LetsGoNorth supports renewable energy development…. just yesterday we were with a renewable energy company in southern Spain with a view to bringing some of their products to the UK. Lincolnshire, LetsGoNorth’s new base, is also an area which has been identified for fracking.
Let’s Go Fracking
‘Up until now he (Mankind) hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life becomes extinct, the climates ruined and the landscape grows poorer and uglier every day’ – Chekov.
Here’s a pub quiz question: what does the hamlet of Greenhaulgh, near Preston in Lancashire, have in common with the city of Galati, sited at the mouth of the Danube in Romania?
Yes, they both begin with the letter ‘G’ but the real answer is that each of them has recently suffered heavy earth tremors. Earthquakes might be a better word but, officially, they were earth tremors. The one near Galati measured 3.8 on the Richter scale at its epicentre though; the ‘tremors’ in both caused doors to jam and windows to crack and splits to appear in woodwork. My colleague in Galati stated how frightening it was since the force of the tremor held him to his bed (it happened at night) and he could do absolutely nothing about it. You may have seen the pictures on the news where people in this area turn on outside water taps and, as the water comes, apply a match to the tap outlet and get a substantial flame as the methane gas spurts out also.
The other factor that both places have in common is that they are both within twenty miles of fracking operations.
But, of course, the earth tremors may have happened independently of the fracking (sic).
So, what has all that to do with Caithness?
First, what is ‘fracking’? (Excuse me if you already know).
Below our feet, within the fractures of certain rocks, lie tiny accumulations of gas or even what is termed ‘tight’ oil. This ‘shale’ gas or oil can be accessed through the technique of hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) which involves drilling down into the rock a few thousand feet. The borehole thus formed is then lined with a steel and concrete casing. Then the drilling continues horizontally from the base of the shaft along the shale layers where the gas has accumulated over the eons. Small explosive charges are used to perforate the horizontal casing and a mixture of sand, water and chemicals is then pumped down under high pressure. This mixture is forced through the perforations in the casing, causing the shale to fracture further, releasing the gas and allowing it to rise. The particulate matter in the solution pumped down has the purpose of preventing the fractures from closing when the injection process is stopped and thus the pressure is removed.
Outside of exploratory operations fracking, to be anywhere near commercial, requires a large site of several acres and a number of bores or wells where pipes are brought to the surface and gas can be collected. The amount of water used in fracking operations is immense – some estimates put it around 10 million litres per ‘frack.’ Much of this water, around one-third, re-emerges from underground and, since it is filled with pollutants, has then to be safely disposed of. Although the chemicals mixed with the water flushed into the ‘frack’ rarely exceed around 0.5% of the whole they can constitute quite a mix, including mercury, chromium, antimony, methanol, ethylene glycol and numerous others (dependent on what is deemed necessary).
And if mixtures of such chemicals are, at best, controversial to pump into the land, the economics of fracking are even more so.
The difficulty is that the fracking process, and thus its economics, varies from place to place. The environmental impact of fracking also varies (and is also harder to assess) and this also has a direct bearing on the pecuniary aspects of the situation. Some US studies positively glow with regard to the financial benefits to both the local area involved and the national economy; however few dwell on the cost of the environmental impact. In fact Max Keiser, economist ‘extra-ordinary’, has stated that fracking, by its very nature, can never be economically sound and will always result in costing more than the method produces – hence the need for and use of public money to induce companies to frack. His assessment includes the provision in the cost of the environmental impact as well as the downturn in house prices in the area concerned.
The economics of fracking may be dubious at best but what drives it is the view (not necessarily the reality) of the geo-political situation and the certain knowledge that oil and gas resources are finite. The Middle-East, where most of our oil comes from, is unstable with wars or insurrections in almost every country from Egypt to the Yemen (but it has been like that for years and the oil still comes – even ISIL were exporting oil to the west until recently). The other major exporter of gas is Russia and that country is still viewed as the ‘enemy’ in the eyes of many. Whether it is or not it does still make sense to produce as much of our energy requirements locally.
But by fracking?
IGas Energy PLC are the company involved in Caithness. They have the rights to explore the east coast of Caithness using a fracking process known as ‘underground coal gasification.’ This is a procedure used for exploiting coal that cannot be mined in a normal fashion either because the veins are too fractured or too deep or even too thin. The variation to fracking is that a controlled air-oxygen mix is used to pump down the driven borehole in order to set fire to the coal seams and thus bring the gases produced to the surface where they can be collected for the production of usable energy. The past experience of underground coal gasification has demonstrated nothing if not that it leaves massive pollution in its wake; there is even a village in Pennsylvania (an ex-village, really) called Centralia that has had to be totally abandoned as a result of the fires burning underground and the subsequent contamination.
That particular industrial malpractice, the fracking around Centralia, was started in 1962 so the hope is that we have moved on since then and, certainly, the same fate does not menace Lybster – visions of screaming Lybsteronians running frantically from the raging fires down the high street.
I’ve put a series of questions to I-Gas concerning their intentions in Caithness and what we can expect. I-Gas (revenue £36 million) have been communicative and open and are eager to get their story across. They even set up a community fund designed to offset their intrusions (that can be part of the problem – there are always winners as well as losers in any situation). It is, perhaps, unfortunate that the male model that features on the front of their brochure has a smug, self-satisfied look about him (he’s alright – he’s earning well). I won’t say more because he is also holding a large spanner in what could be described as a threatening manner.
I’ll let you know what they say next time.”
LetsGoNorth meets LetsGoSouth – www.letsgonorth.com and www.letsgosouth.co.uk – we are working on a publication at the moment to link the two as part of our regional and international development with the DTI.
Moving forward to climate change 