t know their applications of it in a Production environment…they were actually using The Technology I had been working on at ICL for the Previous 8 years)
So We Did.
One of My Team had come from Malaysia (one of the nicest and most talented guys I have ever met) I supported him in every way I could..because I knew My Boss Hated Him…because he knew he was far more Talented than he was.
A few years later.. He told me…Tony..The Cream Will Always Rise To The Top…I did my best to protect him from my racist boss..and be both his boss and his friend…Eventually I told him when he was about 24…You are far better than this…I just felt really privileged because he asked me back to his home to meet his baby son…though I never did meet his wife ..it was probably a Muslim thing..I said apply for a better job..Go…
So he did..Got employed immediately..Much higher pay..this guy is really talented…ICL threw me out in Manchester..and got a member of my Staff in Bracknell..I thought that was some kind of justice..and I would be amazed if he hasn’t risen to the top..I thought I saw him again last year..in a pub near where he lived…but it was 30 years later(he never drank alcohol then)..I kept looking at him..and he didn’t take me on..I ain’t changed that much..and I was too shy to talk to him…to ask is it you????
Tony