I may have stirred up a hornet's nest in Frome. Part I

I've had some responses to my letter to the Somerset Standard criticising the manner in which Frome Council took the decision to declare themselves 'Frack Free'. My original letter is here. These letters are also available on the This is Somerset webpage. First of all, my initial letter received a few comments:

From 'ragamala':

Frankly, I am amazed that someone parading his qualifications (Dr Verdon) should pitch into the debate committing the crimes he accuses "environmentalists" of committing. He stresses the need for "rational, evidence-driven debate" yet in his opposition to buying foreign gas he dredges up the emotive question of human rights records. Where is the rationality of that? He totally ignores all the reports emerging, for example the three reports for the EU environment Committee in September, which consider that in the UK and Europe shale gas is not a solution to perceived energy problems and is unlikely ever to provide cheap gas. At least Verdon concedes that there have been instances in the US of water contamination, unlike some or the pro-frackers. Regarding Cuadrilla, I suggest Dr Verdon checks his statements about openness. Has Cuadrilla released any details of its geological survey work this year? No. Did they breach their planning conditions and continue working for two months beyond their planning permission time? Yes. Did they broadcast the fact they were using radioactive sources in wirline testing? No. Have they been honest about the benefit to the local Fylde economy of their geo survey work? No. Did they manipulate data? Yes. I'm sorry, Dr Vernon, but it seems from my perspective that you are the one polarising debate and overlooking facts.

And from 'GreyWolf':

And if you read Cuadrilla's applications you will see they indicate that will not use any radioactive sources on site, although if you ask the they will tell you that they will. Not that that should worry local residents of course, should it?  

As to Dr Verdon's arguments, he seems to a victim of Hume's problem of induction. Suggesting that the UK economic and environmental experience of fracking will mirror what has happened in the USA when local economic, physical and demographic environments are so different is either incredibly naive or deliberately misleading. 

He really should know and do better. 

Obviously, I couldn't let this go unchallenged, so my response was:

Ragamala has a point, the reference to 'the emotive question of human rights records' is indeed irrelevant to the debate, so I'm happy to apologise for that. What's less open to question is the economic benefit of domestic gas production over importing LNG.

I am indeed aware of the EU Commission reports, which come to the conclusion that, with appropriate regulatory regimes in place, shale gas extraction should be considered, in addition to the fact that the CO2 footprint of domestic shale gas can be lower than imported LNG. It's true that the likely market benefits of shale gas are less well understood and difficult to predict (and I'll admit that as a geologist, this is not my strong point). However, it's clear that the companies involved believe there is significant economic potential there. If they are wrong then they are free to lose money and go out of business.

As for the US experience - my comments on this were motivated by Frome Council's statement that their decision to go 'frack-free' was based on the US experience. So am I a victim of Hume's induction, or is Frome Council? I agree that experiences on either side of the Atlantic may be different. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take the evidence we have and extrapolate the best we can. For instance, it's worth bearing in mind that drilling and environmental regs in this country are significantly tighter (and rightly so) than those in the US.

As for Cuadrilla, it is true that they exceeded the length of their planning regs, which was a silly thing to do from a PR perspective. Those regs were there mainly due to issues with a bird migratory route. They did at least hire a bird-expert to assess the risks posed by their operations, but I agree, not a great start.

I'm not sure what details you would like about their geological survey? As far as I'm aware, local residents were informed in advance, although as I am not a resident in the area, I am happy to stand corrected. It's a fairly common procedure though, you can see on the following website a history of all such onshore surveys conducted in the UK (where the Cuadrilla survey will eventually end up):

http://tinyurl.com/ce4j5e9

If you have other evidence that they have manipulated data of some kind then I would be very interested to see it. My experience was that all of the tremor data was immediately released to the BGS, where it has been available for study by the UK academic community. At the same time, they were very fast to take responsibility for the tremors, and to take actions to reduce the probability of them happening again.

It is interesting that much of the opposition to shale gas is not based on the methods unique to shale gas production (the high-volume hydraulic fracturing), but often talks mainly about methods common to all oil extraction - as above, where the topics are well logging, geophysical surveys, and more generally with issues about well completion integrity. It must come as a surprise to learn that the UK produces something like 10,000 barrels a day from onshore wells. Wytch Farm is the largest onshore field in the EU, and it sits below an area of significant environmental importance (Poole Harbour) and some of the highest house prices in the land. Rarely (if ever) do we see any problems from such onshore fields, yet those opposed to shale gas appear sometimes to have greater issue with the techniques used at all these fields than the specific techniques needed for shale gas. This is why I feel that the environmental movement is missing something with respect to the way it has approached the issues surrounding shale gas.

Which garnered the following response from 'ragamala':

I am amazed that Dr Verdon can at the same time claim that the Wytch Farm is exploitation of an "onshore" field and admit that it is actually an offshore resource. This ignorance and spin characterised a recent House of Commons statement by a minister - Hayes - who expected us to be "surprised" but has some lessons to learn himself. It is even worse when Verdon himself knows that the three main fields exploited by the Wytch Farm are actually offshore under Poole Harbour and Poole Bay. The field consists of three separate reservoirs known as Bridport, Sherwood and Frome. Dr Verdon will also, no doubt, be very aware that there have been problems with Wytch Farm involving cessation of activities because of leaks and pipe corrosion. Dr Verdon should be aware that as far as I know Europe's largest onshore oilfield is actually in Albania. 

