‘Fracking’ for gas given the green light
A FIRST licence for the controversial gas drilling technique known as fracking has been granted in Scotland – with more likely to follow.
Scotland on Sunday has learned that the Greenpark Energy company has been given permission to search for gas at a site at Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway.
The company, based in Berwick Upon Tweed, is also seeking a licence for a second site in the area, two miles north of the Scottish Border, in a bid to tap into gas trapped in 400,000 tonnes of coal deep underground. It has already drilled boreholes hundreds of metres into the ground to test for the presence of gas at its Dumfries and Galloway site.
The first licence has been granted despite concerns that hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, can cause earthquakes. A report by shale gas firm Cuadrilla Resources last week found it was “highly probable” it triggered earth tremors near Blackpool earlier this year. Other risks associated with fracking include poisoning of drinking water if it becomes contaminated with the fluids used in the process and adding to the pollution that is believed to be disrupting the climate.
A second firm, Dart Energy, which has bought Stirling-based Composite Energy, is drilling for coal bed methane in Airth, Falkirk. Although this is being done without fracking, the company has not ruled out applying for a licence to use the technique if it discovers shale beneath the coal.
Fracking involves injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into shale rock or coal beds to create tiny cracks. When the pumping stops, the sand keeps the fractures open and the trapped gas escapes and can be collected.
To its supporters, fracked gas opens up the prospect of a cheaper, cleaner and abundant form of alternative energy. David Harper, an executive vice president at Greenpark Energy, confirmed that as well as having permission to use fracking at one site, the company has lodged an application to use the technique at a second site, although operations were not currently being carried out. “We like to be able to secure consent to do things but we are doing neither drilling nor fracking in Scotland at the moment,” he said.
Conventional gas reserves, mainly offshore, are tapped into by drilling into a gas reservoir underground, releasing the gas to flow to the surface. Fracking has been developed to get at difficult methane and shale gas reserves – unconventional gas – stuck in rock or coal formations. A huge field of shale, fine-grained rock formed from mud and other deposits, stretches from the Scottish Borders to Derbyshire.
The potential risks are being played down by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Sepa, which granted the licence to Greenpark. Malcolm Roberts, a principal policy officer at Sepa, said fracking was likely to become more widespread in Scotland in coming years. “I don’t associate the risks with fracking as being any more significant than a lot of other things we do,” he said. “They are not high-risk operations provided they are done properly.”
Roberts said the primary concern was to make sure ground water was not contaminated with the fracturing fluid, potentially leading to poisoned drinking water supplies.
Tremors such as those near Blackpool were extremely rare, he added. However, other environmental groups believe the process should be banned. Friends of the Earth Scotland campaigner Mary Church said it was a “worry” to hear a fracking licence had already been granted in Scotland. “Communities near fracking sites in the US can’t drink their tap water, but they can set it alight due to the amount of methane being leaked,” she said.
“Now to add to these dangerous and disruptive impacts, it has been revealed that fracking also causes earth tremors. Scottish communities living near numerous identified fracking sites across the central belt will be rightly alarmed.”
Scientists believe the environmental consequences of fracking have been exaggerated. Quentin Fisher, professor of petroleum geoengineering at the University of Leeds, said some groups were “overly concerned”. “There isn’t actually any evidence to suggest water supplies have been contaminated due to hydraulic fracture formation,” he said.
“The examples of gas igniting from taps are probably caused by gas leakage along the casing of boreholes – not hydraulic fracturing.
“Such incidences can easily be avoided and if one is going to ban shale gas production on the basis of such incidents one would seriously need to consider banning all on-land drilling because such incidents are just as likely to occur when drilling conventional gas reservoirs.”
Dr Clifford Jones, reader in engineering at the University of Aberdeen, said of more concern than tremors was the possibility of drinking water being contaminated. However, he said this should not “preclude such development”.
“There are many currently producing shale gas deposits in the US and Australia and it will be to the UK’s loss if it does not develop such reserves of this as it has,” he said.
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Comments
There are 34 comments to this article
Page 1 of 3
Tartancult
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 09:46 PM#7 Fracking has saved thousands of lives in the USA"" That is a fracking stupid statement.
reaf
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 01:50 PM#22: Google 'US Shale Gas Price Hedging' to see why the UK will not get cheap gas -we wont get all these jobs they talk about either. More PR and spin to fool people into accepting this dirty business and ignore the fact that fossil fules WILL RUN OUT!!! We better have a good answer when they do - but it seems big politics and big business dont care much about tomorrow. http:www.youtube.comwatch?v=EQqDS9wGsxQ
reaf
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 01:42 PM#21: For an example of how well renewables are doing [if only people governments would invest in them] see www.goodenergy.co.uk Their supply is from 100% renewable sources. I switched over a year ago and saved about £8 per month compared to my last supplier and they froze their price through 201011 They now have around 30,000 customers including domestic and businesses. Many customers also 'feed in' so they can balance out loads more effectively. Also, check out ; http:uk.ibtimes.comarticles20110...n-scotland.htm [15,000 homes powered from 20 ... not bad ..] http:www.dongenergy.comBurboProjectThe_burbo_bank_projectPagesThe_Burbo_bank_project.aspx [80,000 homes ... even better ...] Fossil fuels are a finite resource that belong in the earth and in the past. Governments are pushing this on us because of the financial benefits - profits always come before people and the environment.
Ron Greer
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 08:52 PMFred, The concrete base still has to go in, the birds don't care if it's fibreglass or metal that kills them and the same paltry amounts of electricity are produced with no substantial saving on C02 or effect on climate change.
Geomac
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 05:58 PM#26 Fred - it's "fluids" and not "fluds" - touche
Geomac
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 05:57 PM#25 Fred B - YAWN!
Geomac
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 05:56 PMPending Moderation
fred bloggs
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 04:32 PMR Greer Esq opines: '-----------------------------------------------------------Jings Fred, they'd be better digging up heather moors and pouring in concrete to support rotating metal structures' Modern large wind turbine blades are not metal but fiberglass composite sometimes carbon reinforced for the largest. And for the umpteenth time I repeat I have no connection with the wind industry but I don't like to see climate deniers making glib, cynical and inaccurate claims on a subject of great importance.
fred bloggs
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 04:19 PMThere are documented incidents of contamination. In 2006 drilling fluds and methane were detected leaking from the ground near a gas well in Clark, Wyoming; 8 million cubic feet of methane were eventually released, and shallow groundwater was found to be contaminated.[26] In the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania, 13 water wells were contaminated with methane (one of them blew up), and the gas company, Cabot Oil & Gas, had to financially compensate residents and construct a pipeline to bring in clean water; the company continued to deny, however, that any "of the issues in Dimock have anything to do with hydraulic fracturing".[29][25] A Duke University study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2011 examined methane in groundwater in Pennsylvania and New York states overlying the Marcellus Shale and the Utica Shale. It determined that groundwater tended to contain much higher concentrations of methane near fracking wells, with potential explosion hazard; the methane's isotopic signatures and other geochemical indicators were consistent with it originating in the fracked deep shale formations, rather than any other source.[30] Complaints from a few residents on water quality in a developed natural gas field prompted an EPA groundwater investigation in Wyoming. The EPA reported detections of methane and other chemicals such as phthalates in private water wells.[31] ------------Wikipedia
fred bloggs
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 04:16 PMGeomac, it's fracking not frakking - short for hydraulic fraCturing.
fred bloggs
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 04:14 PMThe use of natural gas rather than oil or coal is sometimes touted as a way of alleviating global warming: natural gas burns more cleanly, and gas power stations can produce up to 50% less greenhouse gases than coal stations. However, an analysis of the well-to-consumer lifecycle of fracked natural gas concluded that 3.6–7.9% of the methane produced by a well will be leaked into the atmosphere during the well's lifetime. Because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas, this means that over short timescales, shale gas is actually worse than coal or oil. Methane gradually breaks down in the atmosphere, so that over long periods it is not as problematic as carbon dioxide; yet even if shale gas is burnt in efficient gas power stations, its greenhouse-gas footprint is still worse than coal or oil. -------------------------- Nature 477, 271–275 (15 September 2011)
Ron Greer
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 03:49 PM22 Well said and crivvens an' help ma boab as weel---central heating frae a sink---amazin.
Tom Buidhe
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 01:56 PMGosh! one instance of fully compensated damage and three woolly "might" reports from a start up industry producing a quarter of the US gas requirements at a 30% discount. Is that the best you can do Fred? As for "I should have added that methane in your tap water means you can set fire to it." If you stick a lighted candle into the filler orifice of any one of 20 million motor cars in the UK it is liable to explode.....so what?
Geomac
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 12:55 PMIt's hard to determine what exactly the green brigades answer is to our future energy needs - they are against nuclear, coal and now frakking. Do they really want us to destroy the country both economically and socially? I have to wonder if they are really watermelons - green on the ouside and red on the inside? Yes, there have been isolated (very) cases in the US associated with frakking but then every energy source has associated risks. Wind turbines are not exactly free from risk - especially to birds and bats!! Despite the small number of problems associated with frakking, the US has been able to increase its indigenous gas supply from less that 5% to over 30% - and we need to do the same - pronto!
Ron Greer
Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 12:16 PMJings Fred, they'd be better digging up heather moors and pouring in concrete to support rotating metal structures that kill birds and produce very little electricity.
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