The role of experts vs interest groups when science-related issues are dicussed in the media

A recent piece in the Guardian has criticised the BBC over its coverage of climate change issues, and in particular the release of the latest IPCC report. In the interests of so-called "editorial balance", there has a tendency to include non-specialists, so-called 'climate deniers' (not a term I'm particularly fond of, given its connotations, despite being a 'climate-believer' myself).

It was a complaint that immediately stuck me as ironic coming from the Guardian, given much of its recent reporting about shale gas. Particular Guardian highlights include letting Lucy Mangan, a lifestyle columnist, free reign make up whatever she liked about shale development, including, my particular favourite, the claim that the UK has no history of onshore operations, which must have come as a surprise to the operators of Wytch Farm (the largest onshore field in the EU) and the other 40 or so existing onshore oil and gas fields.

Similarly flawed was their piece accusing an operator of gagging a family claiming that their water had been impacted by drilling, while failing to mention that the Pennsylvania DEP had been in to test the water, and had found no evidence of any drilling-related contamination.

Meanwhile Andrew Rawnsley felt sufficiently geologically-qualified to claim that UK shales were unlikely to be profitable because they were "typically among the thinnest" of Europe, when in fact at over 6,000 feet the Bowland shale is probably the thickest shale deposit found anywhere to date.

These are the headline mistakes, but of course every piece on shale must be accompanied by a statement from a protest group detailing imminent environmental catastrophe, without ever being asked to provide any evidence or justification of any kind. Certainly there's been no attempt to highlight the difference between ill-informed shale hype (and there is plenty of this from both sides of the debate) and expert scientific opinion as expressed, for example, by the Royal Society report, by the BGS, or perhaps even from John Hanger, one-time Pennsylvania environmental chief (whose 'Facts of the Day' blog is well worth a read).  

There are many areas of modern life where science intersects with social and political viewpoints (global warming, GM food, nuclear power, vaccinations, creationism, all spring to mind). At this point I want to move my discussion away from shale gas specifically to treat the subject of expert representation in the media more generally.

With unsurprising regularity, wherever the science agrees with a particular viewpoint you'll see protagonists urging: "let the scientists speak - don't let the unscientific opponents be given equal footing to the actual experts", only to find that when the boot is on the other foot over a different issue, suddenly having balance in the debate is crucial: interested parties, even if not experts, should be given a platform to express their views.

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. On the one hand, the scientist in me feels that on every issue we should ensure that it is the experts that are given prime time in the debate, and that editors/producers must make sure to differentiate what is evidence based from what is (socio-)politically motivated. We can see direct examples where the failure to do so leads directly to harm (the MMR scare and resulting South Wales measles outbreak springs most immediately to mind).

Sadly however, I suspect that many editors lack the expertise needed to do this, having neither the ability nor inclination to cross-examine their sources to differentiate expertise from BS. Moreover, we should not be insensitive to the fact that many of these issues provoke very strong emotions some sections of the non-expert general public, who will come to be represented by partisan organisations and spokespeople. Is there a case to be made that, if a certain view is held by a significant portion of the population, then it is right that the media provide air-time to that view-point, even if misinformed?

For me it's a difficult question, a difficult balance to be found. Comments and thoughts welcome in the comment section as always.

Shale must be careful who its friends are

Wherever you read a media report on shale gas these days, it will inevitably be described as 'controversial'. While Nick Grealy at nohotair.co.uk pulls out his hair over what is media hype rather than sound science, there can be little doubt that shale has a public image (or at least a media image) problem.

This cuts deeper than the deep greens camped outside Balcombe making outrageous claims that the water there is already poisoned, or that 2 recent earthquakes in the Irish Sea were due to fracking. A wider, more rational concern is that shale "is just another fossil fuel, locking us into a fossil fuel future". I work in a geology department: most of my colleagues are geoscientists, while some study climate change. In general, when they ask me about shale gas, their questions are not about water or earthquake risks, but about climate change.

This concern arises, in part, because of who the public sees as the main cheerleaders for shale gas. In recent weeks, we have seen the case for shale gas being made by the likes of Lord Lawson, Lord Howell (he of the "desolate north-east" comment), George Osborne and the like. Whatever actual views they might hold, the public do not see them as people who can be trusted to put environmental issues before financial gain.

Is it a surprise then, that with protagonists such as these it is difficult to convince the public that shale gas extraction could actually be a good thing in terms of greenhouse gas emissions? Shale should be careful who its friends are.

Instead of hearing from Messrs Lawson, Howell and Osborne, perhaps we should hear more from the Environmental Defense Fund, who have realised that rather than getting themselves arrested for protesting about shale gas outside an limestone-oil-drilling operation, which is a bit silly, the productive thing to do is to work with the industry to ensure that the benefits of shale are maximised, and any negative impacts are minimised.

Perhaps we should hear more from the likes of Transition Dorking, an environmental group prepared to consider the benefits of shale.

Will shale gas extraction lock us into a fossil fuel future? Perhaps we should hear more from the State of Texas, the undisputed home of shale gas. Texas is also one of the leading states for renewable energy generation (mainly from wind), trailing only the rainy and mountainous (and therefore ideal for hydroelectric) Pacific Coast states. Texas is the wind capital of the US (perhaps it's all the fantastic BBQ food).

This boom in renewable energy development occurred simultaneously with the shale gas boom. It may just be coincidence. However, in the current absence of efficient and large scale energy storage options, the ability of gas turbine power plants to provide quickly-dispatchable power has been crucial in coping with wind intermittency.

The economic benefits provided by shale development are no doubt helpful as well - a state with decent finances is surely more likely to be prepared to spend more in developing renewable energy. We like to say that we should be investing more in renewable energy. Well, to invest, you need to have money to spend.

Texas shows us that shale gas development need not crowd out renewable developments (and in fact may be beneficial). However, our current government is seen to be very pro-shale, and somewhat ambivalent to renewables, hence the public concern in this regard. I think the government is missing the chance to show that it is committed to both, and that they can work together.

Despite recent announcements of tax cuts to stimulate early development, the exchequer can still expect to take a lot of tax from shale gas extraction. Why not declare that a certain portion of that tax take will be ring-fenced, to be spent only on research, development and demonstration of alternative energy options (be they renewable, next-gen nuclear or fusion)?

That, in my view, would be the ideal path to take - showing that the government doesn't view shale as the be-all and end-all, but a necessary step on the path to a better future, and that there's more to shale development than is presented by Howell, Lawson et al.

On the radio again...

Boris Johnson has called for drilling companies to leave 'no stone unfracked' in their quest for shale gas, even if it means drilling under London (paywalled link).

Here's your favourite applied geophysicist talking to BBC Radio London about his comments:

At first glance, drilling in London seems a little crazy - surely there's not enough space! However, when you look across at the US, there is drilling in close proximity to large cities, most notably in and around Dallas-Fort Worth, where there are, for example, well pads within Dallas Airport, and on the University Campus. It is common practice to tuck these sites away in industrial estates, and to build pre-fab mock-buildings around the pad so that it cannot be seen. 

However, I suspect that it will be a while before shale gas drilling ever comes to London. Firstly, it's not clear whether there's any gas under London to exploit - companies are at present looking further to the south, in places like Balcombe. The BGS will be releasing a report covering the south of England next year, so we will have to wait until then to know for sure whether there's anything under London.

Moreover, even if there is economically recoverable shale gas under London, I think it will be a while before anyone moves to try to extract it. Although drilling in urban areas is possible, it is more expensive and challenging than drilling in relatively empty countryside. Moreover, we've already seen that there are huge volumes of shale gas to the north. I suspect that companies will be focusing their energies on the Bowland for the coming years - this will be the formation that determines whether UK shale gas succeeds or fails.

BGS Finally Reveal Their New Bowland Shale Gas Estimates

It's finally here. We've been expecting it since January (date originally planned for publication), and the BGS have finally delivered. The definitive report on the amount of shale gas underlying Lancashire and Yorkshire in the Bowland Shale.

The headline figures: somewhere between 822 - 2,281 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of shale gas, with 1,300 tcf being the best estimate.

This map shows the area covered by the report:

The geographically astute amongst you will realise that this report only covers part of the UK. There is potential for shale gas in other parts of the UK as well, in particular the Southeast (centered on Sussex and Hampshire), South Wales, and parts of Scotland. Understandably, at present the media are treating this new number as a UK-wide number, but there could well be even more.

In case you are wondering what the green and red dots are on the map above, these represent existing oil and/or gas wells in the region. So onshore drilling isn't new to the area. The two maps below show the seismic lines and well logs used to create the report. You can see that there is a lot of data available - much of the wells and seismic will be legacy data from past exploration for the conventional fields shown above.

If you are a bit of a geo-geek, I really recommend you check out the UK Onshore Geophysical Library, where you can actually see all the wells and seismic data for yourself. They have a slick little interactive map viewer where you can plot all sorts of information.

So, what does 1,300tcf mean for the UK? The key thing to think about is recovery factors - how much of the gas can we actually get out of the ground. It has become conventional to assume a recovery factor of 10%. I'm not sure why, when US experience points to more like 20-30%, but lets be conservative and stick to 10%.

10% of 1,300tcf is 130tcf of produceable gas. Keep in mind that the UK's annual consumption is 2-3tcf. So 130 divided by 2.5 is 52 years of total UK gas consumption.

A different and perhaps more illuminating comparison is with the largest conventional gas fields in the world, which you can see here. 130 tcf of recoverable resource would place the Bowland shale as the 4th largest field in the world, behind only the Qatari Pars Dome and Russia's two largest fields.

If money, rather than volumes, is of more interest to you then consider: 130tcf is approximately 130 billion MMBTU. The current European gas price is something like $8 per MMBTU, so the total value of recoverable gas in the Bowland shale is something like 130 billion x $8 = $1,000,000,000,000, or $1 trillion dollars (cue much of this). Of course, that money will be shared out amongst the companies involved (and the many UK workers they will employ) and the UK government, which will take its cut via the taxman. It remains to be seen exactly how the government tax the shale gas industry - I hope they set up something similar to the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Of more immediate interest is the decision by the government to ensure that, as well as the taxman, local communities benefit from shale gas development. For every well pad, £100,000 will go to local communities, plus 1% of production revenues.

Let's examine those figures in more detail. A typical well pad might have 10 lateral wells diverging from a single pad. A typical total recovered volume for a single well in US is 3 bcf (billion cubic feet) per well (estimate from the recent IoD shale gas report). So a single wellpad might produce 30 bcf, or 30 million MMBTU, which at $8 per MMBTU is $240 million (or about £156 million). 1% of £156 million is £1.5 million. Add in the additional £100,000 fee and we're up to £1.6 million going to the local community, for a site covering a couple of hectares and looking something like this:

How does this compare in terms of electricity generation? 30 bcf of gas will generate 5,000 GWh of electricity. If a single well pad is operational for 30 years, that's an average of 166 GWh per year (in reality, more will be produced in the earlier years, with a decline through time). This compares with the average output of 150GWh that we get from from the UK's largest onshore wind farm, Scout Moor:

Many people assume that because I am broadly in favour of shale gas, I must be anti-wind. I am not: I think we should be doing all we can to develop and improve renewable energy technologies. Long term, all of our energy will have to come from renewables and/or nuclear technology. But the above two images show the challenge that this poses at present: we can get more energy from a single well pad covering a couple of hectares (a football pitch) than we can by plastering an entire mountain with 150m high turbines (and that's before we even get into intermittency issues etc).

Perhaps the UK government can spend some of its $1 trillion windfall on research on improving renewables, nuclear fission, or finally working out how to get fusion working...

IoD Report on UK Shale Gas

Big news for UK shale gas this week, as the Institute of Directors has released their report into the economic impacts of UK shale. This report focuses on how shale gas development will affect the UK economy, rather than safety aspects, which is a welcome change because it seems we spend a lot of time talking about potential negative impacts of shale gas, without remembering that there are significant gains to be made.

Here are the key headlines from the report:

The IoD’s previous report, published last year, looked at the number of jobs that shale gas production could potentially create. We now believe that it could be higher still. According to the detailed scenarios presented in this report of a potential production phase, investment could peak at £3.7 billion a year, supporting 74,000 jobs – not just for geologists and drilling specialists, but for construction workers, truck drivers, cement manufacturers, water treatment experts, and people working in local retail and service industries.

Jobs could be created in parts of the country that need them most – over the last decade, the proportion of working-age people receiving at least one out-of-work benefit has averaged more than 15% in the North West, compared to less than 9% in the South East. 

Shale gas production, with tax rates of up to 62%, could generate significant tax revenue, helping to offset a predicted future tax gap of 1.25% of GDP from lower Fuel Duty and North Sea receipts. 

Far from a “dash for gas”, the Department for Energy and Climate Change expects overall gas demand, for heating and industry as well as electricity, to remain roughly flat over the next two decades. This is consistent with carbon reduction of 45% by 2025.  But 76% of the UK’s gas is likely to be imported by 2030, costing £15.6 billion. In our central scenario, shale gas production could reduce gas imports to 37% in 2030, and the cost of imports could fall to £7.5 billion. 

I think this is a key point to keep in mind. At least some proportion of shale gas opposition derives from a concern that shale gas will displace renewable energy on the grid. In fact, the ideal for shale gas is that it replaces gas that we currently import from the middle east. As an example, renewable energy installation has boomed in the US in the last 5 years, despite (or even in tandem with) the shale gas boom. Producing gas domestically rather than importing is beneficial for many reasons: it boosts our economy, rather than that of Qatar; it improves our energy security; and potentially the shorter transport distances mean that this gas has a lower carbon footprint than imported LNG (which has to be compressed and shipped). The IoD estimate that shale gas could replace half of our imports, saving £15billion, and as noted in the report, could reduce our greenhouse gas footprint.

According to the Committee on Climate Change, if production is well regulated, shale gas can have lower emissions than imported gas. If shale gas supports the production of chemicals and other goods in the UK, global emissions will also be lower, as UK industry is very energy-efficient.

Natural gas has great potential as a transport fuel, particularly for lorries and buses. In the US, 19% of municipal buses run on natural gas. 

An abundance of gas could also encourage an increase in gas-fuelled buses and lorries, which have lower CO2 emissions than diesel.

Only a small amount of land is needed for shale gas development. One 2-hectare site could potentially support 40 horizontal wells and supply enough gas to power 747,000 homes at peak production. 100 such sites would take up just two square kilometres of land, and could supply around one third of our gas needs at peak. 

This is a very interesting conclusion. One of the principal concerns about shale gas is the surface footprint - that huge swathes of the UK countryside will be covered by wellheads. The UK Bowland shale is remarkably thick, much thicker than most of the US shale formations. This means that a greater volume of rock can be accessed from single well points. Operators are envisaging so called 'stacked laterals' (shown below), where multiple lateral wells are drilled on top of each other. This will substantially reduce the surface footprint of developments for a given volume of gas produced, because rather than 6 wells per pad, suddenly you are looking at 12, 18, 24 wells per pad.

Water use could peak at just 0.05% of the UK’s total consumption of 11,000 million cubic metres a year. 

As often mentioned on this blog, water use is a non-issue for the UK: water companies lose more water every day in pipeline leakages than needed for fracking.

The report finishes by highlighting the likely barriers to UK shale gas development. They recommend that some of the economic benefits of production are funneled directly to local communities, and that more is done to engage local people. Some of the above headlines will help I'm sure.

 

Shale gas and Cash-for-Locals?

This week the Parliamentary Select Committee for Energy and Climate Change released its assessment of 'The Impact of Shale Gas on Energy Markets'.

I particularly enjoyed conclusion 5:

One key to community acceptance will be a robust factual response by government to scare stories

I wonder who/what they could be referring to there....

More interesting, in my view at least, is conclusion 6:

Communities who are affected by shale gas development should expect to receive, and share in, some of the benefits of the development

or, as the Guardian would put it: Fracking firms should offer sweeteners to locals. It's an interesting idea, but I'm still torn between whether it is a good one or not.

In the US, mineral rights are generally owned by the person that owns the land. This means that if your farm sits on top of some shale gas, you stand to benefit directly from royalties from the gas development (try sticking the default numbers into this calculation engine). As a result, shale gas is generally wildly popular among rural American communities.

However, in the UK, in most cases the mineral rights being to the Crown Estate (i.e. 'er maj, gawd bless 'er), meaning that royalties from gas production goes straight to central government, rather than via local people.

Of course, that's not to say that shale gas development will not benefit a local community. While many of the jobs involved are high tech, and as such cannot be easily accessed by local people, there are plenty of roles for relatively unskilled workers, particularly in construction and haulage. Moreover, however the influx of skilled workers need places to stay, to eat and to drink, to do their laundry. They need to buy petrol, buy stuff from convenience stores, the list goes on. In Pennsylvania you hear of companies block-booking whole hotels for 6 month stretches to house the workers, restaurants full to bursting every lunchtime and bars full in the evenings.

However, UK public opinion continues to waver in regards to shale gas development. So, is it right to consider setting up community benefit schemes, whereby some of the profits from gas development are injected directly back into the local community? Or is this all a bribe to get people to accept something that they'd otherwise not be comfortable with?

In all honesty, I'm not sure I know the answer to this. On the one hand, shale gas development will involve some local disruption. Not the scare stories of exploding taps, blighted aquifers and general geological disruption - the so-called 'geological dread factor' - but increases in traffic, construction sites, laying new pipeline etc. Therefore it does seem reasonable that a community should receive some recompense for that. On the other hand, offering what could easily look like little more than a bung could make it look like shale gas has something to hide, when so long as the government ensures that there is 'a robust factual response by government to scare stories' it shouldn't have to.

It is worth noting at this juncture that such schemes seem to be common for wind farms (see here and here for two randomly selected examples) and nuclear power stations. I have enjoyed seeing how the language changes depending on your preferred form of energy, particularly wind farm proponents who have touted these community wind farm benefits as a great example of how wind can benefit a community, while if shale gas companies suggest the same thing then it is little more than a bribe.

So I'm still not sure whether this is a good idea or not. Regardless, in the meantime, IGas have drilled two exploration wells in Lancashire.







  

My visit to Glastonbury: Part II - The reaction

I discussed in my previous post my visit to the councillors of Glastonbury to talk to them about unconventional gas extraction, and the potential impact it could have on the area. In that post I gave a summary of what I said in my talk. In this post, I'd like to talk about the reaction.

It should be noted that I didn't go there with the intention of changing anyone's mind. Given that the council had already voted to ban fracking, I hardly thought a 45 minute presentation by a gravitas-lacking 29 year old (even if he does have a good number of letters after his name) would be enough to change their minds (I was more worried about getting out of there without being tarred-and-feathered to be honest).

However, the councilman who had asked me to come give the talk sent me a very kind email afterwards, saying he saw the evening as a total success, at that some members 'had come to confessions and said the presentation had changed their minds'. I wasn't aware that councillors had 'confessions', but I'm very glad that I appear to have had some small effect at least.

Furthermore, there was a reporter from the local paper in attendance, who placed a story on my talk in the Somerset Gazette, which has granted me my first experience of being completely misrepresented by the media (I guess we all get to experience this eventually.

It ran under the headline: 'Expert warns fracking leaks are the result of cutting corners'. Which is true. What is completely missing is the context - the fact that leaks from fracking are not inevitable side effects of the process, but that they can be prevented by a stronger regulatory regime. Also, missing is the context that the majority of companies are not cutting corners, which is why the percentage rate of leakage instances remains very very low.

In my view (perhaps unfairly, I'd love to hear your comments), you could be mistaken for thinking that I am opposed to fracking, based on that article. For instance, the line:

I am here to tell you how the process works and the effects that science has shown that it has on the people nearby and the surrounding areas,

placed without context, suggests that I am saying that science has shown lots of impacts. In fact, in my talk I went on to point out, for example with the Texas and Pennsylvania air quality surveys, that scientific evidence for negative impacts of fracking on water and/or air quality have been remarkably hard to come by, bar a small number of documented surface spill and well integrity cases.  

The final and most important item left out in the story is that I summarised my talk by stating that, while it is not my decision to take, I believe that unconventional gas extraction can be done safely in the South West, and that it will have a beneficial impact on the area. It would have been nice if that could have been reported as well.

 

My visit to Glastonbury

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Glastonbury, a small town in Somerset best known for its tor and its music festival. Glastonbury Town Council has preemptively declared itself to be 'frack-free'. Much like Frome's similar decision last year, this is more a symbolic gesture, because (a) it's not clear that there is any unconventional gas to be had from around Glastonbury, and (b) if there were, it is unlikely to be developed for many years.

The decision was not a unanimous one. Some councillors felt that the decision had been rushed, having heard only of the negative sides from Frack Free Somerset. Jim Barron, one of the dissenting councilmen, pleaded in the local paper for a more evidence based discussion before any decisions be taken.

As a result, I was asked to come down to Glastonbury one evening after work to give a presentation to the council. You can download the presentation that I ended up giving from here. You might as well read it in full, but here's a potted summary.

I began by explaining what shale gas is, why it is different to conventional gas, and why hydraulic fracturing is necessary. I followed this by explaining the process, including a time-lapse video of a well being drilled and fracked, and an animation showing how microseismic events are used to image where the stimulated fracture is going. I gave a short overview of existing UK onshore oil/gas operations, including the fact that fracking has been done over 200 times in the UK since the 1970s.

I then outlined what I see as the potential issues relating to unconventional gas extraction: water usage, earthquakes, water contamination, air pollution, and surface impacts. The first, water usage, can be quickly shown to be a red herring: the water lost by SouthWest Water through leakage every day would be enough to frack more than 30 wells. I talked about the Blackpool earthquake, discussing how event magnitudes work (and that the event in Blackpool is so small that most of my real-earthquake-studying colleagues wouldn't get out of bed for something 10 times the size), and looking at evidence for fracking-induced earthquakes elsewhere (of which there are a handful in Canada, but none in the US).

Water contamination is perhaps the major issue for fracking. It is clear that there have been some cases of methane contamination through wells, and of chemical spills at the surface. I listed some of the key incidents taken from this report. However, it is important to point out that where methane leakage has occurred, it is inevitably due to shoddy practice from the drillers: poor or incomplete casing and/or missing cement. Equally, it should be fairly easy not to spill chemicals on pads at the surface, while open tailings ponds (often the most common source of surface contamination) are not allowed in the UK. It is most important to consider the context of these incidents: for example, the Groundwater Protection Council estimate that less than 0.1% of wells have seen a problem.   

With respect to air pollution, I showed a number of studies from both Pennsylvania and Texas, which do not show increases in benzene, ozone or volatile organic compounds (VOCs) before and after drilling. I then looked at a study of employee health statistics for the oil and gas industry in comparison to other sectors. If drill pads are unhealthy places to be, with dangerous chemicals being pumped into the air, then surely the employees should be getting the sickest, given that they might be on site 6 days a week for months on end. In fact, sickness rate in the gas industry is pretty consistent with national average rates, and a lot lower than many other industries.

To demonstrate the surface impacts of shale gas extraction, I showed some photos of what the rigs look like during drilling (on site for a month or two), and what the pads look like once the well is completed, and talked about pad spacing (minimum 2 - 6km as an approximation), as well as pointing out other impacts like new pipelines, and the truck journeys to and from the pads.

I then talked about the public debate around fracking in the US, pointing out that it has become highly polarised, with protest groups, but then anti-protest groups who protest the protest groups. I also showed the data from a Pittsburgh public opinion survey that showed that generally fracking does have more support than opposition (although perhaps the opposition is more vociferous).

Finally, as I like to do, I compared the risks from fracking to the risks from conventional gas extraction. To me at least, if you are opposed to fracking, you should be opposed to all hydrocarbon extraction, so I posed the question to Glastonbury's councilmen: take the scary boogey-word 'fracking' out of the question, and ask what would you do if there was a large conventional gas field discovered under Glastonbury. What would you do?

Geologists and shelf stackers

Apart from the coal, the oil, the gas, the plastics, the minerals, the water, the understanding of natural hazards, the evidence for evolution, what have geologists ever done for us?

The geo-twitter-sphere has exploded in the last couple of days with irate geologists. You'd have thought that it would take a lot to upset such a group of usually 'rock-solid' people, but Iain Duncan Smith's comments that shelf-stacking is just as important as geology, has clearly upset a lot of geologists.

I think we all know how important geology is to the way the world works - that's why a geology degree can be a really useful thing. (In case you're not sure, check out the GeolSoc twitter feed for the many comments explaining exactly why geology is important for putting food on the shelves).

But I think we all might be over-reacting just a little bit to IDS's comments. My twitter stream has been full of little else in the last two days. The Geol Soc has even felt compelled to do a press release on the matter, now reported on by the Mail, Independent and Guardian among others.

I don't think IDS was really trying to belittle the importance of geologists, and I hope most of us are smart enough to realise this. Clearly he was trying to suggest that we should not be so disdainful of low-paying, so called 'menial' jobs, and the people that do them. Moreover, that taking any job is better than being unemployed.

We could be talking about the bigger issues relating to this incident - is it right that we expect benefits claimants to take on work experience when/where available? If so, can we structure it so that it is a little smarter? For instance: it might be best for someone who sits on the sofa doing nothing all day to be compelled to work in a supermarket. However, for someone already volunteering in a museum, shelf stacking might not be the best use of their time.

Finally, is it right that a private company (Poundland) gets to benefit from essentially free labour? Surely Poundland should at the very least be paying their benefits (or even paying them a proper salary) for the duration that they work there?

Instead, we're all upset about IDS apparently showing disrespect to geology, with the overdone, slightly-fake-seeming howls of outrage (like a footballer going down for a cheap free-kick), to the point that our principal learned society has felt the need to put out a press release on the issue. I think we as a community look more than a little silly and oversensitive.

When 7 of the world's top 10 companies by revenue are oil and gas companies (so have geology at the core of their business), I think we can afford to be a little more mature, and a little less quick to take offence if someone inadvertently implies that we're not that important.

Update (17:00, 20.02.2012): There's another piece in the Guardian on the IDS comments issue. It raises the salient point that it is important that we as geologists remind the world of our relevance from time to time, that much of the public have little idea about what we do. Perhaps the majority assume that all we do is fossils and volcanoes? If that's true, who's fault is that? Whenever I see geology outreach being done, it's either about volcanoes or it's about fossils (or, to be really exciting, both at the same time).

If we as geologists have an image problem (and I'm really not sure that we do), the outreach we do should highlight the role of geology in supplying the raw materials needed for this modern life of ours. Rather than waiting for the next ministerial slip-up to advertise our subject....

Ed Davey's Written Statement on Shale Gas: Highlights

Well done if you got to the end of my previous post, Ed Davey's full statement on shale gas extraction. In case you didn't, I've selected the highlights with respect to induced seismicity:

I have concluded that appropriate controls are available to mitigate the risks of undesirable seismic activity. Those new controls will be required by my Department for all future shale gas wells.

 So any new regulations will be applied to all wells.

the amount of energy likely to be stored in these faults is not large, and the largest earthquake likely in this area from such a cause is assessed at magnitude 3.

Seems reasonable that the maximum likely quake is the same as those typically seen in background rates.

Operators will first be required to review the available information on faults in the area of the proposed well to minimise the risk of activating any fault by fracking, and required to monitor background seismicity before operations commence. Real time seismic monitoring will also continue during operations, with these subject to a “traffic-light” regime, so that operations can be quickly paused and data reviewed if unusual levels of seismic activity is observed.

Very interesting, and good news for service companies. The 'available information' on faults in the area must surely imply 3D seismic surveys prior to any fracking. Good news if you are WesternGeco et al. Also, real time (micro)seismic monitoring is required. Good news for microseismic companies (and researchers like me).

Real-time recording of earthquakes during and for 24 hours after each stage of the frac will be analysed to look for abnormal induced events amidst the normal background seismicity.

Again, more good news on real time monitoring. I'm not sure how we'd classify an 'abnormal' event though.

Operators will also be required to monitor the growth in height of the frac away from the borehole. This will allow the operator to evaluate the effectiveness of the frac, but also ensure that the actual fracture is conforming to its design, and that it remains contained and far away from any aquifers.

To monitor the growth in height of the fracture will require accurate microseismic monitoring, with depths in particular being well constrained. This means deployments of significant arrays. Chucking a couple of broadband seismometers nearby will not be sufficient - large dense surface arrays or downhole arrays will be required.

the remedial action level for the traffic light system (that is, the “red light”) will be set at magnitude 0.5 (far below a perceptible surface event, but larger than the expected level generated by the fracturing of the rock).

Cuadrilla's 'traffic light' system will remain in place. This states that fracking must stop if an event larger than M0.5 is induced. In principle this is a sensible limit. However, it throws up questions of it's own, because in science there are such things as error bars. There's no such thing as an M0.5 event. There's M0.5 ± some value. There are also several different ways of computing magnitude, which don't always produce the same value. The question is then: do you take the highest possible value, the lowest possible value, or some mean (most probable) value as the point at which the traffic light red is exceeded?

And who gets to decide? Industry themselves? Probably not the wisest move. DECC themselves? Do they have the expertise - not really? <begins shameless self promotion> how about independent academic experts?< /ends shameless self promotion>

All told, good news for shale gas companies looking at the UK, but even better news for service companies (and researchers) with experience in microseismic monitoring!  

Ed Davey's Written Statement on Shale Gas: In Full

The news this week has been buzzing with the recent decision by DECC to allow hydraulic fracturing in the UK to continue. Here's the Energy Minister's statement in full:

Shale gas development has been of increasing importance in the US for some years, but exploration has only just begun in the UK. The potential of producing shale gas from a suitable formation can only be established by fracturing the rock, and it happens that the fracturing of the first shale gas well in the UK, at Preese Hall near Blackpool last year, resulted in noticeable seismic tremors. These were not at a level which could cause any damage, but seismic activity at this level was not an expected consequence of the fracking activity, and DECC therefore suspended all fracking operations for shale gas pending a thorough investigation of the causes of these tremors and the scope for mitigation of seismic risks in any future operations of this type. I am announcing today the outcome of that investigation and the way forward on exploration for shale gas in the UK.

Having carefully reviewed the evidence with the aid of independent experts, and with the aid of an authoritative review of the scientific and engineering evidence on shale gas extraction conducted by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society, I have concluded that appropriate controls are available to mitigate the risks of undesirable seismic activity. Those new controls will be required by my Department for all future shale gas wells. On that basis, I am in principle prepared to consent to new fracking proposals for shale gas, where all other necessary permissions and consents are in place.

This opens the way to a resumption of work on exploration for shale gas, though I stress the importance of the other regulatory consents, and planning permission, which are also necessary for these activities, and which must be in place before my Department will consider consent to individual operations. In practice, it will be well into next year before any new exploration work has all the necessary consents to proceed. Whether any production operations may be proposed will depend on the success of the exploration work, but, in any event, this is likely to be some years away yet.

The background is that, in most oil and gas fields worldwide, the oil or gas is extracted from a relatively porous rock, usually a sandstone or calcareous rock, in which it has been accumulated or trapped. The original source of the petroleum however lies elsewhere, in deeper formations of non-porous rocks classed as shales. These shale source rocks are widely distributed around the world, and exist in many areas of the UK.
It has long been recognised that very substantial quantities of oil and gas were trapped in these shales, but the scope for its economic extraction seemed small - largely because the rock in its natural state allows the oil and gas to flow into a well only at very low rates. In the last twenty years, however, further development of oilfield technology, first in the Barnett Shale in Texas, has enabled economic large-scale extraction of gas, and oil, from these source rocks.

One of the key technologies involved is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. This is carried out by pumping water at high pressure into the shale formation, which forms blade-like fractures, a few millimetres wide and extending several hundred feet away from the well bore. Once the fractures have started to form, sand or a similar material is pumped in, to hold the fractures open once the pressure is released. The fractures can continue to grow only so long as pressure is maintained. When the fractures have sufficiently developed, the pressure is released and the frac fluid, followed by the released gas, can flow into the well. The process is not novel and is also widely used in conventional oil and gas production, It is however, more intensively used in the production of shale gas.

It has been recognised for some time that injection of large quantities of water into the subsurface can cause seismic tremors. This has happened, for example, in those areas of the US in which disposal of waste water into deep injection wells is permitted. However, the quantities of water used in fracking are substantially smaller, and up until the time of the Preese Hall tremors, no association had been recognised between injection of these smaller volumes and any seismic activity. The analysis carried out by Cuadrilla’s advisers, and confirmed by our independent panel of experts, has however concluded that the most likely cause of the tremors is the movement of the frac fluid into and along a fault which was already under stress. The additional pressure of the fluid allowed the fault to move, releasing the energy stored in the fault and resulting in the perceived tremors at the surface.

Our experts advise that there are many other faults in the Lancashire area which similarly have unrelieved stresses, and could in a similar scenario likewise result in tremors. Because of the relatively weak nature of these rocks, the amount of energy likely to be stored in these faults is not large, and the largest earthquake likely in this area from such a cause is assessed at magnitude 3. While this is not large enough to cause significant material damage, it would be perceptible and disturbing. I consider that new controls to minimise disturbance to those living and working nearby, and to prevent the risk of any damage, are now a prerequisite for further exploration.

I am therefore announcing new controls to mitigate these risks, which will be applied to all future fracking operations for shale gas. As this is a developing area of knowledge, I stress that we will be moving forward with appropriate caution. The controls are not at this stage to be regarded as definitive, but as appropriate precautionary measures for our present state of knowledge. Initial operations under these controls will be subject to careful scrutiny to ensure the effectiveness of the controls. And they will be reviewed, as experience develops, to ensure that they are proportionate to the risks. The controls will be enforced by my Department, though the data obtained will of course be shared with other regulators.

Operators will first be required to review the available information on faults in the area of the proposed well to minimise the risk of activating any fault by fracking, and required to monitor background seismicity before operations commence. Real time seismic monitoring will also continue during operations, with these subject to a “traffic-light” regime, so that operations can be quickly paused and data reviewed if unusual levels of seismic activity is observed.

We will also be requiring operators to take a more cautious approach to the duration and volumes of fluid used in the fracking itself. A fracking plan will be required to be submitted to my Department before consent is given to any fracking. The fracking plan should be progressive, starting with the injection of small volumes of fluid and analysing the resulting data carefully before the full stage. Each stage of the frac will be carefully designed to use just enough fluid to create a fracture sufficient to enable gas to flow. A flow-back period will be required immediately after each stage to re-balance the pressures. Real-time recording of earthquakes during and for 24 hours after each stage of the frac will be analysed to look for abnormal induced events amidst the normal background seismicity.

