Tories grant 18 fracking licences - all north of Leicester

KillBoY_UK said:
It’s part of the solution (along with nuclear) but not the only solution due to not being able to deliver the power in a reliable manner. On top the normal not “not in my back yard” not wanting rows wind turbines or WEC within eye shot and so on.

I would love it if all new builds had solar panel's or turbines on the roof.
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Renewables can't provide constant reliable power right now and probably won't for half a century. If we want our own energy in the next 10 years i.e. to tackle the immediate problem, fracking should be perused. Not because it is a good option, but because it is currently our only option for home grown energy. The alternative being to continue to buy it from abroad, which is fine for now...

Uther said:
Most people start protesting when it turns up on their doorstep. Nimbyism I think it's called.Would you be happy if it happened next to you? Do you think your house would be worth what it is now, and would you be quite happy that the value could plummet?
No problem at all with that?
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But these people will also be moaning at having high energy prices. With one week of having the lights off, not being able to cook food, not being able to go to work and with the country ground to a halt, I'm sure they'd change their mind. I certainly would but I'm not so short sighted and bloody minded to protest against one being near me for this very reason. The only condition I would have is that drinking water remains drinkable.

Essential infrastructure projects like this and other power stations I feel should be allowed outside of the planning process and 'resident involvement'; i.e. a competent government or pseudo-government energy body finds the best place for fracking (with environmental and social impact included as criteria) and just gets to go ahead with it without planning permission. Planning permission decides whether something is allowed to be built (acceptability). We know that we need energy so we know fracking and power stations have to happen, so acceptability doesn't come into it. It's just finding the best place for them.
 
Just read the whole thread and basically nobody really has much of an idea about whether this is dangerous or not, from what I can tell.

What's more disturbing is that the Government has removed/reduced green subsidies, I've not really read much about it (any pointers towards an unbiased source?) but surely this, along with the fracking license grant is not really where we should be heading in the long-term.

I can see why we would want to do it in the short-term though.

almoststew1990 said:
Renewables can't provide constant reliable power right now and probably won't for half a century
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Source?
 
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sigma said:
Source?
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It was an opinion, an by "constant reliable power" I mean we can rely on it. Which basically translates to "store it". This is something we dont have to do at the moment (we store physical fuel rather than electricity, if we actually store it at all, I don't know). Storing electricity efficiently is a lot harder. On the macro route, It would mean a massive infrastructure shift with many windfarms etc and many new batteries being built. If you think how long it takes anyone to decide anything in this country (extra runway, new powerstation, HS2...), let alone build it, I think 2065 would be a solid guess for when we can rely on renewables (i.e. built enough sources and batteries to switch off conventional power stations).

If we go the micro route (i.e. self generation) it will take years to roll out turbines and solar panels to every house in the country not to mention the unimaginable cost. It would be so complicated to maintain it and monitor it, not to mention one good storm would wipe out say a quater of the countries power generation potential. Then there is the fire / explosion hazard of having a bigass battery in your house.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24823641

If you think that in 2000, which is well after the start the "environmental movment" we were generating an indicernable amount of eletricity by renewables (see "breakdown of sources of electricity 1970 to 2012 graph in link). In 2012, it has grown to.. not much at all. (Note the contradicting graph "Future sources of energy" below it that seems to "lose" 30,000 units of energy).

The DECC expects us to generate 40% of our energy by renewables by 2030, an increase of 36.6% over today (wind power only seems to be considered in these charts, so I assume it is the main player in renewable energy generation). That's 80% by 2045 and 133% by 2065. Ok so I was a bit out, 40 years is probably more likely according to the DECC projection..

I personally feel this This seems very optimistic. As of march 2015 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31300982) we're at 3.4% for wind farms, the main player in renewable electricity generation. That's about 15 years of wind farm development (+0.2266% a year). We need to add 2.4% every year to meet the 40% target, and 10 fold increase over the past 15 years. That represents a monumental shift in planning, and public opinion, or a new technology coming in and being publically available in 15 years.

