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Early days in the big debate over ‘fracking’
‘THESE are early days for shale gas exploration in the United Kingdom’.
That remark by the minister responsible for oil and gas exploration, Charles Hendry, came during a Commons debate last November on the potential impact of shale gas development by the process of hydraulic fracturing now familiar to readers as ‘fracking’.
For Balcombe residents in particular, the debate took off at a local level when it was rumoured that Cuadrilla – the energy company whose operations in Lancashire led to minor earth tremors – had renewed their licence to drill a well at Lower Stumble which they tested and capped back in the 1980s.
The fact that Cuadrilla’s report on the events in Lancashire concluded it was ‘highly probable’ shale gas test drilling triggered the tremors understandably rang alarm bells. Questions were raised at a public meeting and at my recent surgery in Balcombe where the topic was paramount.
Let’s take a cool look at some of the facts thrown up in that Commons debate which took note of Cuadrilla’s report, but was predominantly influenced by the findings of the Energy and Climate Change Committee.
* The UK has a long history of onshore gas exploration.
* Drilling for shale gas – like any other kind of oil or gas – is a hazardous operation that requires careful and consistent regulation.
* There is no evidence that the fracking process itself poses a direct risk to underground water resources... the risks are related to the integrity of the well and are not different from those encountered in conventional gas extraction.
* It is also important to assess potential benefits to the UK of exploiting our shale gas reserves.
* We support industry’s endeavours in pursuing such energy resources, as long as they are technically and economically viable, and have regard to the full protection of the environment.
* The decisions taken during this Parliament about energy policy will shape the UK’s energy infrastructure... Shale gas could help significantly by contributing both to improving our security and independence and to keeping prices down.
So choices have to be made. But do we read in this the green light for onshore oil and gas exploration? I will end as I began, with Charles Hendry’s measured perspective on this complex debate: ‘Clearly, we in the United Kingdom are right at the beginning of the process... and I think it is too early to know how significant shale gas may prove to be as a contributor to future energy supplies’.
FRANCIS MAUDE
MP for Horsham
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Comments
There are 7 comments to this article
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Nawar A
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 06:19 PMThe solution for fraccing pollution is waterless fraccing; Gasfrac has done over a 1000 fracs with gelled propane; you don’t need any water; you don’t produce any waste fluids (no need for injection wells); no need to flare (no CO2 emissions); truck traffic is cut to a trickle from 900+ trips per well for water fraccing to 30 with propane fracs; and on top of that the process increases oil and gas production; it is a win for the industry, a win for the community and a win for the environment.
Tommie William
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 03:11 PMI have been following and researching on this contentious issue as a 1st year PhD student in economicpublic policy. The shale gas debate has become a very interesting case because it has serious implications to both the environment and national economy and security, and so as Miss Vine rightly said it is an important NATIONAL ISSUE. And therefore it need to be taken seriously and analysed with scientific facts and rational basis rather than on ideology or self-vested interests. After research and reading many documentsarticlesopinionsblogs on this topic, including sources Parliamentary inquiry into shale gas (3rd Nov 2011), DECC & BGS websites, New Scientist Journal, National Geographic, the BBC and suggested links, my understanding has come to this: 1. Environmental risks (water contamination, earth quakes) are of the most general concerns but can be safely controlled and manage with stringent regulation and proper engineering (well construction). These conclusions were made by qualified professional from DECC, BGS, UK Parliamentary Inquiry, US EPA. I tend to take their opinion highly because their job are responsible for the general public health and safety concern and I doubt that important issues such as water contaminant is taken lightly by these people when they assess the issues. The evidence also seems to support their conclusion because there have been nearly 1 million fracked wells around the world (including those onshore of UK and in the middle North Sea) so it appears to be very common practice in oilgas industry. It is shale gas production recently got backing from president Obama and US congress, which make US energy independent for the first time in 3 decades and possibly an exporter in 5 years, so it seem safe otherwise they would not get this kind of support from an administration who is very pro-greenenvironment