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The report, Are We Fit to Frack?


Geoffrey Settle

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I received a link to Lancashire Wildlife Trust earlier this month about a new report, Are We Fit to Frack? http://www.lancswt.org.uk/news/416/15/Leading-countryside-groups-join-forces-to-challenge-fracking-rules?dm_i=449%2C2BTP9%2CDYE69E%2C8G25J%2C1 no doubt has taken place on this discussion forum - would you be in favour of local fracking?

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Well that's FIVE Big Fat yeses from the WWW panel :P

 

Here is a paper from the British Geological Survey Natural Environmental Research Council http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/research/earthquake_hazard_shale_gas.html for an objective point of view which seems to support your view:

 

It includes a BGS co-author and concludes that the earthquakes near Blackpool in April and May 2011 were induced by hydraulic fracture treatments at the Preese Hall well (PH1), operated by CUADRILLA RESOURCES LTD. The report also concludes that further small earthquakes cannot be ruled out, however the risk from these earthquakes is low, and structural damage is extremely unlikely.

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Given that there are around 20 or 30 earthquakes strong enough to be felt by people each year how can they tell. (there are also some hundreds of other eathquakes each year that are only detected on the instrumenst). The western side of the british isle is the most prone to earthquakes but strangely ireland seems to suffer from very few. so if they start fracking in ireland and th incidence of earthquake activity rise then  you would have definite proof that fracking causes earth quakes.

 

as for being for or against it. currently undecided. on the plus side I MAY get cheaper energy. on the minus side there is a remote posibility that the earth will move for me and my house will fall down. (then agan there is a remote possibility that i will be struck between the eyes by a stray bolt from a passing sattelite that will leave a hole identical to a wound from a 9 mm automatic)

 

If they do start fracking and there are earthquakes  it seems that they only need to stop the process and the earthquakes go away. So go ahead and frack with the proviso that operations WILL cease if earthquake activity is detected.

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Fracking is ok as long as the government will be covering any costs for repairs to property that might occur through fracking &  as long as the government treat fracking only as a short term measure to get some breathing space till their nuclear power stations are up & running.

I can't honestly see it reducing energy prices though.....this is the British government & vested interests we are dealing with.

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It is quite alarming that Bazj has found the need to say this about the Animal Kingdom.

 

Why do you say alarming? I happen to think that the future energy supplies of our country is more important than any wildlife or their environments

 

People would soon start to complain if the lights went out because a power station or fracking spot couldn't be built because of some rare species of frog or lesser greater spotted newt

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...and, of course, the fact that wind farms don't provide any sort of energy security.

 

So we have the ridiculous situation of coal and gas fired power stations being kept on hot standby and burning thousands of tons of fossil fuels without generating any power, just so they can instantly pick up the load when the wind drops.

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The fracking being proposed in the UK is FAR deeper than groundwater levels and utilises sealed concrete boreholes to bring the gas to the surface. Some of the early fracking sites in the US were much shallower - and there's plenty of evidence that groundwater in these areas naturally contained methane well before fracking started.

 

There's even a video of tap water being set on fire which was being used as propoganda by the anti-fracking groups until it was revealed that the footage was shot years before any fracking had taken place.

 

The main groundwater contamination risk with fracking is if the water injected into the rocks to frack them is not contained when it is returned to the surface. The risks of that are now well understood and all UK fracking permits will require companies to contain this water - and from an economic point of view they'll, given the relatively higher cost of water supply in the UK than the US, they'll probably want to reuse it time after time anyway.

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Energy from Nitrogen ? How so ?

It's quite simple Boris. You obtain the nitrogen from the atmosphere (where it is plentiful being the most abundant gas) and compress it. You store the compressed gas in cylinders and use it to drive whatever machinery you need!

 

What's that you're saying? How do you compress the nitrogen? Easy, use electric driven compressors using electricity from coal/gas/nuclear powered generators of course! Simples :lol:

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Either that or or a you could install a large treadmill in each cell block that drives a compressor to compress the nitrogen. two hours a day for each convict to take a turn as part of their sentence.

 

Could be onto a winner there as the green party could not protest against it, it is sustainable,renewable energy (until we run out of convicts that is)

The human right wallers could not complain against it, it provides much needed exercise for the convicts and if sited in a covered area in the yard fresh air as well.

There is little or no pollution from it and it would give the convicts a good feeling that they were helping to provide cheap energy for the community and a cleaner future for the next generation. Might even persuade a few of them that crime is not the way to go.

 

The only downside that I can see is that convicts would build up a considerable amount of leg muscle which would mean that they could better escape the police in a foot race (another incentive for them perhaps). :mrgreen:

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