The issues with shale gas extraction are not restricted to "CO2 footprint" but involve unavoidable and unquantified by the industry releases of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas in the short and medium term. Regarding Cuadrilla's abuse of their planning permission this did not cover just a breach of their conditions regarding protection of an important natural resource, but by a second and separate breach exceeded their time limits. To suggest this was caused by "issues with a bird migratory route" is not only wrong but laughable. 

Regarding Cuadrilla's geo survey they in some instances indeed failed to inform residents, they caused significant concern and some damage, and if Dr Verdon wishes to query this he can take it up with Fylde MP Mark Menzies, who felt the need to intervene. Regarding data manipulation, I would rather say that Cuadrilla have rather been totally misleading. They have, in particular, issued figures for local economic benefit to the Fylde of their geo survey which have been shown to be totally deceptive. Sorry, Dr Verdon, we expect more from someone who claims to be a scientist relying on facts, and moreover educates our young. If this pro-fracking propaganda, blissfully ignoring facts, is an example of what they are taught in Bristol I really fear for the future. 

But if, at the end of the day, as Dr Verdon suggests the industry itself is not confident of shale gas's potential, why on earth should he expect local communities to abandon the precautionary principle? 

Again, I couldn't resist sticking my oar in with:

Dear ragamala,From a technical point of view, Wytch Farm is considered to be an onshore field because all of the drilling is conducted from the land - there is no offshore rig. Yes, parts of the field are below the sea, and parts below the land, but is this really basis enough for your scorn? Since you seem to be in the mood for cheap point scoring, I should mention that I described Wytch Farm as the largest in the EU, which Albania is not. It is true that production was stopped for about 2 months in 2011 as corrosion issues were dealt with. Production is now continuing, no oil leaked from the site. Is this example of a company identifying a problem and promptly acting on it really sufficient reason for a blanket ban on shale gas?  

You mention 'unavoidable and unquantified' methane emissions, having already criticised me for being unaware of recent EU Commission reports. Yet this EU report in fact does quantify methane leakage rates, factors them into the calculations regarding global warming, and finds that domestic shale gas still comes out with less of an impact than imported LNG. When referring to CO2 I was of course referring to CO2 equivalent, apologies for any confusion there. 

Cuadrilla's planning permission issue was in fact entirely related to issues of migrating birds. This has been widely reported by the national press. Laughable perhaps, but apparently true: 

http://tinyurl.com/cq4j6rr

If Cuadrilla were less than diligent in informing local residents about their survey then that is indeed unfortunate. Your comments on data manipulation could easily be read as an accusation of manipulation of geological data rather than an over-egging of possible local economic benefits, which would be a far more serious accusation. But these surveys are a common procedure for many geological applications. Indeed our undergraduates are lucky enough to perform one across the Bristol Downs and in South Wales every year (albeit on a far smaller scale of course). You can see from my previous link the sheer number that have been conducted across the UK. The technique is exactly the same for each. Why is it that it is only the one related to shale gas that has attracted problems? 

I'm not sure I suggested that industry itself is not confident of success. The industry is, I believe, extremely confident, as are the British Geological Survey, about the amounts of shale gas that might be extracted both in the UK and around the world.

I'm not sure how I feel about this really. I know that I'm never going to change ragamala's mind, but I think it's important that anyone else reading this knows that there are two sides to every argument (one of which has a lot more facts available to it, while one is much more emotive). I hope I haven't appeared too reactionary. If there's anyone out there in the mood for commenting (unlikely I know) I'd love to know how this discussion comes across. Do I seem like an impartial professional making sensible, considered points, or do I appear to be a raging drill-baby-drill crazy-person in hock to Exxon? Equally, do ragamala's points seem like someone engaging in sensible debate or the rantings of an eco-loon? The comment ratings have me on +1 and +1, while ragamala is on -1 and -2, but I'd love some more detailed feedback. You are welcome to hide behind online anonymity and be as mean as you like......

The opposition to shale gas

Hats off to the Guardian once again for this article by Mariel Hemingway on why she opposes fracking. It would be easy to mock this piece for it's flighty, right-on loony-ness, but I shan't, because I'm sure the author's beliefs are held strongly and genuinely. What I will take her to task for is her sheer narrow mindedness:

Here at the Willingway, our retreat center near Malibu, my partner Bobby and I have been growing our own food and putting solar to work on our roof. It feels great to watch the meter feeding energy into the grid, instead of just pulling it out. 

Which is all well and good, and to be saluted, but really only possible if you're a wealthy Hollywood (ex?)actress. I'd love to have a solar-powered retreat near Malibu, where I could grow my food, but for the majority of normal people this simply isn't an option. I'd love to feed solar power into the grid, but I can't afford solar panels, even if I owned a house on which to put them (and I don't consider myself poor - I get paid above the national average wage). I'm not sure how the system works in the US, but in this country the feed-back into the grid is funded by feed-in tariffs (public money), so seems to me to be a useful method for richer people (who can afford to invest in these things) to get money from the tax-payer. 

Once again it's worth noting the outright falsehoods:

The hydraulic fracturing process utilizes large amounts of toxic chemicals – 10,000-40,000 gallons per well. Science has shown that it ends up in the water we drink, the water that's used on our food, and the water that nourishes fish, animals, birds, and plants

I've added the emphasis on the 'science has shown' part, partly to highlight how silly it sounds (like the 'here comes the science' part of any hair product advert), but also to point out that there is no documented case where fracking chemicals have been found in water supplies. A couple of cases of methane contamination, yes, but not the fracking chemicals. They're not buoyant, you see, so there's no force to drive them from the shale beds at 2km depth to surface waters. It'd be like making a stream flow uphill. 'Science has shown', my arse. But what's happened is that enough people have said it, and loudly enough, that it's become accepted as fact. A good example of the big lie.

She does get one thing right though:

There's nothing worse than finger-pointing – when we walk in and turn on natural gas to cook our food, or heat our house.

Anyway, I'm talking about this article because it fits very well with my latest experience with the local anti-fracking community. A couple of months ago I saw an advertised screening of Gasland at a local community center, and I thought I'd pop along, see what the anti-fracking community looked like in the south-west.

Perhaps I've spent too long around scientists, but the biggest thing that I noticed was the lack of curiosity, the lack of hunger for details. We were shown an abridged version of the film, followed by a Q & A session. Now, Gasland is notably strong on emotive filming and short on actual facts. You get to see about 5 families claiming to have been affected by gas drilling. Without context, this is fairly meaningless. The questions that anyone watching Gasland should immediately be asking are:

• what is the incidence rate of these contamination events, in comparison to the number of wells drilled?
• are there any other possible sources of contamination (and what is the history of water quality in the area prior to drilling?)
• have there been methane contamination incidences like this prior to drilling?
• have governmental agencies (like the EPA) made any comment?
• are local communities universally opposed to drilling?
• how does the hydraulic fracturing process actually work? How deep are the target formations? How large are the expected fractures?

Gasland gives the impression that the answers to these questions are: really high percentage, not other possible contamination sources, no prior incidents, EPA bought by industry dollars, local communities universally opposed, and no info on the process itself. In fact, I think that it'd be better characterised as: something like 0.01% incidence rate, many potential contamination sources, both natural (natural methane seepage) plus nasty leftovers from things like coal mining, many incidences of flammable water dating back centuries, EPA have investigated many sites and found no evidence of contamination, opposition to drilling is a minority in most communities, and the target formations are typically 2km deep, and fractures are typically 100-200m.

Now, I'm fairly sure that if you were to show Gasland to a group of scientists, people would be asking these questions. Scientists are trained to be sceptical, to distinguish provable fact from opinion. One of the key scientific fallacies is confirmation bias, where you selectively believe things that already fit your worldview, accepting them with a lower threshold for credibility.

I'll admit to being a victim of this myself in my work - I recently had to modify one of my papers which heavily cited another paper (by different authors) which agreed with my results, until the authors had to retract and significantly amend their work as they'd made a number of technical errors. Clearly I'd been too willing to accept their results (which agreed with mine) without properly checking that their work was accurate (for the record, my paper is still right: I had a better and more robust method for making these measurements on fracture compliance than they had). 

But my thoughts at this local anti-fracking meeting were that it was a classic case of confirmation bias. The view of the average participant was clearly that oil companies are heartless cheating bastards who spend their whole time causing awful pollution (even though we use oil every day, and for example we've had oil production in our backyard across the South of the UK for decades without any problems or issues).

So when Gasland appears to show evidence for more of this nasty oil company behaviour, it is accepted without questioning because it already fits into their worldview. Also, there was no discussion of any potential benefits: no mention of the reductions in CO2 emissions as they swap coal for gas, no mention of the shale gas possibilities in China that would represent the biggest and fastest way to reduce global CO2 emissions.

Unfortunately, I think this view is becoming increasingly entrenched, the big lie has been told loudly enough and often enough, and I think shale gas production in the UK is in for a troubled time.

I'll finish by bringing my piece full circle to mention the demographics of the meeting: I think I was pretty much the only person there under the age of 30, and I get the distinct impression that most would fit in well with Mariel Hemingway's holistic greenery. I didn't get the impression (I may be wrong of course) that the majority of people there had financial worries, or worries for the future of the economy at least in the sense that it wouldn't affect them. There's a general lack of understanding that just because they have the time, space and money for a holistic Malibu retreat (or whatever the SW UK equivalent is), the average person will not be able to follow them in this even if they wanted to. Therefore any solution to the energy and climate issues we face has to accept that the average UK citizen does not have the money to put solar power and windmills on top of their house (if they even own one, and more and more of the younger generation will never get to own a house), nor can they afford the increases in energy bills to pay to subsidise a wealthy landowner to festoon his hills with wind turbines.

So what we need are energy sources that can actually deal with the problems we face right now. I think David Miliband summed up our energy problems pretty succinctly here (skip to 49:10) - we're fussing about with energy sources that supply about 1% of our needs, when 30% of our energy comes from coal imported from Russia. The first thing we should be doing is replacing coal with gas. And that's just about the UK, so multiply this problem several times to talk about the US and China!

A shorter letter to the Somerset Standard

It would appear that I'm a rather long winded waffler! If you read my blog regularly then I'm sure you already knew this, but the Somerset Standard asked me to shorten my piece so that it could fit into their paper, so here it is in it's abridged form:


Dear Editor,


I am writing to express my concern at the actions of Frome Council in declaring a "frack-free" zone, which appears to be based on biased propaganda rather than any consideration of the facts that relate to the debate surrounding shale gas extraction and hydraulic fracturing.

Shale gas extraction should not be described as a form of "extreme energy", using "a lot of energy in order to get just a bit more energy back". In fact, fracking a well takes only a few hours. A recent life-cycle emissions analysis by the European Commission has indicated locally-produced shale gas has no worse a climate change impact than LNG imported the Middle East (with the additional emissions associated with transport), not to mention the economic and geo-political impacts of producing our own gas, rather than buying from foreign regimes with dubious human-rights records.

The biggest objection raised against fracking is the issue of groundwater contamination, usually spurred by the dramatic images of flaming taps available on Youtube, where water loaded with methane can be set on fire. However, these videos usually fail to mention that methane contamination is in fact a common and natural occurrence in many parts of the US, and was so long before shale gas extraction came into the picture.

In fact, the US Environmental Protection Agency has documented only two proven incidences where shale gas extraction has caused water contamination: at Dimock, Pennsylvania, and Pavillion, Wyoming. At Dimock, the faulty well was identified, remedied, and contamination levels have now returned below acceptable minima. At Pavillion, the cause of the contamination is still uncertain, as different US agencies have attributed different causes, so investigations are still ongoing. The US Groundwater Protection Council has examined water contamination incidence rates due to onshore oil and gas wells, finding an incident rate less than 0.01%.

The council's view is, apparently, that "the American experience points towards relatively small gains in energy at huge long and short term environmental cost". In fact, the experience in the USA has provided significant gains on both the local and national level.

On the local scale, once moribund rural areas are booming: the influx of workers has seen hotels fully booked for months in advance, restaurants and bars full every evening, and every other service industry experiencing a similar boost. On a national scale, gas prices have tumbled by as much of 75%, providing benefits not just for the average domestic heating bill, but also for the many industries that use natural gas as a feedstock. Meanwhile cheap gas prices have lead power companies to switch from coal fired to gas fired power stations, resulting in a reduction in CO2 emissions to their lowest levels in 20 years.

It is commonly implied that oil and gas companies are devious, unreliable, and bad neighbours to have. However, in this case, companies proposing hydraulic fracturing have been remarkably open: all of the pertinent data from tests conducted by Cuadrilla in Blackpool are available on the Department for Energy and Climate Change website, as is the fracking fluid composition (of which, 99% is H2O). In contrast, the opposition to shale gas has based its arguments on falsehoods, manipulated data and scary Youtube videos. There is a need for a rational, evidence-driven debate about shale gas extraction in the South-West. However, by polarising the debate in this manner, environmentalists are preventing this from happening.
 
Yours Sincerely, etc etc etc

I think maybe it looses something in going from 1000 to 500 words, but never mind....

6 seismologists jailed after L'Aquila earthquake

Yesterday, 6 Italian seismologists and 1 public official were jailed for the actions in lead-up to the L'Aquila earthquake that killed 309 people in 2009.

This is a hugely alarming decision, and one is immediately put in mind of medieval witch-trials, where some old woman could always be blamed for the latest crop failure/flood/natural disaster and punished for it.

The legal implications could also be significant. What scientist would now ever want to make any public pronouncements about anything pertaining to public safety? If I were an Italian volcanologist, epidemiologist, or weather-forecaster, I'd be very worried about the legal precedent that has now been set. As everyone on twitter was quick to point out, Michael Fish must be very glad that he's not Italian.

Of course, in a case as important as this, it's worth going into detail about what actually happened. A week before the earthquake happened, a series of smaller quakes occurred across the area. The 'Committee for Major Risks' was convened to assess the seismic risk. The 6 seismologists themselves did not speak to the public, but the government official on the panel (who was not a seismologist) was interviewed by the press after the meeting, and he said there was little risk of a large earthquake, that the tremors were in fact releasing accumulated strain energy, reducing the probability of a large quake. Rather famously, he said that people should relax with a glass of the local multipulciano.

One week later, the quake struck, the old stone buildings of L'Aquila collapsed, and 309 people were killed by falling masonry.

There is obviously a huge amount of emotional anguish associated with the case: 309 people died and many many more lost their homes and possessions. In such a situation, it is human nature to want to blame someone and to see them punished: medieval witch trials happened for a reason after all. A a species we're not very good at accepting acts of god - somebody must be to blame. And it's very clear when you read the statements of those who lost loved ones in the quake that they are glad that these scientists have received such lengthy custodial sentences.

But lets examine these events from a seismological perspective. It is well established that seismic predictions are pretty much impossible. What the (non-seismologist) official told the public was in essence correct: often small seismic events do release strain energy. If you take the San Andreas fault as an example, there are creeping sections where small-scale seismic activity occurs regularly, and these sections rarely experience the larger quakes, and then there are the 'locked' section, where little seismicity is occurring, where it is most likely that the next 'big one' will occur. Sometimes, large earthquakes are preceded by a swarm of smaller ones.

So, what the official should have said is: the risk of an earthquake is no higher that it usually is (which is still appreciable, because you are living in central Italy, which is a seismically active area). But there is no evidence for an increased risk. This is probably the most scientifically accurate description of the situation. I guess that's where the miscommunication has happened, where no increased risk became 'no risk, have a glass of wine'.

But what where the alternatives for the committee? To suggest an evacuation? Based on the available evidence, this would have been an irresponsible decision to take. Evacuations can be extremely costly, both economically (as everyone leaves their jobs for weeks), as well as to human health as the risks to the old and frail of moving thousands of humans from their homes into temporary shelters for what could end up being weeks. And a key thing to bear in mind with evacuations, is at what point do you allow people back to their homes? With something like a volcano, it's obvious that once the volcano has either erupted or died back down again, then you can let people back.

But with an earthquake, there would be no evidence to say that people could have returned. Bear in mind that the quake happened a week after the committee met. Had they ordered the evacuation that day, do they really think people would still have been happily waiting it out in tents outside town 7 days later with no large event appearing to happen?

What else could they have done? Reminded everyone of what to do in the event of an earthquake (hit the deck, get away from buildings if you can, get under a table or doorway if you can't. Avoid anything glass. Watch out for falling objects/masonry. Sure, that would be helpful, although really this should be happening all the time in an area with high earthquake risk. But would this have helped the 309 people at L'Aquila? These people died because the buildings they were in collapsed. The majority of the buildings were old, stone structures with little or no re-inforcement: they were a disaster waiting to happen. If anyone is to be blamed for the deaths at L'Aquila, it is whoever failed to ensure that building standards were enacted/enforced. It would have been a very expensive operation to retro-fit all these medieval buildings, but this would have been the only way to save the lives of these 309 people.

Instead, blaming and imprisoning these seismologists sends entirely the wrong message. It solves no problem: public understanding of risk is not improved, while the science of risk assessment, or least the likelihood of scientists even attempting to communicate this to the public, may be severely damaged.

A letter to Frome Council (and the Somerset Standard)

My thoughts as sent to the council of Frome, who have declared themselves a frack-free zone (and to the editors of the Somerset Standard as well.....)


Dear Editor/Council-members,

I am writing to express my concern at the actions of Frome Council in declaring a "frack-free" zone. My concern lies primarily in the manner that the decision has been made, rather than the decision itself, which, as the council acknowledges, is largely symbolic.

The basis for the council's decision, as set out in the agenda available on the council website, appears to be based on biased propaganda rather than any consideration of the facts that relate to the debate surrounding shale gas extraction and hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking").

Shale gas extraction is indeed an unconventional resource. However, it can in no way be described as a form of "extreme energy", using "a lot of energy in order to get just a bit more energy back". In fact, to frack a well requires a few hours of pumping at high pressure, creating a well that may produce natural gas for years.

With respect to the energy needed for fracking, a recent life-cycle emissions analysis by the European Commission has in fact shown that in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, locally-produced shale gas has no worse a climate change impact than LNG imported from Russia or the Middle East (with the additional emissions associated with transport), not to mention the economic and geo-political impacts of producing our own gas, rather than handing money to regimes with dubious human-rights records.

The biggest objection raised against shale gas is the issue of groundwater contamination, usually spurred by the dramatic images of flaming faucets easily available on Youtube, where water loaded with methane can be set on fire. However, these videos usually fail to mention that methane contamination is in fact a common and natural occurrence in many parts of the US, and was so long before shale gas extraction came into the picture.

In fact, the US Environmental Protection Agency has documented only two proven incidences where shale gas extraction has caused water contamination: at Dimock, Pennsylvania, and Pavillion, Wyoming. At Dimock, the faulty well was identified, remedied, and contamination levels have now returned below acceptable minima. At Pavillion, the cause of the contamination is still uncertain, as different US agencies have attributed different causes, so investigations are still ongoing.

To put this in context, something like 40,000 shale gas wells have been drilled in the US, meaning that the rate of well-related incidences is something like 0.005%. Similarly, the US Groundwater Protection Council has examined water contamination incidence rates due to onshore oil and gas wells (in this case all wells, rather than solely shale gas), finding an incident rate less than 0.01%. Of course, the far tighter oil and gas regulations that we already have in the UK (in comparison to the US) would likely lead to an even lower incident rate.

The council's view is, apparently, that "the American experience points towards relatively small gains in energy at huge long and short term environmental cost". In fact, the experience in the USA has provided significant gains on both the local and national level.

On the local scale, once moribund rural areas are booming: shale gas extraction has created jobs both for specialists and for the more general labour market, while the influx of workers has seen hotels fully booked for months in advance, restaurants and bars full every evening, and every other service industry experiencing a similar boost. On a national scale, gas prices have tumbled by as much of 75%, providing benefits not just for the average domestic heating bill, but also for the many industries that use natural gas as a feedstock, significantly reducing their costs and therefore increasing their competitiveness.

With respect to the environment, the cheap gas price has lead power companies to switch from coal fired to gas fired power stations, leading to a reduction in CO2 emissions to their lowest levels in 20 years. When considered in a global context, it is worth bearing in mind that China is currently considering shale gas extraction. Given that China emits more CO2 than any other nation, the possibility that they might replace many of their thousands of dirty coal fired power plants with cleaner natural gas ones, represents the easiest and fastest way that global anthropogenic CO2 emissions could be reduced.

It is commonly implied that oil and gas companies are devious, unreliable, and bad neighbours to have (and given past events, this isn't an unreasonable view to hold). However, in this case, companies proposing hydraulic fracturing have in fact been remarkably open and transparent: All of the pertinent data from fracking tests conducted by Cuadrilla in Blackpool are available on the DECC (Department for Energy and Climate Change) website, as is the composition of the fracking fluids used (of which, 99% is H2O). In contrast, the opposition to shale gas has based its arguments on falsehoods, manipulated data and scary Youtube videos. There is a need for a rational, evidence-driven debate about shale gas extraction in the South-West. However, by polarising the debate in this manner, environmentalists are preventing this from happening.

As the council acknowledges, there may well be no shale gas under Frome. Even if there were, it's likely to be years before any operator considers any plans to extract it. As such, the decision by the council is largely a symbolic one. Does the council not have better uses for its time, and its rate-payer's money, than this misguided publicity stunt based on a highly biased representation of the facts surrounding shale gas extraction?

Yours Sincerely etc etc etc,

Frack free Frome

In the news recently - the town of Frome in Somerset has been declared a 'frack-free zone'. This is a largely symbolic gesture, given that it'll probably be years before we even know if there is any shale gas under or near Frome. But I found the minutes from the council meeting where this decision was taken made for worrying reading. You can read them here (pages 6 and 7 of the pdf):

Why is fracking a problem?
In the vicinity to where fracking takes place the gravest concern is water contamination. Many of the chemicals used in the fracking process have known negative health effects, including cancer, and can contaminate groundwater supplies, eventually polluting the water table and leaching into waterways. The industry itself estimates that 30-40% of the toxic water created in the fracking process is never recovered. The contamination of irrigation water could also affect food supplies. The fracking fluid can leach chemicals like arsenic out of the rocks making it even more toxic and so any recovered fluid (processed water) becomes a big disposal problem. Fracking in the United States has already resulted in numerous spills of these fluids, causing injury to human health and wildlife. Additionally, the fracking fluid can leach radioactive elements out of the rocks causing radioactive contamination.

Like other forms of ‘extreme energy’ (e.g. Tar Sands extraction), fracking is very carbon intensive. It uses a lot of energy (and therefore emits a lot of carbon dioxide) in order to get just a bit more energy back. Fracking has the additional problem that the natural gas (methane) that is being extracted is a stronger greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide emitted by burning it and the method results in significant amounts of methane escaping directly into the atmosphere.

Fracking creates a large industrialised footprint on the landscape, and causes significant increases in traffic.  It can also compromise the geological structure of an area, which is of serious concern in the Mendips, where the subterranean systems are still mysterious even to experienced cavers, and where a build-up of methane could have potentially explosive results. Local councillors in Bath, including the leader of B&NES Paul Crossley, have further concerns about the potential contamination of the hot springs, the source of which lies somewhere in the Mendips, and thus on revenues from tourism.

There are, therefore considerable concerns around fracking pertinent both to our region and the greater environment.  The American experience points towards relatively small gains in energy at huge long and short term environmental cost.

If this is the sole information on which the council has made its decision then this is very worrying. No mention of any numbers or science here - numbers which would show that for several tens of thousands of wells, there have been two documented, scientifically verified cases of contamination - one at Dimock where a faulty wellbore leaked methane (no fracking fluids, no radiation), and one incident at Pavilion, which is currently under dispute as it appears that the EPA testing may have been faulty.

The 'extreme energy' paragraph is simply complete nonsense! It's a term that is being used to describe the move towards more unconventional hydrocarbon sources. It may have some validity for tar sands, which are pretty intensive to produce, but to describe shale gas in this way is complete bullsh!t. To frack a well, you pump water down a hole at high pressure for a few hours. This well will then produce gas for years. So it would be better described as 'you put a little bit of energy in, and get absolutely shed-loads back'. This is why shale gas is pushing US gas prices so low. As for the methane leakage issue, this has been firmly put to bed, including by an EU Scientific Report. Climate-wise, producing European shale gas would be better than importing gas from Russia or the middle east (not to mention the geo-political and economic impacts).

What about 'compromising the geological structure of an area'? As a geologist, I'm not even sure what that means, so it's hardly worth refuting. As for the caves - the maximum cave depths are ~200m: any likely shale gas deposits will be 2 - 3km below the surface. As far as the geologist working 2km down is concerned, these caves might as well be at the surface.

Does fracking create a significant industrialised footprint? I guess that depends on your definition of 'significant'. Yes, there will be a well pad every few miles. During drilling (usually takes about 3 months) the pad will be an acre or so, with a drilling rig about 4 storeys high. After that, the pad can be grassed over, and the well-head is topped by a 'Christmas tree', which is a couple of meters high. Yes, there will be a significant increase in truck traffic. But an increase in industrial footprint has benefits as well, something completely overlooked by Frome council. When industry grows, this creates jobs and it creates money. Even if some of the jobs that are created are specialist positions for trained geoscientists brought in from 'out-of-town', there are plenty of jobs for all walks of life - making the concrete for the drill pads, and construction of them, driving and servicing the trucks, for example. Plus all these people stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, drink in pubs, enjoy leisure activities in their spare time, and if they're there for the long haul, buy houses in the area. I can only assume that the economic situation in Frome is already pretty rosy if the council can afford to turn their noses up at this. If so, good for them, but I doubt that this is the situation across much of the rest of the country.

The American experience does not point towards small gains - the American experience points towards significant gains at small environmental cost: energy prices cut by 75%, economic booms in the shale gas areas, reviving once moribund towns and countrysides, while CO2 emission levels plummet to the lowest levels in years.

It's pretty obvious that this is a one-sided agenda. What's worrying is that these are official council documents. I'd have assumed that there would be some sort of requirement to consider these things from an impartial stand-point, considering the evidence wherever available. Clearly I'd be wrong....

Fraud in Science

Shocking headline alert! Tenfold increase in scientific research papers retracted for fraud! A recent report has shown that the percentage of scientific papers that have been retracted due to fraud has increased ten-fold since 1976. Sounds shocking, right!?

Of course, dig a little deeper, and you'll find that the retraction rate was 0.00097% in 1976, and 0.0096% in 2007. So that's a rate of 1 paper per 10,000 that might be fraudulent. Which is pretty good going in my opinion really. I have 800 papers in my 'Papers2' library, so I'll have to read another 9,000 or so to have an odds on chance of reading a fraudulent one.

Shall we compare these statistics to the number of fraudulent builders or mechanics? How do people reckon odds of 1 in 10,000 stack up? How about our elected leaders? I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd guess at least 30 MPs were caught up in the parliamentary expenses scandal. We have about 600 MPs, so that's a rate of 5% (or 1 in 20). So academics are 500 times less fraudulent than our elected leaders. And, what's more, unlike the majority of our leaders, most of us can understand probabilities, which is always helpful when developing evidence-based policies.

So, underneath the awful-sounding headline, I'd argue that the numbers are actually pretty reassuring.

However, these numbers of course only consider the papers where fraud has been discovered and the papers retracted. I have no idea how many fraudulent papers go undetected. I'd imagine it could be pretty easy to massage numbers in a paper to give a more favourable result, and it'd be pretty hard to detect. There's often no real oversight in much of academia. I don't have anyone double checking my figures when I do my research. Even when I write papers with co-authors, they generally assume that my numbers are right and move forward from there. Similarly, when I've been given results from colleagues, I've never doubted their veracity.

Interestingly, there are various statistical methods that can pick up whether data are likely to have been made up. I particularly like this example. However, they are not widely applied - most scientists I know barely have time to fully read every paper they are supposed to, let alone perform statistical re-analysis on all of them.

The pressures to commit scientific fraud are obvious to anyone in academia. Your next job or promotion depends on a continuing output of top-quality papers in high impact journals. Lets say you spend a couple of years developing a new theory or method. If, at the end of it all, it doesn't really work and the results are inconclusive, all that work could end up as one paper in a low-quality journal that never gets read, leading to a huge pause on that career ladder. However, if you could massage a few numbers to get a statistically significant result, the amazing new paper gets published in Nature and you get to jump onto the next rung of the career ladder.

Perhaps the best defence against fraud is the attitude of the academic community. Unlike our MPs, where the attitude seemed to be 'everyone else is doing it, so I might as well', the response of the academic community to fraud is still one of disgust - anyone caught is disgraced and will probably never get to work in academia again.

Most people in academia are there because they want to find out more about the way the world works. Fraudulent data clouds that understanding. So most wouldn't dream of 'cooking the books'. For those that are tempted, I can only hope that the knowledge of the ruin they'd suffer if found out would be enough to deter them. Certainly, the headline numbers (the 1 in 10,000) appear reassuring. But as academics, I think we must be eternally vigilant, because it could become a huge problem if we don't maintain that pressure to always do the right thing for the sake of the community.

A few quick things....

Firstly, it seems the Guardian didn't read my last post, because they've gone and published this. I love how, when it comes to a choice between the International Energy Agency and Greenpeace on assigning the contribution shale gas has made to the US's substantial CO2 reductions since 2007, the default assumption is the Greenpeace must be right and the IEA wrong. It's not like Greenpeace have a conflict of interest in downplaying shale gas contributions to CO2 emissions reductions or anything. Meanwhile, the IEA, as an international body with a duty of care, years of experience, and who actually have environmental protection as part of their remit, can't be relied upon?

I'll let John Hanger have the last word on the matter:
http://johnhanger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/another-analysis-of-role-of-gas-in.html
http://johnhanger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/natural-gas-is-responsible-for-about-77.html
http://johnhanger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/10-key-facts-to-understanding-decline.html


As usual, the doom-mongers say that shale gas can't possibly have an impact on our energy markets. Maybe their models are right, but this would completely discount the on-the-ground evidence from the US, where it's had a significant impact. But anyway, maybe there won't be enough shale gas to make a dramatic impact. But it can only help push things in the right direction - shale gas production will help stabilise volatile gas markets and reduce prices by boosting supply. This effect may be large, or it may be small, but I'd rather take my chances on a small benefit that could become a larger benefit, rather than just giving up before we even begin. And if companies want to take the risk by investigating money into shale gas exploration, that's their choice (I'm sure they did at least a little bit of research on the issue before sinking all that money in).

I should add that the rumour going round is that the next BGS shale gas reserves estimate is likely to be significantly upgraded. This is just a rumour at the moment, but it wouldn't surprise me.

BTW, I do love the contradiction inherent in so many anti-shale-gas commentaries - "shale gas would contribute considerably to our greenhouse gas emissions when we should be going renewable, but anyway there's not enough shale gas there to make an impact on our energy markets, so we shouldn't bother". Well, which is it? There's either enough down there to fry us all, or there isn't and we should be perfectly happy to let these companies waste all their money looking for something that will never be economic.

Finally, an interesting blog post from the US from someone in the heart of fracking country that is well worth a read. The author talks about how the money from shale gas exploration has helped her keep the family farm going, and about the wider economic boost that the area has experienced, while pointing out how exaggerated all of the shale gas scare stories really are.

The blog begins by talking about the new Matt Damon movie, the Promised Land, which is based around shale gas (Damon plays a company man tasked with getting the locals to sign gas leases, which goes swimmingly until all the pollution kicks off). There are some interesting rumours circulating about a final twist in the plot. Apparently, the OTT environmental campaigner turns out to be a company plant intending to discredit the environmental movement by smearing its members. I've no idea whether this will turn out to be true, but it seems pretty far-fetched to me!!! I guess we'll have to see.....

Another predicatably one-sided Guardian article

Isn't it frustrating when an organization that you otherwise identify with can be so completely dunderheaded over certain important issues. The Green Party's anti-scientific attitudes to homeopathy and to GM foods spring immediately to mind. And once again, my paper of choice (the Guardian) prints (yet another) poorly researched and in some aspects downright false articles about shale gas and fracking. So once again, my comments:

But evidence is mounting that fracking pollutes groundwater with a witches' brew of toxic chemicals, creating imminent threats to public health and safety. It has even caused earthquakes in Ohio.

One report from one test well in Wyoming. And some methane contamination from a poorly cemented well in Dimock, now dealt with and methane levels below acceptable limits once again. Does that count as 'evidence mounting'? I guess so. From several hundred thousand fracked wells across the US. No mention of the head of the EPA's views on shale gas. As for the earthquakes in Ohio - they were caused by waste-water injection, not fracking. Waste-water injection is a common practice throughout the oil industry. And if you're really against water injection, pass a regulation requiring companies to treat all their water at the surface - which is also common practice in many situations.