Operators will also be required to monitor the growth in height of the frac away from the borehole. This will allow the operator to evaluate the effectiveness of the frac, but also ensure that the actual fracture is conforming to its design, and that it remains contained and far away from any aquifers.

So far as Cuadrilla’s current exploration programme in Lancashire is concerned, the remedial action level for the traffic light system (that is, the “red light”) will be set at magnitude 0.5 (far below a perceptible surface event, but larger than the expected level generated by the fracturing of the rock). I consider that this is an appropriately precautionary approach. We received representations in our consultation that this is too cautious, by comparison with the control protocols established for geothermal energy, construction and quarrying projects. I emphasise that this level is adopted only for fracking operations for shale gas, and the reasons for setting it at this level are entirely specific to the context. And it may well prove to be the case that, as our experience of applying this type of control to fracking operations develops, it can be confirmed that trigger levels can be adjusted upwards without compromising the effectiveness of the controls.

For the first few operations, DECC will have an independent expert on site to observe the operator’s conformance to the protocols we have established and to monitor the operator’s interpretation of data. We will therefore be able to learn as much as possible from these first operations and to put the lessons promptly into effect. But it would clearly not be right, in our present state of knowledge, to attempt to establish definitive standards, and I have preferred to start on an explicitly cautious basis.

At the present time, no applications for consent to fracking operations for shale gas are outstanding, and it is too soon to say exactly how the new protocols will be applied to any such proposals which may come forward in other basins. I can say that we will apply the same principles, of careful prior analysis of the risk of seismic activity, progressive design of the fracking process and feedback from the emerging data, and systematic monitoring by the operators before, during and after the operations. We will also expect operators to make monitoring data promptly available to the public.

As I have noted, fracking is not exclusively associated with shale gas extraction, and fracking operations using smaller volumes of fluid have been carried out both onshore and offshore the UK for many years. These have not to date been associated with any seismic risk, nor is there any evidence for such risks from elsewhere. However, DECC will apply proportionate scrutiny to the possibility. Oil and gas operators proposing fracking will be required to submit an analysis of the risks of any seismic activity being caused by the proposed operations, to conduct appropriate monitoring, and to inform planning authorities and local residents. Appropriate levels of control will be imposed by DECC where the assessed risk is not negligible.

These new controls on seismic risks do not remove any of the existing regulatory controls and requirements. Consistent with previous practice, my Department will not give consent to specific fracking operations until all other consents are in place, including in particular planning permission, the obtaining of environmental permits from the Environment Agency or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) as the case may be, and scrutiny by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE. Separate guidance is available from local planning authorities and regulators on how to acquire the relevant permissions and permits. Both the Environment Agency and SEPA have published sector-specific guidance for the shale gas industry.

However, I am well aware, in particular from the responses to our consultation on the report of our independent experts, that many people, including residents of Lancashire and other areas where shale gas exploration may be contemplated, have many other concerns besides the seismic risks, and it is only right that I should say how these other concerns are being addressed.

The development of shale gas in the US has been accompanied by an increasing level of debate on its environmental impacts. Many of the incidents reported have, on investigation, not been shown to be connected with oil and gas activity. However, they have given rise to concerns which in themselves are entirely reasonable. Residents in those areas want to be assured that their water will not be contaminated with gas or toxic chemicals, and the air will not be contaminated with noxious gases; that there will be no threat of damage from earthquakes; and that other kinds of disturbance such as traffic, lights and noise will be kept under control. In considering these concerns, I have had the benefit of the earlier report on shale gas by the Energy and Climate Change Committee, and many authoritative reports from the US, including two from the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board.

I have also had the benefit of the comprehensive and authoritative review of the risks of fracking by the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering which I have already mentioned. I can announce that the Government accepts all the recommendations of the academies’ report addressed to it. Work is already in hand to implement these recommendations, so far as the current phase of exploration activity is concerned. One further recommendation is being considered by the Research Councils to whom it was addressed.

The reports from US regulators and review bodies do confirm that gas developments there have, on occasion, led to water contamination. There are relatively few confirmed instances of this – most complaints on investigation have proved to be attributable to causes other than gas production. And no case has yet come to light in which it has been confirmed that fracking has contaminated an aquifer. But the instances of contamination which have occurred confirm the need for the industry to consistently apply good practice, and the need for proper scrutiny and oversight of the industry to ensure that this is in fact done.

So far as the UK is concerned, I believe that the industry has a good record, and that there are already in place robust regulatory controls on all oil and gas activities. On water contamination, first, all such operations are subject to scrutiny by the appropriate environment agency (the Environment Agency in respect of England and for the time being of Wales; and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in respect of Scotland). It is an offence to cause or knowingly permit poisonous noxious or polluting matter to enter controlled waters, which include ground waters. The environment agencies are statutory consultees in the planning process, and have to be consulted on all proposed borehole operations. A permit from the Environment Agency is required where fluids containing pollutants are injected into rock formations that contain groundwater. A permit may also be needed if the activity poses an unacceptable risk of mobilising natural substances that could then cause pollution. The permit will specify any necessary limits on the activity, any requirements for monitoring, the chemicals which may be used, and any appropriate limits on permissible concentrations. Regulators will take a risk based approach, and if the activity poses an unacceptable risk to the environment, it will not be allowed.

The academies’ report, and that of the Select Committee, also emphasise the importance in this context of the integrity of the well. This issue is central to the regulation of the safety of well operations by the HSE. The Executive have to be notified of all drilling operations for oil or gas, and will scrutinise the well design and operational plan. Additionally, the regulations require a full review of the proposed and actual well operations by an independent competent person, the “well examiner”. The academies in their report commented that this independent review is highly valuable, and made recommendations for strengthening it, which we of course accept and are already working on.

So far as the use of chemicals is concerned, the environment agencies take a risk-based approach to the regulation of the use of chemicals in shale gas fracking activities. The hazard potential of all substances proposed to be injected into the ground will be assessed and the use of substances hazardous to groundwater will not be permitted. The identity of all substances proposed for injection, and the agency’s conclusions on their hazard potential, will be publicly available.

Concern has also been expressed about the quantities of water used in fracking, or the disposal of waste water from the process. The water used may of course be obtained from licensed suppliers, but if directly abstracted by the operators, requires a licence from the environment agency. Licences will only be given where the agency is satisfied that a sustainable supply is obtainable.

Equally, disposal of waste water is subject to scrutiny by the agencies and will require a permit. The waste water from the operations in Lancashire has been found to contain low levels of radioactivity. A case-specific radiological assessment is required in support of any application for a permit for the disposal of radioactive waste. The agency will critically review any such assessment, and will only issue a permit if satisfied.
Concern has also been raised about the possibility of fracking leading to subsidence, but this is not considered a risk because of the strength and load-bearing characteristics of these rocks. And this is borne out by practical experience, because there is no report from the US of subsidence attributable to fracking, although the number of wells which have been fracked for shale gas is now in the hundreds of thousands.

A further major area of concerns was with the impacts of normal operations in terms of noise, traffic, impacts on health, etc. All proposals for oil and gas exploration require planning permission from the relevant minerals planning authority. The National Planning Policy Framework requires planning authorities to assess applications for all minerals developments so as to ensure that permitted operations do not have unacceptable adverse impacts on the natural or historical environment or on human health, including from noise, dust, visual intrusion, or migration of contamination from the site. In doing so, they should take into account the cumulative effects of multiple impacts from individual sites and/or a number of sites in a locality. Conditions can be placed on working hours at the site, numbers of traffic movements, etc., to ensure that any such impacts on local residents remain within acceptable bounds.

Other concerns which have been expressed are not to do with the current phase of exploration work but with the implications of a possible future move to production operations, if the exploration is successful. It is by no means certain that any such operations will ever be proposed, but if they were, a different set of considerations would arise, which I address further below. But as regards the concerns which have very reasonably been expressed about the current phase of exploration operations, I consider that the consistent application of good practice by the industry, supplemented by the additional action to control seismic hazards which I am announcing today, will ensure that there will be no unacceptable damage to the environment, or threat to the health of local residents, or interference with their lives.

I also consider that the existing regulatory framework already provides the means to ensure that the industry does apply good practice throughout its operations; and that it will do so consistently. But we are taking further steps to reinforce the regime. We have already set up a Strategy Group on Shale Gas at senior official level, with representation from the main Departments engaged in shale gas regulation, the Environment Agency and the HSE, to ensure that the work of the various bodies is well-coordinated. That group can already point to some successes in improving the coordination of regulation, for example, planned joint inspections of fracking operations by the HSE and the EA. And in the Gas Generation Strategy published last week, I announced that a new Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil will be set up in DECC to support this work as well as providing a single point of contact for investors and ensuring a streamlined regulatory process.

Accordingly, I am satisfied that fracking for shale gas can now in principle resume, and I will be prepared to consent to new proposals, subject to case-by-case scrutiny by my Department, to the new requirements to mitigate seismic hazards, and to confirmation that all other necessary permissions and consents are in place.

I should also mention one further outcome of the investigation of the tremors at Preese Hall. DECC has come to the conclusion that Cuadrilla’s response to the occurrence of the tremors demonstrated some weaknesses in its management of environmental risks. This conclusion has been discussed with the company, and they have in consequence reinforced their overall management structure, including by assigning to one board member specific responsibility for health and safety measures, and by reinforcing technical skills within the operational team. The effectiveness of these changes, and the resulting revised structure, is at present being reviewed for Cuadrilla by external consultants. Further fracking operations by Cuadrilla are in any case dependent upon the obtaining of new planning permissions and Environment Agency permits: but my final consent to new fracking operations will not be given until the conclusions of the external consultants have been discussed with the company, and any remaining points of concern addressed to the Department’s satisfaction.

As regards the implications of any future move to large-scale production, the concerns are principally of two kinds: on the one hand, concerns about the local or regional impacts on questions such as traffic movements, noise, night-time lighting, etc., or on the health of people living in the vicinity, or on regional water resources, or on tourism and other aspects of the local economy; on the other, concerns about wider issues including the implications of large scale shale gas production for climate change, for the UK’s climate change policies or for renewables investment.

As regards the local or regional impacts, it should be noted that the planning system requires permission to be obtained separately for exploration and production activities (and for any appraisal phase where distinguishable). There will therefore be a full opportunity to consider the local and regional impacts, including cumulative impacts, of any proposals to initiate production activities, before any such development takes place.

Planning procedures of course already provide for full consultation with communities who may be affected, and the planning authorities may require an Environmental Impact Assessment to be carried out. However, the academies have in addition recommended that an Environmental Risk Assessment should be mandatory for all shale gas operations, involving the participation of local communities at the earliest possible opportunity, and that this assessment should address risks across the entire lifecycle of shale gas extraction.

DECC will therefore take steps to enhance the existing frameworks for consultation and consenting to these activities, in line with these recommendations. Licensees will be required to carry out a comprehensive high-level assessment of environmental risks, including risks to human health, and covering the full cycle of the proposed operations, including well abandonment; and to consult with stakeholders including local communities, as early as practicable in the development of their proposals. The scope of these assessments would naturally be framed by the operations proposed, so that prospective future production operations would not be in scope for an assessment drawn up for exploration activities. Cuadrilla has been asked to conduct such an assessment in relation to their proposals for further exploration work in Lancashire.

This high-level assessment may inform the work entailed by risk assessments already required, for example under the Environmental Permitting Regulations, and which are consulted on separately by the Environment Agency, as well as work entailed by any Environmental Impact Assessment which may be required by the local planning authority. And together, these assessments will provide a full picture of the risks and impacts to inform effective engagement with local communities.

On health impacts, the Health Protection Agency is currently reviewing the evidence base on the health impacts of shale gas, with a particular focus on the health impacts of emissions to air, land and water. This review will identify any potential health risks, and inform both future regulation and any future health impact assessments that may be carried out.

As regards the wider concerns about the implications of large scale shale gas production for the UK’s climate change policies, etc., it is in general too early as yet to make any meaningful estimate of what these might be in the absence of any convincing estimate of what future production might be. But as there has been particular concern about the carbon footprint of shale gas operations, and in particular the possible impacts of fugitive emissions of methane, I should note that all shale gas operations will be subject to my Department’s long-standing policy on flaring and venting of methane. Venting of methane, which has been widely unregulated in the US prior to the recent proposals from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a new controls, is already required in the UK to be reduced to the minimum technically possible. Flaring of methane will also be required to be reduced to the economic minimum, so that where cost-effective routes for economic use of the gas are available, these must be used. These controls mean that UK oil and gas operations already meet the standards which the EPA is introducing, but the new Office will ensure that these work consistently with new controls which may be introduced by the Environment Agency in applying their legislation, and that methane emissions will continue to be minimised.

At the present time, methane emissions from oil and gas operations onshore are a very small part of our GHG emissions. The current estimate is that they contribute less than 1% to the total. And the relatively small number of wells which might be drilled in the current exploration phase will not in any case substantially increase that contribution. I therefore intend to commission a study into the possible impacts of shale gas extraction on greenhouse gas emissions. This will consider the available evidence on the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from shale gas exploitation, and the need for further research. I have invited Professor David Mackay, my Department’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Dr Tim Stone, the Expert Chair of the Office of Nuclear Development to undertake this work.

We are also taking steps to prepare the way for any future production phase, though this is likely to be some years away. We have commissioned more detailed work on the shale gas resources of Great Britain from the British Geological Survey (BGS) and this will be published early next year. I emphasise that this will provide only an estimate of the resource, the gas in the ground, and not the reserves, the amount of gas which can in practice be produced economically from that resource. Until more exploration work has been done, a significant number of wells fracked and production patterns established over time, it will not be possible to make any meaningful estimate of likely economically recoverable resources of shale gas in the United Kingdom.

Also, we will be acting on the academies’ recommendations that the regulatory bodies should assess the requirements for effective regulation of a significant future production phase, and that existing coordination should be maintained and strengthened. The new Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil will be taking this forward in collaboration with the other departments and agencies concerned. And the Environment Agency is already conducting a review of the implications of shale gas for its regulatory responsibilities, including the question of whether further controls and monitoring requirements are appropriate in respect of methane emissions. To facilitate future development, further consideration is being given to ensuring a streamlined and transparent regulatory process for environmental permitting.

We will also be taking steps to open the way to new onshore licensing. DECC had already commenced a Strategic Environmental Assessment in 2010, with a view to further onshore licensing, and conducted a public consultation in the latter part of that year. Work on the SEA has however been in abeyance following the seismic tremors in 2011. DECC will now commission further work on the environmental implications of further licensing, taking account of all new knowledge arising since the earlier assessment was compiled, and will conduct a full public consultation on the extended assessment. The results of this consultation will be fully considered before any decisions are taken on new licensing.

Many more questions of detail have been raised over the last year or so, particularly in the course of our consultation, and in this statement I have sought only to cover the principal issues of interest to the greatest number of respondents. I have today placed in the Libraries of both Houses and placed on my Department’s website a full synopsis of the questions raised and of the Government’s responses to them as well as a response on all of the recommendations of the academies’ study group.

Did you get to the end? Well done! I'll pick out my highlights in a subsequent post....

Shale gas in the news this week

A fairly low-effort post this week, as I have just arrived back from the annual AGU conference in San Francisco. While it was interesting to compare the differences between AGU, which is a very academic conference, and the more industry-centered conferences which I more typically attend, it seems I went at a bad time, because shale gas has been all over the news in the last couple of weeks.

Firstly, we saw about 300 people erect a mock drill rig outside parliament in protest about shale gas extraction. Does 300 sound like a lot? Not sure. Hundreds of thousands once protested about the Iraq war, to little effect....

Meanwhile, the Independent reported that 60% of the UK countryside could be exploited for shale gas. However, DECC were quick to rubbish that statement.

Andrew Rawnsley wrote about how poor the UK's shale prospects are, unilaterally declaring that UK shales are the thinnest in Europe, despite the fact that the Bowland shale is in fact remarkably thick. The fact that this hasn't been corrected on the website version of the article is fairly shocking to me. Especially given that the piece comes up with a new term: 'frack-heads'.

Believers in shale gas have a tendency to rave about it as if they are using a mind-bending substance. So I suggest we call them frack-heads.

Fairly offensive from a main-stream journalist, especially from one who has gotten his facts completely wrong with respect to the main premise of the article.

I've never used mind-bending substances, but we've found a new chief frack-head who certainly looks as though he might have: Boris Johnson has waded straight into the middle of the fracking debate. Turning a phrase as only BoJo, love him or hate him, can:

Beware this new technology, they wail. Do not tamper with the corsets of Gaia! Don’t probe her loamy undergarments with so much as a finger — or else the goddess of the earth will erupt with seismic revenge

Of course, as I've mentioned before, James Lovelock, the inventor of Gaia theory, is actually hugely in favour of shale gas.

Meanwhile the EU parliament has taken it upon itself to regulate our moves towards shale gas exploitation. I'll admit to not being particularly pro-EU at the best of times, but sometimes they really don't help themselves do they?

So why all the palaver? Well, George Osborne has revealed a new gas strategy, promoting domestic gas extraction and the construction of new gas fired power plants. My only issue with this: we shouldn't be giving tax breaks to shale gas companies - we should take our full slice of the money they make and use it to benefit the economy!

Schrag on shale gas and Exxon in favour of a CO2 tax

Daniel Schrag is a geology professor at Harvard, currently working on ways to mitigate future climate change on President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. His latest paper, available here, on shale gas and climate change, is well worth reading. I'll begin by quoting the abstract:

Abstract: Shale gas is a new energy resource that has shifted the dominant paradigm on U.S. hydrocarbon resources. Some have argued that shale gas will play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by displacing coal used for electricity, serving as a moderate-carbon “bridge fuel.” Others have questioned whether methane emissions from shale gas extraction lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions overall. I argue that the main impact of shale gas on climate change is neither the reduced emissions from fuel substitution nor the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas itself, but rather the competition between abundant, low-cost gas and low-carbon technologies, including renewables and carbon capture and storage. This might be remedied if the gas industry joins forces with environmental groups, providing a counterbalance to the coal lobby, and ultimately eliminating the conventional use of coal in the United States.

The only point I'd have any disagreement with here is whether shale gas is forcing out renewables. During the US shale gas boom, we've also seen record penetration of renewable energy. Renewable energy is mainly dependent on political willpower to maintain subsidy. Even with no gas, renewables can't directly compete with coal without some sort of subsidy, or a carbon tax on coal. Some more selective quotes:

Are greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas better than those from coal? The answer would seem obvious. Natural gas has roughly half the carbon content of the average coal per unit energy, thus producing half as much carbon dioxide when combusted for heat or electricity. Moreover, a combined-cycle natural gas plant that generates base-load electricity has a thermal efficiency of roughly 50 percent, which is higher than the newest ultra-super critical coal plants (40 to 45 percent) and much higher than the average coal plant (33 percent) in the United States. Thus, burning natural gas for electricity, when displacing an average U.S. coal plant, results in a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of nearly a factor of three.

He goes on the shred the Howarth/Ingraffea paper, both on their leakage rate estimates, and on their choice of global warming potential factor. If the more appropriate Global Temperature Potential (GTP, which measures the actual temperature rise due to a greenhouse gas, rather than the radiative forcing, as per GWP) is used, methane emissions are only 7 times as bad as the equivalent amount of CO2 - this is because methane has a much lower residence time in the atmosphere. The GTP of 7 is 15 times lower than that used by Howarth/Ingraffea, meaning that they are out be more than a whole order of magnitude! 

The only problem that Schrag identifies is that the economic boom from shale gas extraction will be sufficient to encourage significant economic growth, creating more CO2 emissions. Of course, many that oppose shale gas want to have their cake and eat it, opposing shale gas on the grounds of CO2 emissions while claiming it won't make a significant economic difference anyway.

More interesting, however, is Schrag's solution to our current problems. Putting a price (or a tax) on carbon would benefit the renewables industry for obvious reasons, but would also benefit the natural gas industry as it would it coal harder than gas, allowing gas to take coal's share of the market. This would be good for the gas companies, and good for the climate. Such a coalition would not be easy to maintain:

Building a coalition between the natural gas industry and the environmental community to support a comprehensive climate policy will not be easy. The oil and gas industries have long had a combative and distrustful relationship with the environmental movement.

However, it seems pretty clear that the environmental lobby has failed to prevent big coal's stranglehold on US energy policy. Perhaps a clash of the titans: big gas vs big coal is what is needed to shift the balance:

By leveraging the finnancial self-interest of the natural gas industry to broaden political support for anti-coal policies, environmental groups can simultaneously use a grassroots campaign to pressure existing coal-fired power plants to shut down. The success of this strategy will determine whether shale gas is indeed good for climate change.

Funnily enough, it looks like Exxon must have been reading this, as they have just come out cautiously in favour of implementing a carbon tax in the US.