and anti-fossil fuel energy. As for the 3 cases of water contamination (out of 1 millions wells so far, which kind of surprise me because it is quite and low risk ratio for any industry standard), one is falsely reported by the film maker Josh Fox as due to fraccing (Penn, Gasland movie case) because methane in the water in this case was naturally occurring and due to decomposing organic matter in the water well and there were reported cases of flammable water in Penns way before fraccking occur in the area. The case in Dimmock is due to dodgy well construction, so I guess they will be out of business in the area or maybe licence canceled. Anyway, I thought you wouldnât drink the water straight from the well but rather from treated water from your water utility and if free gas coming out of your tap donât drinking, just connect it to your heater use it for heatingcooking. As for earth quake, the magnitude is very small (smaller than the one that caused by train or truck passing by the house as described by on MP) to cause any damage. So all evidence seems to suggest that fracking is not a new technology (not to conventional gasoil exploration at least) and it have a good record of risk ratio (2 bad cases out of 1 000 000 000 good cases) and can be done safely with proper engineering and regulation. A call for a moratorium ban on fracking at this stage is impractical and irresponsible, simply because a ban will shut down the whole current energy productionsupply across the UK and drive investment away and we all know we need the economy to recover. A ban in one county and not other would seem a bit of NIMBY at best or double standard at worst. 2. As for the claims of shale gas benefits from the proponents, one have to say that natural gas the cleanest fossil fuel (half CO2 emission of coal and a third of Oil, no mercury or sulphuric acid releases compared to coal) so it is the best option for fossil fuel. Explorationproduction of gasoil from UK source will definitely help with security (56 years supply from Lancashir Bowland shale alone) and stabilize price and provide jobsskills (which can be export to oversea exploration as shale as is about to boom worldwide, especially in China and South America). Local and government tax revenue will be another windfall, from one source say it is £6billions for local and £120 billion (at current 60-80% tax rate Oilgas exploration) for UK government from the Bowland shale alone that is huge imo. As for claim it will reduce gas price by 80% as shale gas production does for the US, I doubt it will because firstly we have as much shale gas as the Americans to make supply outstrip demands and secondly our gas price as in EU is couple to oil price, it goes up our gas price will go up, but the good thing is if it is produced in UK then it will be taxed and benefits stay with the UK unlike imported gas from Russia or Qatar which we are increasingly relying on as North Sea production is dropping. Because it is cheap, abundant and clean fossil fuel it may take the investments incentive from the renewables such as winds and solar which is currently still very expensive to develop. 3. My search on Cuadrilla seems to indicate that they are technically very experienced (30 years of experience in the game and 3000 wells by them in US, Canada, Middle East, have their own drilling company which they successful sold on ). They are pretty well connected financially and politically as it seems. It is their main game so I donât think they will take the environment issues lightly because they know these thing if goes wrong make or break them. So in my opinion, shale gas production seems to have it merits and benefits for the wider UK people but it must be done properly to protect the environment. A ban of shale gas production would only benefit Russia and Qatar gas industry because if we donât have our own resource we will have to import gas from somewhere. My apology for the long comment but these issues have many aspects that need to be discussed. Cheers
Hutch
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 02:04 PMShale drilling itself is in it's early days, never mind in the UK - it is new technology, an experiment with an unknown outcome that arrogance assumes will be good. Industry and Mr Maude would have you believe that this is a well tried and tested method but shale gas drilling is new. Of 170,000 shallow fracked wells in British Columbia only 600 are deep shale wells, 0.3%. In the 1960's the US military controlled earhquakes by injecting fluid under extreme pressure into rock (just as in fracking). This week there was a fracking related earthquake in Seskatchewan, last month magnitude 4.0 in Ohio and last year 5.8 magnitude in Virginia close by the Marcellus Shale operations. There are earthquake swarms in Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia and Ohio and we know of the Blackpool quakes. Irrespective of the size, how can the integrity of the cement casings that trap the contaminated waste withstand such attack? It may be decades before we realise we have had a disaster. The Minister and it's Government are being irresponsible and failing in their duty as guardians of our people, land and water.
Chris French
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 07:14 PMThe fracking should go ahead. The amount of water quoted, 7,500 cubic metres, on a one off basis, to frack in Balcombe for shale gas, is quite insignificant, when compared to the potential of vast reserves of cheap, low-carbon gas. Do not forget 72,000 cubic metres of water are lost every day by South East Water. The slick water used in fracking is 99.86% water and sand. Shale gas operations in the U.S.A, are heavily regulated and closely monitored. State regulators have all asserted in writing that there have been no verified or documented cases of drinking water contamination as a result of hydraulic fracking. The earth tremors associated with the brief initial fracking stage near Blackpool, produced tiny, barely perceptible tremors. The few production buildings for gas shale, are no bigger than domestic garages. The output of a gas wellhead is equivalent to the average output of about 47 giant 2.5MW wind turbines, each one twice the height of NelsonÂÂs Column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The gas wellhead can be hidden in a hollow or behind a hedge. The 47 wind turbines must be on top of hills. The gas well requires no subsidy; in fact it will pay a hefty tax to the government; whereas the wind turbines each cost you a substantial add-on to your electricity bill. Unreliable wind power costs three times (nine times if offshore) as much as reliable gas-fired power. To persist with a policy of pursuing subsidized renewable energy in the midst of a terrible recession, at a time when vast reserves of cheap low-carbon gas have suddenly become available is so perverse it borders on the insane. Nothing but bureaucratic inertia and vested interest can explain it. Source: http:www.rationaloptimist.comblogshale-gas-shock Chris French Chairman UKIP Mid Sussex
LukeAshley
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 06:21 PMCould not have said it betterer myself V. I`m not going to settle for anything less than Global Ban on Fracking. https:www.facebook.comGlobalFrackBan
Tommie William
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 02:10 PMWow. Such a long and strong emotional comment and lot of detail demanding questions. But an effective way to get your local MP's answers and have someone to do the research for you. I am also interested in the answers for these highly debated issues as because i am doing a research on the political and environmentall issues involved in energy development such as natural gas and wind farm. Looking forward to the responses. And well done to Miss Vine for rising these questions.
Vanessa Vine
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 11:02 AMIt is also too early Mr Maude - and indeed ultimately impossible - accurately to assess the huge potential risks of this unpredictable technology. Seismic stability, by physical definition is an unknown, if not an oxymoron. Groundwater is not, by definition containable. The motivation of any legislator, whether at Parish Council or Ministerial level, who gives sanction to a drilling company to frack at high pressure, within 500 feet of an aquifer, 100 yards of a main railway line and less than a mile from the reservoir system, frankly begs glaring questions around the vigilance, integrity, sanity and vested interest of that legislator Yes, let's take a very cool look sir: It is not merely "rumoured" that Cuadrilla have intentions to drill and ultimately to frack at Lower Stumble. They have secured 2 of the 3 necessary regulatory approvals to commence exploratory work. If they are permitted to undertake exploration and find what they seek, they will apply for further permission to put the site into full scale commercial extraction. They are a hydraulic fracturing company. That is what they do. At the Victory Hall meeting on 11th January, Mark Miller (Cuadrilla's CEO) spoke of building a Power Plant. The attempts at mollification on the spurious grounds that they're "only having a look" are both risible and insulting to basic intelligence. It was the British Geological Survey report on the events in Lancashire that concluded it was ‘highly probable’ that Cuadrilla's activities triggered the tremors. Although the suspension of fracking (but not drilling) at Preese Hall is voluntary on Cuadrilla's behalf. Not, as is widely believed and as it should be, by government suspension. There is AMPLE evidence Mr Maude, that the fracking process itself poses a direct risk to underground water resources. Dimock, Pennsylvania and Pavilion, Wyoming to name but two. It appears you have either not read or have utterly disregarded the US Environmental