Pathfinders: Fracking – A Bridge Too Far?

[steve colborn]

Exactly what I have been saying! In the news, over the last few days, there have been reports that scientists have overlain maps of "sources of shale gas" and "aquifers" in the UK, presumably in an attempt to identify areas where the two do not overlap and give the oil and gas companies the "evidence", to be able to say, "no chance of water table pollution here and so close down the environmental damage argument! If this is indeed the reason for this dual mapping, it would lead a rational mind to conclude that the extraction companies do, in fact, acknowledge the distinct possibility of aquifer contamination, as a result of hydraulic fracturing.

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

Lord Browne of Madingley, the former CEO of BP, who now heads Cuadrilla (the only UK firm which has used modern fracking methods), said recently: “It will take five years and the drilling of 20 to 40 fracking wells to judge whether the UK has a viable shale gas industry…"…..There is also the fact that no one has tested shale fracking like the USA has. There, it hasn’t transferred as easily as expected. It is still extremely expensive to do, and the UK has nothing like the lower risk profile that the US has developed. 

http://rt.com/op-edge/177076-uk-fracking-boom-chance/

[alanjjohnstone]

The NIMBY impact on house prices censored from government reporthttp://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/10/fracking-censored-house-price-report

[alanjjohnstone]

http://rt.com/op-edge/180636-fracking-another-commodity-bubble/“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work.”Of course this could be as ALB may well point out RT protecting Russia's gas export industry

[steve colborn]

It has been pointed out, quite explicitly actually, that shale gas exploration and extraction will not be allowed in areas of outstandinmg natural beauty. That begs the question, if it is as safe as some would have us believe, (extraction companies and the Government) why this caveat?Once again, these two are feeding the lie of secure energy resource and costomer price benefits. Any mineral extraction, will be sold on the world market, for the going price. It will be the same con as was perpetrated about nuclear power and North Sea gas. OOdles of "cheap" affordable power!It was a crock of shite then, it is a crock of shite now.

[northern light]

Hi Steve, I have been trawling through Durham County Council web site, to see what is being said about fracking, but I have drawn a blank.But when your post #50 mentioned; "that shale gas exploration and extraction will not be allowed in areas of outstanding natural beauty,"I recall reading ( and it might have been on the green party site) that planning permission for the dumping of toxic waste on the NorthYorkshire moors has been relaxed. I wonder why?   

[HollyHead]

Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty? The designation is worth next to nothing and in effect serve as a distraction by giving the impression that objections to particular undertakings might be successful.The Isle of Anglesey was designated an AOB in (I think) the early 1960s. It did not prevent the building of Wylfa nuclear power station and a large alumininum smelting works and its attendant infrastructure.

[steve colborn]

I agree that the use of the term, "Area of outstanding Natural Beauty", is merely a diliberate obfuscation. My point though is still valid. If, as they say, the Government discriminates between one area or another, even if it is only a deflection policy, why would fracking in one area be fine but there would be issues in another?

[northern light]

IN july 2013, tory peer, lord Howell ( george Osborne's father-in-law ) said that there are large uninhabited areas in the North East., wherethere's plenty of room for fracking. He is at it again. In May, in the Journal of Energy Security, he is quoted as saying: "Every time ministers claim fracking must start everywhere and not just in selected remote (derelict) areas, they lose thousands of tory votes. In the N.E., the N.W. and all the places where the industrial revolution has left the worst industrial scars, they do have such areas. They have the gas and they do have the local wish to see fracking investment – to upgrade old coal mining areas, for example."  When I read words like that, the old rage rumbles.I thought it had died, along with the last pit, when our communities slipped with barely a whimper, into a black decline. Slowly, too slow for my liking, hope sprang anew. Job prospects improved, time and tides cleaned our scared beaches. The National Trust took our coastline and declared it an " area of special scientific interest," New housing projects popped up like mushrooms and new clean industrial estates were strategicly placed. The old has given way to the new.Tourists are coming to Seaham, bringing welcome revenue.                                               And this 78 yr. old tory ( adjectives and adverbs deliberately omited) person has the temerity                                              to say we have the local wish to see fracking investment. WE certainly do NOT want fracking and all the filth and baggage that goes with it.                ,    I           

[northern light]

 Mining the Largest Shale Gas Reserve in the Northern Hemisphere: What the Frack?Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-NewsThe UK government is going ahead…YOUTU.BE                         East Durham Action Group have started their campaign against Underground Coal Gasification. Already, what seems evident to me, is that County Councils, men and women elected by the people, to serve the people, have the power to block any fracking, or U.C.G. activities. Am I confident that they will? No!   Here is a little quote from the above article;

Quote:

"What is so insidious is the way that, " For Profit Co-operations," are undermining individual and community sense of power. They try to convince people that they have no power and the moment you accept this, you have lost. 

[ALB]

What's wrong in principle with underground coal gasification? The idea has been around for ages. remember we used to speculate that in socialism this would be a way of avoiding people having to work underground in inherently dangerous conditions to dig coal. I think that it was experimented with in state-capitalist Russia.In fact Lenin was writing about it even before the his Bolshevik Party seized power, when in fact he was still a leftwing Social Democrat:

Quote:

Meanwhile, Vladimir Lenin, a Russian revolutionary in exile in Zurich, misread newspaper reports on Ramsey's UCG plans, and mistakenly concluded that a successful UCG trial had already been completed. In May 1913, he published an article in Pravda calling UCG "one of the great triumphs of technology", and praising its social significance because of the elimination of hard mining labor. [http://www.ergoexergy.com/eUCG_his.htm]

Also, from the Financial Times of 13 September has year:

Quote:

In 1913, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin praised a new industrial process that he said would usher in a “gigantic technological revolution”.In an article in Pravda, he cited an exotic new technique called “underground coal gasification”, which involved combusting coal deep underground to produce a kind of natural gas that could drive turbines and generate electricity.In a future socialist state, the process could be used to “liberate the labour of millions of miners” and cut the working day from eight to seven hours, Lenin wrote. Finally, the world’s vast coal reserves could be exploited without having to send men deep underground to dig them up.

