A number of Governments, including the United Kingdom and the United States, are granting licences to extract shale gas from beneath the earth’s surface. It’s a relatively new energy source and many see it as an alternative to renewable energy such as wind power, at least in the short term. But don’t be fooled. Extracting shale gas is not only dangerous in a number of ways, but it is also of dubious long-term benefit to the environment and to energy prices. It seems that this is just a fossil-fuel disguised opiate thrown to the masses to distract us from concentrating on establishing 100% renewable energies such as wind power and other alternative energy resources.
A report on fracking for shale gas commissioned by the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change was published recently and recommending that the drilling method be allowed to continue. However, a number of Members of the UK Parliament, plus other experts, claim that the Report was flawed. Not least in that it focused on the seismic effects of fracking (the method by which the shale gas is extracted) but not on unwelcome environmental impact and its negative effect on climate change.
Exactly what is fracking? Fracking entails injecting water and a cocktail of chemicals into shale containing gas at high force to break open the rock. The fluid mix is extracted and then dumped into lined pits above ground. As you may imagine from such an intrusive and extreme extraction method, there are side effects. These include earthquakes, water pollution and increased carbon emissions. It seems crazy that Governments are allowing this folly when what’s really needed is greater investments and incentives in the wind power industry.
3The MP for Brighton Pavillion, Caroline Lucas, on the South Coast of England where Shale is being considered for extraction said:
“Even aside from the local concerns, it’s clear that shale gas is the last gasp of the dinosaur fossil fuel industry at a time when we should be moving towards a truly green economy. The UK is the richest country in Europe in terms of renewable energy potential, but this new focus on gas threatens to displace investment in those renewables, making it even harder to achieve our renewable energy targets and grow this jobs-rich sector. It’s also clear that large scale extraction of shale gas poses a real risk to our climate change commitments. We have a very short time to reduce emissions to levels consistent with the science, yet a number of studies have shown that the overall climate impact of shale gas is probably as great as that from coal.”
What’s alarming is that the natural gas industry does not have to disclose the chemicals used- can you imagine that in any other sort of energy extraction? Why is shale gas so favoured and protected? A whiff of corruption perhaps? Scientists have identified volatile organic compounds such as toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and benzene, the latter of which is a strong carcinogen. Thus in the UK, we are letting cancer-causing chemicals to go into the ground and produce a real threat to the pollution of underground water supplies.
In the US there is a concern as well: A 2010 US documentary film, Gasland, showed homeowners setting fire to the water coming out of their taps, such as the volume of methane contained in the water. The flames were said to be the result of nearby fracking operations contaminating the water supply.
While there’s no doubt that shale gas is cleaner-burning than coal, it still poses a severe threat to environmental security of water supplies and has been linked to actual earthquakes in the UK and in Ohio, US. They point to the potential for a major disaster if extractors’ scientists get it wrong. This is relatively new technology and all the side effects are not known.
Why are we rushing headlong to embrace fracking, with all its environmental issues instead of embracing the tried and tested and safe technologies of green renewable energy creation using wind power?
