by Sarah Woods
There’s a growing trend in
the production of hydrocarbons. Having taken a lot of the ‘easy’ stuff
out of the ground, we’re now moving on to ‘unconventional’ sources.
There are massive potential reserves of unconventionals, but their
extraction comes at a high risk to the environment.
Shale
gas is obtained by fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a process whereby
large amounts of water, chemicals and sand are injected into
underground rock formations to ‘fracture’ them, releasing gas. As with
tar sands, previously inaccessible or unviable reserves of shale gas now
look more attractive, thanks to new technology and rising fossil fuel
prices. Add to this the UK’s importation of more than half its gas
supplies this year, now the offshore reserves that made us
self-sufficient have peaked, and the second dash for gas gathers
momentum.
Over the last 15 months, I’ve
delivered events and community outreach for a ‘Frack Free Future’ as
part of The Co-operative’s Clean Energy Revolution campaign, engaging
with threatened communities across the UK, staging events where the
issues can be discussed co-operatively.
The
Co-operative first started looking into shale gas in the summer of
2010, commissioning the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to
undertake an assessment of its environmental impacts. The findings of
the Tyndall Centre report were published in January 2011 (and its update
published in November 2011), exposing three main areas of concern and
led The Co-operative to call for a moratorium on its extraction across
the UK.
At local level, shale gas extraction
presents pollution risks, especially to groundwater. Arguments centre
around whether risks can be adequately managed through regulation of
well construction and maintenance. Looking at the US, where the industry
is much more advanced, there are many concerning examples – see for
example, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s report released in
November 2011 into groundwater sampling at Pavilion, Wyoming, where
numerous hydrocarbons and thermogenic methane have been
identified[Footnote]. Assuming that this couldn’t happen in the UK
appears naïve. Scaling up to the c.3,000 wells that would be required to
produce 10% of the UK’s gas from shale over any sustained period, the
risks become substantial: even if well design and site management were
good enough to reduce failure rates to 1 in 1,000, this would give us a
95% chance of at least one failure.
Nationally,
there’s a real risk that the development of shale gas will compromise
the UK’s ability to hit its emissions targets. If we extract and burn
just 20% of the shale gas resources identified under Lancashire this
year, it could result in CO2 emissions of over 2,000m tonnes,
or nearly 15% of the UK’s emissions budget through to 2050 –
dispelling the myth that shale gas is a ‘low carbon fuel’.
Additionally, with up to £32bn of investments required to obtain 10% of
our current gas use from shale sources and convert it to electricity,
investment could be diverted from genuinely low carbon renewables,
leaving us overly reliant on unproven carbon capture and storage (CCS)
and risking the economic losses from what could ultimately become
stranded assets.
At the global level, we hear
that shale gas is good news, because it will displace much more
polluting coal. Perhaps it would - if we had a legally binding global
cap on emissions. Unfortunately, in our energy-hungry world, it’s likely
that countries such as India and China will burn shale gas in addition
to their coal reserves, as they quite fairly pursue economic
development. This is mirrored by the situation in the US, where the
massive expansion in shale gas is simply projected to meet the energy
demands of a growing economy without a carbon cap and is failing to
displace coal[Footnote]. Scenarios for relatively conservative
exploitation of between 15% and 30% of the world’s identified shale gas
resources are that it would increase global atmospheric CO2 by between five and sixteen parts per million by volume, taking up over a quarter of the CO2 emissions budget that we have left if we are to stand a good chance of avoiding more than 2ºC of warming.
As governments met in Doha, Quatar, for the latest round of UN climate talks last Saturday, December 1st, anti-fracking campaigners across the UK joined the Global Day of Action on Climate Change.
Activists from Frack Off erected a 20-foot drilling rig outside the home of the Chairman of Cuadrilla Resources, Lord John Browne.
In Blackpool, members of Resident Action on Fylde Fracking marched and,
together with members of Ribble Eastuary Against Fracking, held a rally
in St Anne’s. Kirklees Campaign Against Climate Change toured
Huddersfield, asking the public to sign postcards calling for a
moratorium on fracking. Swansea Against Fracked Energy were out on the
streets of Swansea, while Frack Free Somerset
brought street theatre to Bath. About 300 environment campaigners held
an anti-fracking protest in Parliament Square in London, where residents
from Falkirk, Belfast, the Fylde, the Ribble Estuary and the Vale of
Glamorgan delivered a letter to David Cameron, calling for a ban on shale gas and coal bed methane exploitation in the UK.
This month,
alongside his Autumn Statement, George Osborne unveiled the
government’s new Gas Strategy, which sets out to "ensure we make the
best use of lower cost gas power, including new sources of gas under the
land", The Chancellor told the Commons.
The
Gas Generation Strategy confirmed that DECC will set up an Office for
Unconventional Gas and Oil, joining up responsibilities across
Government to provide a single point of contact for investors, to ensure
a simplified and streamlined regulatory process. It also states that
tax breaks for shale gas will be considered as “HM Treasury has opened
discussions with industry on the appropriate structure of a fair tax
regime for future shale gas production”,
According to a recent Greenpeace report,
more than 60 per cent of the British countryside could be exploited for
shale gas. A decision on whether to lift the current moratorium on
shale gas production, put in place after fracking caused two small
earthquakes near Blackpool in 2011, is expected from the Secretary of
State shortly.
Community feeling against
hydraulic fracturing is strong, combining a desire to keep fracking out
of the UK with a passion to find energy solutions. Climate change issues
are up close and personal for the first time in the UK, no longer
disconnected from us by space or time. It seems to me that the campaign
for a Frack Free Future is less of a fight against an industry we don’t
want – and more of a call for the future we need.
Sarah
Woods (Transition Bro Ddyfi) is a playwright and campaigner, working
primarily in the fields of climate change and social justice. She is currently working on THE ROADLESS TRIP, a performance piece about systemic change and future narratives and just reached the end of a year leading the outreach arm of the Co-operative Group’s FRACK FREE FUTURE campaign, delivering events in communities affected by fracking. She currently teaches playwrighting and political theatre to undergraduates at Manchester University.
Article originally published on The Social Reporting Project
Further information on The Co-operative’s position on shale gas and the Tyndall Centre’s research can be found at: www. co-operative.coop/fracking
Notes:
2 Energy Information Administration (2010), Supporting materials for the 2010 Annual Energy Outlook, Report # DOE/EIA-0554(2010).
3 Gas Generation Strategy (December 2012), DECC. www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/oil_gas/gasgenstrat/gasgenstrat.aspx
4 Fracking in the UK (update 2) 30th Nov 2012, Hannah Davey, Harry Kennard and Damian Kahya
Images: photo by EnergyTomorrow (Flickr Creative Commons)
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