I'm a bit surprised that there should be a campaign against it in the North East where the perils of underground coal mining will be well-known.

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

What's wrong in principle with underground coal gasification?

I guess C02 emissions. But this isn't the same thing as shale fracking is it? Not sure what the connection is in the post above?

[ALB]

I've found the original article by Lenin. It's here:http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/apr/21.htmIt's only short. In fact quite good. Could even have appeared in the Socialist Standard (of the time):

Quote:

The world-famous British chemist, William Ramsay, has discovered a method of obtaining gas directly from a coal seam. Ramsay is already negotiating with a colliery owner on the practical application of this method.A great modern technical problem is thus approaching solution. The revolution that will be effected by this solution will be a tremendous one.At the present time, to utilise the energy contained in it, coal is transported all over the country and burned in numerous factories and homes.Ramsay’s discovery means a gigantic technical revolution in this, perhaps the most important, branch of production in capitalist countries.Ramsay has discovered a method of transforming coal into gas right where the coal lies, without hauling it to the surface. A similar but much simpler method is sometimes used in the mining of salt: it is not brought to the surface directly, but is dissolved in water, the solution being pumped to the top.Ramsay’s method is to transform, as it were, the coal mines into enormous distilling apparatuses for the production of gas. Gas is used to drive gas engines which can ex tract twice as much energy from coal as steam-engines can. Gas engines, in their turn, transform the energy into electricity, which modern technology can already transmit over enormous distances.Such a technical revolution would reduce the cost of electricity to one-fifth or even one-tenth of its present price. An enormous amount of human labour now spent in extracting and distributing coal would be saved. It would be possible to use even the poorest seams, now not being worked. The cost of lighting and heating houses would be greatly reduced.This discovery will bring about an enormous revolution in industry.But the consequences this revolution will have for social life as a whole under the present capitalist system will be quite different from those the discovery would yield under socialism.Under capitalism the “release” of the labour of millions of miners engaged in extracting coal will inevitably cause mass unemployment, an enormous increase in poverty, and a worsening of the workers’ conditions. And the profits of this great invention will be pocketed by the Morgans, Rockefellers, Ryabushinskys, Morozovs, and their suites of lawyers, directors, professors, and other flunkeys of capital.Under socialism the application of Ramsay’s method, which will “release” the labour of millions of miners, etc., will make it possible immediately to shorten the working day for all from 8 hours to, say, 7 hours and even less. The “electrification” of all factories and railways will make working conditions more hygienic, will free millions of workers from smoke, dust and dirt, and accelerate the transformation of dirty, repulsive workshops into clean, bright laboratories worthy of human beings. The electric lighting and heating of every home will relieve millions of “domestic slaves” of the need to spend three-fourths of their lives in smelly kitchens.Capitalist technology is increasingly, day by day, out growing the social conditions which condemn the working people to wage-slavery.

.

[northern light]

 http://www.thejournal.co.uk/business/business-news/newcastle-university-academic-quits-role-5387548                                                                 ALB, I am delighted that no one else has to work down the mines, here in the N.E. and I can see little to concern me about burning the coal (there is the global warming gases which DJP refered to, but there is talk of pumping that back down the holes) as long as the drilling sites are returned to their previous state and the North Sea is not used for a convenient dumping ground. But what does concern me is the fact that these boreholes have to go through the Magnesium Limestone and underlying sandstone, which contain much of our drinking water. Of course if it could be proved 100% that none of the tar-like, carcinogenic gunge which flows out in the Syngas could find it's way into our drinking water, I would have few objections  DJP, if you look at the link below, Link Energy's rep. says they have to stop their U.C.G. in Queensland because the local authorities insist on knowing what they are pumping down the bore-holes. They are fracking the holes, so an air circuit can be created, to draw off the Syngas http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/linc-energys-peter-bond-says-underground-coal-gasification-will-never-be-developed-in-australia/story-fnihsrf2-1226886990766?nk=8cead9a9599306735dc0

[steve colborn]

This is all "bilgewater", there are no, nor can there be, guarentees, that there will be groundwater polution  due to U.C.G. As I've tried to explain to posters before, re "Fracking", there can be "no guarentees", that there will be no environmental despoilation due to the former nor, now, to the latter! Do people actually have any comprehension of the pressures involved at even 1000 feet? Snap wooden pit props like kindling, twist metal supports like so much candy floss! Joe Davison, an ex Miner, has seen at first hand, the effects at "the coal face" so to speak!Talk of putting sheathes around fracking sites and now, by extension, sites of, not underground but "underwater" coal gassification, are merest science fiction. If these people convince enough folk, at a time when it is not viable, scientifically, nor physically, that they can do these things then, when it all goes shit-faced and it will, it will be "we", who will suffer, our betters can just "fuck off" to a different and unpolluted part of the world. We, who produce everything but, because of "our" lack of control of "our" environment and "our" very lives, will be left to suffer the consequences, will be "fucked"!!!So fellow Socialists, look and at the sub strata stresses involved at even, !000 feet below ground and tell me and our fellow workers, that you are comfortable with the obfuscation, smoke and mirrors and outright lies, of "our" betters? !!!

[Author]

Posts