Is shale gas a good thing?

[jean]

If shale gas or natural gas can be captured without the problems of methane release, then that could be a good thing.

Don't forget also the vast quantities of water that are required.

[Dave2002]

Regarding fracking, our government isn't great, but it's the US government, or lack of governance in the US, which I fear. The until now very lax regulation in the US seems to have already caused significant environmental damage in some areas, and that's ignoring the methane emissions issues. I hope our government will enforce much higher standards, and that they really mean it when they say that they won't allow such industrial developments if there's a lot of adverse evidence. If it could be made to work with very low methane loss, then maybe it really would be a good idea, though unfortunately I think the UK is not a good place for this because of the high population density. The US could potentially be a good place, but with poor environmental controls, and "out of sight" developments, a disaster could be brewing up. The UK government would probably not be able to influence the US government sufficiently to prevent the US oil and gas industry just doing the damage anyway, and as we now know, that could have global rather than merely local effects.

[aeolium]

What do you think about the proposed Severn Tidal Barrage scheme, Dave2002?

[Dave2002]

What do you think about the proposed Severn Tidal Barrage scheme, Dave2002?

I didn't realise that was still in play. There will be some environmental concerns, but with care I think that may make more sense than some other schemes. I'll need to check the latest proposals, if that is still a possibility.

[Serial_Apologist]

I didn't realise that was still in play. There will be some environmental concerns, but with care I think that may make more sense than some other schemes. I'll need to check the latest proposals, if that is still a possibility.

One of the negative outcomes re nesting/stageing sites for migrating birds could surely be rectified by creating alternative sites, as was quite rapidly done in eg the case of the Barnes Wetland in SW London, to those expected to be drowned by the creation of the STB, I would have thought.

[aeolium]

I didn't realise that was still in play. There will be some environmental concerns, but with care I think that may make more sense than some other schemes. I'll need to check the latest proposals, if that is still a possibility.

A publicly funded plan was scrapped by DECC in 2010, but a new plan was created based on private funding and involving a consortium known as Corlan Hafren (now known as Hafren Power). In summer last year the govt authorised the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee to review the proposals. They reported last month on the pros and cons but were unable to recommend approval of the plan in its current form, though did not rule out the possibility of a revised proposal gaining support. I don't think the idea has been completely abandoned.

The committee's report is available to read. I am never entirely sure about the genuineness of the concerns expressed when people like Tim Yeo, the chairman of the committee, has numerous financial interests in other environmental businesses (I don't know about the other MPs on the committee).

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Rather worse, I think. With present techniques of extraction it would appear that about 20% of the methane will be lost to the atmosphere, and since methane is much more efficient at producing global warming than CO2, this could be a disaster.

That seems rather a lot! There's certainly no sign of this happening if we examine the data that dave2002 linked in

http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

which shows US methane emissions declining during the period when they've been increasing their fracing activities on a huge scale.

The NOAA graph of methane levels in the atmosphere:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Methane+concentration&lr=&hl=en&rlz=1I7GGLL_en-GB&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=bvjbUbvSMMSl0wX1qYHADA&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=754#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=OrJ3YgVbKDRhvM%3A%3B3zwPNae-kafnEM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fete.cet.edu%252Fgcc%252Fstyle%252Fimages%252Fuploads%252FVolcano%252Fmethanetrend.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fete.cet.edu%252Fgcc%252F%253F%252Fvolcanoes_greenhouse%252F%3B2728%3B1971

shows little variation - at most 10 ppb against a background 1,800 ppb (i.e. less than 0.5 % and almost certainly less than the data error).

Don't forget also the vast quantities of water that are required.

It seems to require about 200 tons of water per frac. That's about 6 tanker loads, 2,000 baths, or 10,000 showers.

It'll take ten years to get to significant fracing in the UK. Meanwhile, US fracing has lowered world gas prices (to the extent that Bulgaria has negotiated a 10 % cut in Russian prices simply by tabling the prospect of alternate supplies) Fracing has cancelled the supposed apocolypse of peak oil. The US is now a net exporter of gas, and by switching to gas it has lowered its CO2 emissions by a greater percentage amount than any other country.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Ohm and in last week's House of Lords committee meeting on the Energy Bill Mat Ridley gave this stunning statistic:

The output energy from one large shale gas fracing site (25 acres - about 300 m by 300 m) is equal to the entire outout of the present UK wind fleet (all 7GW of it).

[Dave2002]

Ohm and in last week's House of Lords committee meeting on the Energy Bill Mat Ridley gave this stunning statistic:

The output energy from one large shale gas fracing site (25 acres - about 300 m by 300 m) is equal to the entire outout of the present UK wind fleet (all 7GW of it).

AIC

Good to see you back.

Is that figure from the HoL anywhere near correct? If so, then fracking should perhaps be back on the menu. The methane release should be low though - not much good otherwise.

[teamsaint]

Not worried by the potential or actual corruption, AIC?
Not worried by potential or actual pollution ?

THe likely shortfall in generating capacity is very handy got those with a finger in the fracking pie.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Not worried by the potential or actual corruption, AIC?
Not worried by potential or actual pollution ?

THe likely shortfall in generating capacity is very handy got those with a finger in the fracking pie.

Not sure I see what your concern is with regard to corruption.

Re pollution: of course there's a potential for this when fracing. But the EA has said (rightly, in my opinion) that this risk can be contained by careful regulation.

Your last sentence is garbled but the relevance of fracing to the UK generation capacity crisis (and crisis is the right word) is NIL because, as I said, it'll take at least ten years to get any UK fracing industry up and running.

Dave2002: re that figure from Matt Ridley. He just gave the figure as a throw-away-line, and I'm not aware of any reference. My engineering gut instinct and experience tells me it probably isn't far off the mark. After all, the 7 GW installed wind capacity will only produce ~1,500 MW of equivalent production (and perhaps as little as 280 MW of firm capacity if EdF's figures are to be believed) - two CCGTs. So can one multi-well fracing pad stretching over 25 acres produce ~3,000 MW of thermal energy? Seems possible.

[Dave2002]

AIC

Is it really called "fracing"?

[An_Inspector_Calls]

AIC

Is it really called "fracing"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frac

But this doesn't seem all that solid a claim at the moment. I've seen fraking, fracking, fracturing . . .

[jean]

Well, I suppose if you're being very pedantic you might want to argue that since the word fracture from which it's derived has no k in it, then fracking shouldn't, either.

But if you add -ing to a word ending in c it starts to behave as if it were derived from a hypothetical frace, with disastrous results.

So I think the k really has to be there.

[Serial_Apologist]

AIC

Is it really called "fracing"?

We will need to frace ourselves for the consequences, if so. :blush: