SHALE GAS AND FRACKING

[marchesarosa]

UK Shale Gas Exploration Poised To Start In Ernest
Sunday, 11 March 2012 Tom McGhie, Mail on Sunday

The Government is poised to give the go-ahead for resumption of the controversial ‘fracking’ technique of mining that caused earthquakes near Blackpool last year. It is understood that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is likely to allow exploration by Cuadrilla Resources in Lancashire to continue on condition that the company introduces new safety methods to ensure mining stops on signs of impending tremors.

The decision is likely to spark widespread protests among environmentalists who believe that the process can pollute ground water and allow methane, a greenhouse gas, to escape into the atmosphere.

It is understood that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is likely to allow exploration by Cuadrilla Resources in Lancashire to continue on condition that the company introduces new safety methods to ensure mining stops on signs of impending tremors.

Both miners and environmental groups that have been in touch with the Department recently have come away with a strong impression that drilling will be allowed to resume.

The Government has been keen to exploit reserves of shale gas because, if found in sufficient quantity, it would then give the nation greater energy security.
Following the tremors, Cuadrilla, where former BP boss Lord Browne is a non-executive director, was banned from ‘fracking’ in the area.

Chief executive Mark Miller has said Cuadrilla is ready to put in place a ‘traffic light’ system to prevent a repeat of the two small earthquakes that shook the area last year. A spokesman for the Department of Energy said that a decision on whether to allow fracking to resume was imminent.

For the past four months it has been investigating the incident and a report by Cuadrilla into the connection between unconventional drilling and earthquakes – a link that the company admits.

Fracking – or more correctly hydraulic fracturing – is the name given to the technique for extracting gas out of shale buried deep underground. A drill is sunk into the shale and then turned horizontal to penetrate the shale rock.

High pressure water, chemicals and sand are pumped down the shaft, which results in rocks fracturing and gas escaping to the surface up the same pipe. Part of the purpose of the exploration is to discover the size of shale gas reserves nationwide.

According to the US Department of Energy, Britain has enough shale gas to fuel the country for 56 years. However, the British Geological Survey says there is only enough shale gas to last 18 months.

thegwpf.org/uk-news/5188-uk-shale-gas-exploration-poised-to-start-in-ernest.html


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Does anyone believe anything the British Geological Survey says about climate or energy resources?

[marchesarosa]

Rich gas deposits found in survey of Leicestershire countryside

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 Leicester Mercury

Rich deposits of gas have been discovered under the rolling countryside of Melton and the Vale of Belvoir.

www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Rich-gas-deposits-survey-countryside/story-15644231-detail/story.html

Shale gas, a natural gas contained in rocks hundreds of millions of years old, has been found by geologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS), just over the Leicestershire border at Keyworth, in Nottinghamshire, as part of ongoing geological survey work.


Matthew O' Callaghan said: "While an additional source of fuel is to be welcomed, there are significant concerns about the process used to extract this form of energy."
It is normally found in areas with a history of coal mining.

Ed Hough, a geologist with the BGS, said: "The shale was discovered as part of a strategic survey of the UK.

"We have identified several areas of the UK, including this large area in the East Midlands where the potential to recover large amounts of shale gas exists.

"Any exploration is in the very early stages and any work would need a licence from the Department for the Environment and Climate Change. There is a wide area to be explored and samples obtained for analysis to determine shale gas potential in the area."

Melton and the Vale form part of the Widmerpool Gulf, which stretches through south Nottinghamshire and into Derbyshire.

But the means of extracting the gas from rocks – known as hydro-fracturing or "fracking" using water pumped at high pressure to prop open fractures in a rock so the gas can escape – is controversial.

Last year, Blackpool was rocked (?) by two tremors, caused as engineers tried to extract shale gas by "fracking".

The discovery of the gas has been welcomed by UKIP Euro MP Roger Helmer, the party's industry and energy spokesman.

He said: "I believe that shale gas offers the prospect of a huge economic boost for the region.

"Unlike the wind turbines that are blighting our landscape, gas delivers low-cost, continuous and sustainable power."

He added: "There have been horror stories circulated by green lobbyists but in fact the large-scale extraction of shale gas in the USA has been remarkably successful."

Melton borough councillor Matthew O' Callaghan said: "While an additional source of fuel is to be welcomed, there are significant concerns about the process used to extract this form of energy.

"There should be exhaustive tests and concerns allayed before any commercial extraction is even considered in what is an extremely sensitive area of the countryside."

Coun Malise Graham, a member of the same authority, said: "It is vital that a thorough investigation is undertaken before work goes ahead."

Tony Stott, chairman of the Leicestershire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: "The development of a gas industry on a large scale could transform and industrialise countryside and many rural communities.

"More research on the environmental effects, such as methane leaking, pollution, groundwater contamination, and the risk of minor earthquakes, is urgently needed."

[marchesarosa]

but hedges it around with regulation......

EXECUTIVE ORDER

SUPPORTING SAFE AND RESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT OF UNCONVENTIONAL DOMESTIC NATURAL GAS RESOURCE

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to coordinate the efforts of Federal agencies responsible for overseeing the safe and responsible development of unconventional domestic natural gas resources and associated infrastructure and to help reduce our dependence on oil, it is hereby ordered as follows: .......

www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/13/executive-order-supporting-safe-and-responsible-development-unconvention

[marchesarosa]

Once a shale gas well has been sunk and the drilling rig removed the well-head is very unobtrusive. I have heard it described as a "garage"-like structure. Very little environmental impact visually.

[marchesarosa]

For those who worry whether shale gas extraction in the urbanised UK is safe there is another option!




UK has vast offshore shale gas reserves, geologists say

By Henning Gloystein and Christopher Johnson
LONDON | Tue Apr 17, 2012

(Reuters) - Britain may have enough offshore shale gas to catapult it into the top ranks of global producers, energy experts now believe, and while production costs are still very high, new U.S. technology should eventually make reserves commercially viable.

UK offshore reserves of shale gas could exceed one thousand trillion cubic feet (tcf), compared to current rates of UK gas consumption of 3.5 tcf a year, or five times the latest estimate of onshore shale gas of 200 trillion cubic feet.

There are still no reliable figures available for the UK, and some experts doubt preliminary onshore reserve figures by private companies. Also only around 10 to 20 percent of total reserves are currently deemed recoverable.

But experts say that whatever the final recoverable reserve figure is, it is likely to be big enough to make Britain energy self-sufficient.

"There will be a lot more offshore shale gas and oil resources than onshore," Nigel Smith, subsurface geologist and geophysicist at the British Geological Survey (BGS) said. UK offshore reserves could be five to 10 times as high as onshore, said.

On Tuesday, a UK government report backed the drilling of shale gas onshore after a temporary ban on the controversial extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Britain is well placed for offshore development, with its North Sea oil and gas sector long established.

"We were pioneers in the North Sea with conventional oil and gas and the technology has gone around the world, so why not become one in the unconventional sector," Smith said.

Offshore geological information is already available, and superior to onshore shale reserves data, he said.

He told the British parliament's House of Commons shale gas energy and climate change committee that Britain could become energy self-sufficient if it went offshore with its unconventional oil and gas industry.

The parliamentary committee said that "we recommend that DECC encourage the development of the offshore shale gas industry in the UK, working with HM Treasury to explore the impacts of tax breaks to the sector."

EUROPEAN OFFSHORE SHALE BOOM?

Petroleum engineers say that shale oil and gas reserves of vast potential stretch over different formations across Europe.

"We have potentially huge volumes present in the subsurface - the volumes are mind-blowingly big," Melvyn Giles, global head of unconventional gas and light tight oil at Shell, said of Europe's unconventional gas resources.

"The figures appear to suggest the shale resources are so large that the question is not how much is out there, but how much can be retrieved - how much can be economically accessed in an environmentally acceptable way," he added.

Giles said that although the pace of shale oil and gas development was hugely faster in North America than elsewhere, interest in the industry was building up quickly elsewhere.

"The challenge is being taken on, and there comes a point when this industry will explode out of North America, and in my opinion it will happen when we start to get a few test results showing an economic development outside North America. Just one success will breed interest elsewhere and will help develop these industries outside North America," he said.

Shale is soft, finely stratified sedimentary rock that formed from consolidated mud or clay.

Hydraulic fracturing is the process of creating small cracks, or fractures, in underground rock formations as much as 7,700 metres below ground level to extract gas (and oil) from shale.

Scientists have known for years that shale and other common forms of rock in Europe held hydrocarbons, but until recently they were ignored as either insignificant or uneconomic.

Energy services company Schlumberger said in a research report that there are large shale gas and oil reserves in the North Sea - along the German, Dutch and Danish coasts - as well as in the Baltic Basin.

Geologists at other leading energy companies spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the dramatically higher estimates, but a consensus of optimism about potential European reserves has grown in the hard-headed commercial sector.

Much of the development in Europe may focus offshore after onshore exploration hit setbacks when France and Bulgaria banned exploration over concerns about ground water pollution. Poland, previously thought to be a European leader, recently slashed its reserves estimates by 90 percent.

An offshore future would avoid many of the legal and regulatory challenges that the industry faces in Europe.

Unlike in the United States, where mineral exploration rights are with the private property holder, most European law gives mineral exploitation rights to governments, which provides a serious obstacle to speedy development of onshore shale.

Legal procedures, bureaucracy and haggling over resource valuations can delay exploration and production indefinitely. In France, political opposition to fracking has brought a stop to development of the Paris shale basin.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

Fracking is blamed for causing earth tremors in northern England and the United States and polluting U.S. ground water. The technique is also expensive, but costs are falling.

"For the offshore industry to become viable, you'd need vastly higher energy costs, perhaps as high as $200 (per barrel) or more. But we're dealing with a finite resource, so it will happen," the BGS's Smith said.

Petroleum economists say that although the current all-in cost of developing offshore shale gas and oil could be as high as $200 per barrel of oil equivalent, unit costs are falling as the fracking industry in United States expands and matures.

"Commercially exploring offshore oil and gas in the North Sea would probably cost four or five times as much as current marginal costs of $50 to $60 required to operate at a profit," one industry expert said.

From its beginnings in the 1980s, U.S. gas production from shale has increased rapidly in the past three years and is expected to account for about half of U.S. output by 2035.

The shale gas industry and UK government are hoping that economies of scale will reduce overheads, bringing costs down to a much lower range within the next decade.

"While these (costs) might be economically unviable at present, 'uneconomic' reserves can become economic quickly as technology and prices shift," the UK parliamentary committee said.

One senior petroleum geologist working for a major oil company estimated that costs of offshore oil production from shale could drop to $60 and $80 per barrel once the exploration technology matures and is used on a larger scale around the world. Oil currently sells at $120 a barrel.

"It's getting cheaper as the industry develops. If costs keep coming down, prices might not have to be so much higher to make the economics work," the geologist said.

While a marginal cost of $200 would require a sharp and sustained rise in oil prices, a drop to below $100 in offshore oil and gas shale recovery costs could become commercially viable in the foreseeable future.

Investment bank Jefferies on Tuesday raised its long-term oil price forecast (2013 onward) for North Sea Brent crude oil to $100 per barrel, an 18 percent increase from its prior assumption of $85.

(Editing by Richard Mably, William Hardy and Jane Baird)

uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/17/uk-britain-shale-reserves-idUKBRE83G0KS20120417

[marchesarosa]

Benny Peiser:

It’s True - There’s A Real Danger That Fracking Will Cause A Major Boom
Wednesday, 18 April 2012 06:53.

The impact of the government’s shale gas endorsement could be dramatic for Britain’s energy policy.

A REPORT commissioned by the government and released yesterday has given the green light to the extraction of shale gas. The report concludes that hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a technology that pumps water and chemicals underground to fracture shale formations in order to release trapped gas, is safe but requires tight regulation and seismic monitoring.

The impact of the government’s endorsement could be dramatic for Britain’s energy policy. According to estimates of the International Energy Agency, globally there is enough natural gas for the next 120 years at current rates of consumption. Supplies of unconventional gas could provide us with this cheap and relatively clean energy for another 250 years or more. Energy crisis? What energy crisis?

The drilling company Cuadrilla estimates that shale exploration in the North West alone could contribute £5bn to £6bn to the local economy over the next 30 years through job creation and business taxes. Yet there are other large shale formations in other parts of the country that may be even bigger than the Bowland shale.

And then there’s the North Sea. According to the British Geological Survey, UK offshore shale reserves could be five to 10 times as high as onshore. That would be enough to turn the UK into one of the world’s top gas producers. No wonder a growing number of MPs want the North Sea to be at the heart of a new offshore shale gas industry. Even the Energy and Climate Change Committee has recommended that the government should encourage the development of offshore shale gas drilling.

With energy imports reduced, the UK would gain significantly from a shale gas revolution: cheaper energy would make UK manufacturing more competitive, gas and electricity bills would fall and the rising trend in fuel poverty could be reversed.

Shale gas fracking has already revived US oil and gas production, yielding an overabundance of cheap natural gas. The US passed Russia in 2009 as the largest producer of natural gas in the world. In 2010 natural gas contributed more than $500bn (£314bn) to the US economy. In the process, 2.8m jobs were created.

Because of the potential scale of UK shale drilling, significant levels of employment would be created or supported across a broad range of job sectors. Energy-intensive industries and manufacturers now considering relocating their operations abroad due to increasing energy costs will also be more likely to stay.

Britain’s looming shale revolution is a clear victory for those of us who have argued that renewable energy is economically unsustainable and that the exploration of shale gas can provide a huge potential boost to both UK industry and British households.

The government’s endorsement of shale gas, together with its gradual rollback of unpopular green schemes and expensive renewables subsidies, comes as a massive blow to the green lobby, which is suffering the longest losing streak for a generation.

“Shale gas exploration would be a major blow for the British renewable energy industry, which would see investment hijacked by a new dash for gas,” Greenpeace warned in response to the new report. “Large-scale shale gas extraction is completely incompatible with the urgent issue of tackling climate change,” the WWF complained.

Undoubtedly, a British gas glut would make renewables even less competitive. Initially, green campaigners were supportive of natural gas. Then they realised that it was undermining subsidies for renewables which are now drying up fast. However, cheap and abundant gas is not only competing with green energy, but also with coal and nuclear. “We used to regard gas as a transition fuel,” energy minister Charles Hendry MP said recently. “We now understand that it is in fact a destination fuel.”

Britain’s climate and energy policy now faces a huge opportunity. With a little bit of luck, a shale investment boom could materialise over the next few years. It would do wonders for the government’s severely dented reputation over its energy policies. As the shale industry gets the green light to steam ahead, it is almost inevitable that we will see the evolution of a more pragmatic and less zealous approach to the green agenda.

Benny Peiser is the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

[marchesarosa]

It is worth considering the price of natural gas in the U.S.

In March U.K. households paid between £9.60 to £11.19 ($15.36 and $17.88) per million BTUs for natural gas, compared to spot prices in the U.S. of about £1.25, or $2. American natural gas prices have plunged in the last decade as shale production has taken off.
—“Fracking Europe”, The Wall Street Journal, 19 April 2012

Imagine if U.K. prices were similar to U.S. prices. What effect would that have on the U.K. economy? This also belies the claim that there is a “world price” for gas....With some googling, I found that the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes prices for natural gas at
www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_m.htm

The residential prices for the USA listed there are currently about $9.50 per million BTUs [compared to $15.36 to $17.88 in UK]. So the WSJ comparison is misleading - [albeit that the difference in retail prices between the US and UK is still great!]



Apr 23, 2012 at 8:55 AM | Douglas J. Keenan on Bishop Hill
bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/4/23/ft-on-shale-gas.html

[marchesarosa]

The Future of Natural Gas
by Rutt Bridges

Very good article and discussion here on Judith Curry's blog, Climate Etc, about the generation of electricity from various fuels with particular reference to shale gas. The article refers particularly to the American experience but most of it is relevant to the UK, too.

judithcurry.com/2012/05/02/the-future-of-natural-gas/#more-8221

[marchesarosa]

Waterless Natural Gas Fracking Method Unveiled
Resource Investing News | May 9, 2012, 6:45 AM | 713 |


By Adam Currie — Exclusive to Gas Investing News

Following a stream of dire headlines about plummeting natural gas prices, explorers and producers are finally beginning to shift their attention to advancements on the production side – more specifically, to a new natural gas extraction method.

A planned shale gas drilling project in New York state has drawn global attention for its aim to make use of a waterless form of hydraulic fracking – a new technique designed to reduce the pollution associated with controversial natural gas drilling processes.

Propane replaces water and chemicals

According to an industry report, the project is focused on using a technology that pumps a thick gel made from propane into the ground as opposed to using traditional methods of hydraulic fracking that make use of a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals to extract natural gas reserves from deep shale formations. Unlike traditional technologies, the gel from the new liquefied propane gas (LPG) fracking method reverts to vapor while still underground, and as a result returns to the surface in a recoverable form.

According to its developer, Calgary-based GASFRAC Energy Services (TSX:GFS), the gel also holds advantages over water-based methods in that it does not carry the chemicals used during the drilling process back to the surface.

This process is significant in that if proven effective, it could potentially allow for the extraction of shale gas and oil from 135,000 acres in Tioga County, New York, breaking through the state’s current hydraulic fracking moratorium. The moratorium was imposed in 2010 after environmentalists expressed concerns that the drilling process could pose a threat to regional water supplies.

Additional assessment required

As a relatively new technology, LPG fracking does not yet fall under the state’s moratorium, but could be permitted under the New York Department of Environmental Conservation‘s (DEC) 1992 Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, according to Emily DeSantis, the DEC’s director of public information. She added that LPG fracking would also require assessment under the state’s Environmental Quality Review Act, or even a separate environmental impact statement “if the proposed activity may result in significant adverse environmental impacts not previously or adequately addressed.”
GASFRAC first used the patented process in a commercial setting four years ago and has since fracked over 1,300 wells in Canada and the US. The method was originally designed to improve the performance of low-pressure wells and has impressed those within the environmental arena.
“That has been the real surprise for us, an extra advantage,” said Doug McMillan, Vice President of GASFRAC. “In areas of drought-stricken Texas, water is impounded and sold for traditional fracking,” he continued. “And in the eastern US, there are concerns about water disposal and population density, but we can work there and are even going to be in New York.”

Increases oil and gas flow

According to a report by The Vancouver Sun, while GASFRAC charges a 50 percent premium in comparison to traditional fracking companies, there can be significant savings in water use, truck traffic, and easier site cleanups. Apart from logistical gains, the article also referred to the rise in well production as “spectacular.” Reports from the Cardium formation, which is west of Edmonton, displayed that LPG fracking results are “two to three times better” at increasing the flow of oil and gas in comparison to traditional methods.
This sentiment was echoed when San Antonio-based BlackBrush Oil & Gas announced a two-year contract with GASFRAC in the oil-rich Eagle Ford shale in Texas. BlackBrush’s co-CEO commented in a press release that using LPG brought “oil production at a sustainable rate weeks earlier than with the standard water frac and we are seeing huge savings on disposal of frac fluids.”
While the New York moratorium will not be lifted until a new Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement is complete, the Tioga County Landowners Group has announced to lease 135,000 acres to eCORP International, with the LPG fracking process making up one of the deal’s stipulations.

“Game-changing technology”

“We believe this game-changing technology will be embraced by, not only regulators and the industry, but the general population as well,” eCORP CEO John Thrash said in a press release.
“We believe that propane/butane gel could very well become the shale ‘treatment of choice’ in all countries because of its many technical and environmental benefits relative to large volume ‘slick’ water fracking techniques,” Mark Stauss, a senior director at eCORP, told Inside Climate News.

It is not only junior companies that are making use of the new method. Last year, Chevron (NYSE:CVX) used LPG to frack several natural gas wells in the Piceance Basin in Northwestern Colorado. In its annual report it noted that the technology “significantly increases production while minimizing water usage.”

Despite the positive spin being thrust upon this new extraction method, there has been opposition from environmental organizations. Fifteen groups, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, sent a letter to the New York DEC in early April, urging the agency to perform an environmental impact statement prior to permitting LPG wells, and describing LPG as a technology with “alarming” known and unknown risks.

Deb Nardone, from the Sierra Club, said that given the risk of explosions, “it is clear that propane fracking just substitutes one set of problems for another set of even more dangerous problems.”

Despite requests for further analysis from groups such as these, it does seem that this technology could be a significant step forward for the gas exploration and production community in terms of trying to find cleaner methods of extraction.


Read more: resourceinvestingnews.com/36090-waterless-natural-gas-fracking-method-unveiled.html#ixzz1uYzxJfu5

[marchesarosa]

All you ever wanted to know about the process of fracking

www.balcombevillage.co.uk/FrackingDocuments/The%20Fracking%20Report.pdf

A REPORT ON THE RISKS AND BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH THE PROPOSED EXPLORATION FOR OIL AT LOWER STUMBLE, BALCOMBE COMMISSIONED BY BALCOMBE PARISH COUNCIL MAY 2012



[marchesarosa]

It has been announced that the Royal Society will be investigating the "risks" of fracking, but presumably not the benefits.

Well, it's pretty obvious what their take will be, alas.

[marchesarosa]

Excerpts from the Guardian article by Leo Hickman:
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jun/15/james-lovelock-fracking-greens-climate

James Lovelock: The UK should be going mad for fracking
Excellent wide ranging interview.


Given that Lovelock predicted in 2006 that by this century’s end “billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable”, this new laissez-faire attitude to our environmental fate smells and sounds like of a screeching handbrake turn.

Indeed, earlier this year he admitted to MSNBC in an interview reported around the world with somewhat mocking headlines along the lines of “Doom-monger recants”, that he had been “extrapolating too far” in reaching such a conclusion and had made a “mistake” in claiming to know with such certainty what will happen to the climate.

But Lovelock is relaxed about how this reversal might be perceived. He says being allowed to change your mind and follow the evidence is one of the liberating marvels of being an independent scientist, something he has revelled in since leaving Nasa, his last full-time employer, in the late 1960s.

…

Having already upset many environmentalists – for whom he is something of a guru – with his long-time support for nuclear power and his hatred of wind power (he has a picture of a wind turbine on the wall of his study to remind him how “ugly and useless they are”), he is now coming out in favour of “fracking”, the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from the ground. He argues that, while not perfect, it produces far less CO2 than burning coal: “Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.”

…

The reaction in Germany to Fukushima – which announced within weeks of the disaster that it was to shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022 – particularly infuriates Lovelock: “Germany is a great country and has always been a natural leader of Europe, and so many great ideas, music, art, etc, come out of it, but they have this fatal flaw that they always fall for an ideologue, and Europe has suffered intensely from the last two episodes of that. It looks to me as if the green ideas they have picked up now could be just as damaging. They are burning lignite now to try to make up for switching off nuclear. They call themselves green, but to me this is utter madness.”

Nestled deep into an armchair, Lovelock brushes a biscuit crumb from his lips, and lowers his cup of tea on to the table: “I’m neither strongly left nor right, but I detest the Liberal Democrats.”

He delivers his mischievous bombshells with such rapidity and meekness that there is a danger one can miss the all-important clarification and context.

“They are all well-meaning, but they have mostly had little experience of power,” he adds. “The coalition has behaved disgracefully on environmental and energy policies. It would have been much better if they had been properly rightwing. I don’t mean something like Thatcher; that was a revolutionary Conservative government. Just a regular one. Our political system works because they tend to self-correct each other.”

…

The greens use guilt. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting CO2 in the air.”

He displays equal disdain for those who do not accept science on climate change: “They’ve got their own religion. They believe that the world was right before these damn people [the greens] came along and want to go back to where we were 20 years ago. That’s also silly in its own way.”

…


See also
wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/15/gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-endorses-fracking/#more-65723

[marchesarosa]

USA CO2 emissions may drop to 1990 levels this year but are the alarmists pleased?

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Anthony Watts

I graphed the EIA data, shown below. What is most interesting is that this is market driven, not mandate driven.





Amazing Shale: US CO2 Emissions Plummet Towards 1990 Levels

by John Hanger (via The GWPF)
thegwpf.org/best-of-blogs/6092-amazing-shale-us-co2-emissions-plummet-towards-1990-levels.html

America’s carbon emissions may drop back close to 1990 levels this year. That result would have been thought impossible, even at the end of 2011. But the shale gas revolution makes a reality of many things recently thought impossible. Shale gas production has slashed carbon emissions and saved consumers more than $100 billion per year. Truly astonishing!...

[marchesarosa]

[marchesarosa]

Christopher Booker

You can’t have shale gas – it might halve your bills


One of the more remarkable things happening in the world at the moment is the revolution being brought about in the US energy market by cheap shale gas. In four years this has halved the cost of gas, saving US energy users an estimated $100 billion. Thanks to the growing switch from coal to less carbon-intensive gas, US “carbon emissions”, for what it’s worth, have also plummeted to their lowest level in 20 years.

In Britain, thanks to the utter incompetence of those in charge of our energy policy, the opposite has happened. The rising cost of imported gas has led our electricity companies to switch back to coal, which in the past two weeks has been contributing up to 40 per cent or more of our power. More than once, however, the contribution from all our 3,500 wind turbines put together has been as little as 0.2 per cent, with coal-fired power stations contributing 200 times as much.

As for that shale gas, of which we also have huge reserves, our Government seems to do all it can to discourage it. This is because it is just another fossil fuel, which won’t help us meet our (wholly unachievable) EU target of generating 32 per cent of our electricity, by 2020, from “renewables” – such as those useless windmills. So our energy bills continue to soar and, with half our coal-fired power stations due to close under an EU directive, the prospect of Britain’s lights going out and computers closing down gets nearer by the month.

Has there ever been, in our country’s history, a madder flight from reality?