Protection Agency's Report. It is indeed vital to assess potential benefits to the UK of exploiting our shale gas reserves. It is also vital to assess the potential benefits to individual communities, of allowing an American energy company to extract hydrocarbons from under their feet. So far, the only local person who stands to gain from this, is the owner of the Balcombe Estate, who has already received considerable funds from Cuadrilla. He also sits on the Parish Council, which gave permission for the exploratory drilling to go ahead (for which the Chairman, very graciously, has since apologised and conceded that far greater vigilance had been required in assessing the application). The residents of the village and all surrounding communities who are served by the connected reservoir system, stand to suffer greatly and gain nothing. Have you even looked into the volume of heavy tanker traffic? The air pollution? The noise from the site? The drain on already critical water sources? You declined to answer my letter yesterday as, although I live four miles from the Balcombe borehole, I am not your constituent. Perhaps you will consider answering it in this domain? It is not merely a Constituency matter. My questions are those of national interest, put to a Cabinet Minister - particularly about what might be deemed an extremely inappropriate appointment on his part , of a drilling company Executive to the Cabinet Office. I had already written to Nicholas Soames. I also wrote to Chris Huhne, Charles Hendry and Simon Toole. I imagine I won't now get much response from Mr Huhne, but will be forwarding the letter to Mr Davey. My letter is copied here: To Francis Maude MP Minister for the Cabinet Office 2nd February 2012 Dear Mr Maude, I write to you as a Mid-Sussex resident, living four miles from the proposed Cuadrilla drillingfracking site near Balcombe. Please would you let me know why, at your Balcombe surgery on 20th January, you failed to declare to constituents (presenting you with a petition opposing Cuadrilla's plans to frack at Lower Stumble) that you had appointed Lord Browne, a director of Cuadrilla Resource Holdings Ltd., to the Cabinet Office in June 2010 - the month before Cuadrilla carried out a "test frack" in Cowden (Kent)? I had already been researching hydraulic fracturing for some time, when I learned (from a friend in Transition Forest Row) that planning permission had been granted for the practice to go ahead one mile from the village, one hundred yards from the main London to Brighton railway line, less than a mile from the Grade II Listed Viaduct, half a mile from the Sussex Ouse, three quarters of a mile from Ardingly Reservoir, and two and a half miles from the Millennium Seed Bank. When I discovered that - contrary to Cuadrilla's submission to Parliament citing an intended depth of drill of around 5000', they in fact plan to frack at around 500' from the aquifer at Lower Stumble - I promptly started a Facebook Page called "NO Fracking in Sussex" and - along with other astonished and outraged Sussex residents - called and facilitated the Public Meeting in the Victory Hall on the 11th January, attended by around 300 people but at which you were noticeable by your absence. I am increasingly being asked to talk to the Press about the evolving UK situation and we have called another Public Meeting, this time in Forest Row, on the 22nd February. I have been forwarded recent correspondence between Simon Toole and Kathryn McWhirter (Metcalfe) and find Mr Toole's answers to the pressing questions from local residents frankly, to be as clear as drilling mud. Or perhaps a better analogy would be as clear as the water that folk in Dimock, Pennsylvania and other fracked areas of the US are expected to drink. By Mr Toole's own admission, his last missive (copied below) only served to increase the confusion. One wonders why he would acknowledge that, then proceed to send it regardless. Why has it been seemingly impossible for the Department of Energy and Climate Change to issue a clear, definitive statement on Government position, policy or even definition of an energy procurement technology that threatens potentially to wreak irreversible havoc with the water table and put at risk the seismic security across the United Kingdom? Why, when hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil has widely and manifestly been shown to be an irresponsible, ecocidal, uneconomical, unsustainable and utterly indefensible attempt to address critical energy needs, has it been given DECC sanction on our shores at all? Why has there neither been public consultation nor discussion, either at local or national level