Believe me, I know that as a long term solution, fracking isn't the answer and we need a sustainable source of power, but we also have quite a serious short term problem too.
 
scorza said:
Well the people of Lancashire certainly minded when their county council rejected an application or fracking recently. I don't think this will bring as much money to the North as you think - most of the high value work doesn't need to be done locally and the profits will be sucked to London or some tax haven. I note Ineos have been given three licences - they're registered in Switzerland presumably for tax reasons.
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The same arguments were leveled at North sea oil. For a while Aberdeen was like the 2nd city of Texas but once the local workera gained the skills to work in the industry jobs were occupied by non ex pats.
 
From what I've noticed there's been a role reversal and northern men are now the softies ? they all wear makeup and go to tanning salons.
 
it might bring jobs up north but will they be hiring from up north or abroad
then does the money actually stay up north

C64 said:
From what I've noticed there's been a role reversal and northern men are now the softies ? they all wear makeup and go to tanning salons.
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pretty much sums up a lot of newcastles 20-30 year olds

you can't tell if people are gay or not unless it's pride day anymore
 
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scorza said:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...es-is-in-the-north-and-midlands-10461331.html

Don't get me wrong, I live in an area of the south of England that would be considered a "fracking hot-spot" so I'm glad that there's no licence granted for an area close by. However it does seem a bit typical of the Tories to shaft the North to protect their chums in the South-East. So much for the "northern power-house", once again the North is going to be exploited in environmental and economic terms to provide cheap energy for London and the South. #ToriesGonnaTory
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Sir Reginald Sheffield, 8th Baronet his father in law has land check it out and you will understand.
 
thep02 said:
Why when oil/gas is cheaper than chips and demand is falling would our government give licences for the most expensive form of land based extraction?
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Tefal said:
cause by the time theyre at production prices are likley to have risen?
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Also, with costs being squeezed at the moment, there will likely not be a cheaper time to drill these wells.

I'm glad there are some people on here who actually have some knowledge of the process. And how the US data isn't really applicable over here due to our increased regulations.

Fracking in of itself isn't inherently any more damaging to the environment than many other "traditional" pursuits. The regulation structure we have here means it is likely to be VERY safe in fact. We are very unlikely to have any of the problems associated with the US unconventional market.

A lot of this will be down to mineral rights. In the US, the owner of the land holds the mineral rights below that land (hence the Beverly Hillbillies). However, no such thing exists here. It's government "owned" and licenses are sold for extraction. Which means it is never extracted on the cheap, cutting as many corners as possible. Unlike in the US.

I'm all for it. And while, yes, I probably wouldn't bee too keen on a rig within eyesight of my living room window, equally, it could be interesting to see how it's done and everything. The biggest problem really would be the noise from all the trucks.
 
Conm8 said:
Absolute joke.

Corporate greed eh.

What are they gunna do once we have taken all the oil, chopped down all of the trees and drank all the water?

Can we eat and survive on cash? I don't think so
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Someone has that stupid Native American Indian poster on his wall too long :cool:
 
Amp34 said:
That's generally for oil where you re inject water to keep the pressure up as you say.

Water is a killer for gas however and the last thing you want to do is add more water into the mix.

For gas it's normally reinjected as it is the easiest way of disposing it, because you don't need to clean it up (putting the water back where it came from for example). It's probably dependent on whether it is flowback water or whether it is formation water produced at the same time as gas (the latter being fairly common with conventional gas production). if it's the latter it will also depend on whether you are injecting the water into the same formation it came out of or whether it's a different formation. I don't know what the Oklahoma injection wells are doing tbh.

In the UK the EA are very strict on what you can and can't do and where you can and can't inject water. Until recently you could only reinjected water back into the formation it came from, to stop any contamination of other formations. In those situations however you shouldn't get any earthquakes because the pressure of the formation isn't changing. Injecting into another formation could cause earthquakes because of a rise in pressure however, although it's very much dependent on many other factors, not least how close the injection well is to a fracture.

At least that's how I understand it, as I said earlier it's not particularly my area of expertise. If I'm wrong then please correct me, I'd be interested to know.:)
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Yeah not sure why I was thinking about oil :o.

Sounds about right :). As you say water injection into the same formation means the pressure shouldn't change much.

I always find it quite funny how fracking has been around since the 60s yet people get up in arms about it. The lack of regulation and cost cutting in the US as others have mentioned has really damaged people's perception of it.
 
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