and why, appallingly, has not one single DECC minister yet met with the Environment Agency's experts to discuss the matter? In the light of the following comment by Dr Robert Gross, director of Imperial College's Centre for Energy Policy:- "The speed of shale gas exploration is running ahead of our knowledge of the risks, especially in America. I think DECC need to get a better handle on all the issues around fracking." Perhaps the Department of Energy and Climate Change might now consider presenting an unambiguous, cohesive, consistent and coherent statement of Government position? I understand that the Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee report on fracking recommended that DECC needs "to promote public confidence in the regulation of this activity". An exponentially growing number of UK residents would like - and should reasonably and constitutionally be able to expect - our elected representatives to put all legislation immediately in place that is necessary to ensure the safety of humanity and ecology in the United Kingdom. We would also like to know why fracking has already, negligently, been allowed in "under the radar" in this country - already causing multiple earth tremors (in Lancashire) and as yet unknown levels of water and air pollution. Please will you exhort the DECC now to answer, definitively and explicitly, the above and following questions and requests:- What is the definition of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas, that is used for the purposes of Government licensing, permission, consent and legislation? Does this definition include the exploratory stage - of lesser volume and intensity - which nevertheless involves pressure injection of water, sand and foreign toxins into the subterranean geology? How does this legislatory definition differ (if at all) from the process - also involving hydraulic fracturing - currently being used in the UK to extract oil from shale rock and to extract gas (Coal Bed Methane) from coal seams ? Has the Department of Energy and Climate Change imposed a suspension on Cuadrilla's hydraulic fracturing activities at Preese Hall in Lancashire, or has Cuadrilla desisted voluntarily and temporarily? Please would you either provide the documentation confirming any such Government suspension, or confirm, explicitly, that no such documentation exists. Do Cuadrilla still have permission and all the necessary licenses in order to continue drilling, in preparation for potential subsequent fracking? If so, where are they currently granted such permissions. Preese Hall? Balcombe? Cowden? Lingfield? Please answer the same question with regard to all other prospective UK fracking companies, such as Magellan Petroleum, Tesla Exploration and Coastal Oil & Gas. Mr Toole mentioned a commercial fracking license (he thought it was in Lincolnshire) that was granted but subsequently declined by the applying company. Was this License then revoked? Which is the company in question? How many sites in the UK currently have all the requisite permissions, licenses and consents in order to go ahead with exploratory fracking? How many sites in the UK currently have all the requisite permissions, licenses and consents in order to go ahead with commercial scale fracking? Where, specifically, are these sites? Please would you list them all. Or has the DECC suspended all existing licenses to frack (including flow tests leak-off tests acid washes etc.) for shale gasoil and coal bed methane in the UK, for example at Cowden in Kent, where Cuadrilla claim to have carried out such a "test frack" in July 2010? What permits, specifically, are required in order for a company to carry out both drilling and fracking? Please would you provide example documentation. Will the DECC respond to the Early Day Motion http:www.parliament.ukedm2010-122292 tabled by Caroline Lucas, sponsored by Jim Dobbin, Mark Durkan, Jonathan Edwards, Glenda Jackson and Michael Meacher - to date signed by 44 MPs and supported by tens of thousands of UK citizens - by declaring a Moratorium on all hydraulic fracturing in the UK (including that used in coal bed methane extraction)? Will you, Mr Maude, on behalf of the vast majority of your constituents (over 200 of whom signed the paper petition urging you to do so) please sign this urgent EDM yourself? If not, pray why not? It would be heinously irresponsible for legislators to continue to grant licenses for this dangerous experimentation with our subterranean geology, by amateurs. Thank you for your time, I look forward to a response at your earliest convenience. Yours sincerely, Vanessa Vine
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