The detonation of explosive charges, coupled with the infusion of high-pressure fluids, fractures the shale, allowing the gas to bubble up to the surface.

The 'how-shocking-is-fracking' brigade love mentioning the explosives. Sounds dangerous, right? Truth is, explosives have been used to complete oil wells for as long as for ever. The explosives are not to blow the rock apart - they are small directed charges to pierce holes in the steel well-bore casing. It is the high-pressure fluid that moves into fractures and pushes them apart. Proppant (usually sand) is then injected to keep the fractures open, allowing the gas to flow to the well, where it rises to the surface.

The components of the fluids used for fracking are considered protected trade secrets, although they are known to contain toxins. Where the fracking fluids go is a key question.

The details of every chemical pumped down every well in the US is available on this website. It's getting to the point that one begins to suspect the journalists who still push the 'fracking-chemicals-are-trade-secrets' line are not just poorly informed/poorly researched, but outright promulgating lies to make their articles sound more dramatic (and thereby garner a larger following). As for this 'toxic witches' brew' - the latest fracking fluids are in fact safe to drink. Another thing that really bugs me is the use of the word 'cocktail' whenever people describe the fracking fluid (as in this 'cocktail of chemicals') - if someone handed my a cocktail that was 99% water and 1% active ingredient, I think I'd be finding a new barman!

As for where the fluids go? Between 30% to 50% come back up the well, meaning the rest is still in the ground, in the shale formation. These shale formations contain gas (of course). The gas will have been there for hundreds of millions of years. Natural gas, being buoyant and low viscosity, is one of the mobile fluids you can have in the subsurface. If the formation has been capable of trapping gas for 100,000,000 years, I'm pretty sure it can trap saline brines, which don't have any buoyancy force acting on them, and are much more viscous than gas. So in short, we know where the fluid has gone - it's trapped in the shale formation.

Fracking entered the national debate when the award-winning documentary Gasland, made by film-maker Josh Fox, showed how people living near fracking operations could easily set their kitchen tap water on fire.

Gasland did win plenty of awards, but mainly for it's artistic qualities (which, fair play, is really well shot) not for journalistic integrity. No mention of the state regulation findings that the gas coming out of the 'flaming faucets' was biogenic in origin, not thermogenic, meaning that it was gas from shallow bacterial processes, not related to the shale gas at depth (they have characteristically different isotopic signatures). Methane in water supplies is a common phenomena in many artisan wells across the US, and has been for centuries. Josh Fox knows this, but didn't consider it relevant to mention in his film. Gasland is not journalism, it's storytelling. Which is fine, but the Guardian is a newspaper, so it's supposed to do journalism.

Like every good journalist, and appropriately, in this post-Citizens United era, Fox follows the money

That would be the money flowing into his bank account as environmental groups around the world rush to buy screening rights and speaking engagements, on the basis of his film which strikes just the right controversial, highly unbalanced tone?

As I've said a million time now - shale gas extraction IS and industrial process, and as when any industrial process starts up in a new place, there should be a fair and rational discussion to weigh the potential risks and benefits. Which is why it's disappointing that the Guardian seems to be only interested in writing about scare stories and falsehoods.

Shale gas and emissions of greenhouse gases - finally put to bed

Burning methane (whether from shale gas or elsewhere) produces half as much CO2 per unit energy as coal. So switching from coal fired power stations to gas leads to significant reductions in CO2 emissions. This is why 5 to 10 years ago, every environmentalist was calling for a 'golden age for gas'.

However, methane itself is a potent greenhouse gas: 75 times more potent than an equivalent mass of CO2 over 20 year timescales, 20 times more potent over 100 years (the potency goes down over time because methane comes out of the atmosphere faster than CO2, meaning that if equivalent masses are released, the methane gets removed faster). So, if while extracting methane you end up releasing lots of it to the atmosphere, it can cause more warming than you save by burning gas instead of coal.

This was the suggestion made by Howarth, a professor at Cornell. Since then, the debate has rumbled on, with a number of rebuttals, including from Howarth's colleagues at Cornell. Nevertheless, I still see the 'shale gas is as bad as coal for the climate' line being trotted out regularly in news reports and discussions about shale gas.

However, I think the shale-gas and climate change issue can finally be put to bed. A new report for the European Commission has been produced, looking at the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for European shale gas. It runs to 158 pages, so I can't tell you I've read it all, but here are the highlights. These number are based on an assumption of a loss of 1 - 5% of the methane at the well head during the fracking process - generally accepted numbers for most people. So, what does that mean?

1.) Shale gas isn't as good as conventional European gas (i.e. from conventional fields, mainly in the North Sea and onshore Netherlands). GHG emissions from shale gas are 4% - 8% higher than conventional gas. But that was hardly surprising. However, our conventional gas fields are all beginning to run out.

2.) European shale gas may well be better than gas piped from Russia or Algeria, or shipped in as LNG. Obviously, it takes energy to transport gas from these distant places in to Europe, increasing the amount of GHG emitted per unit of energy you generate. So European shale gas has emissions 2% - 10% lower than piped Russian or Algerian gas, and 7% - 10% lower than gas imported as LNG. This is REALLY interesting - it says that if we plan to burn gas (even as a backup to large wind farms and solar), it should be our home-grown European shale gas, rather than gas imported from afar (not to mention the geopolitical implications of having to give Mr Putin et al all our money).
 
3.) Shale gas is significantly better than coal. Not surprising to people who have studied that numbers from previous studies, but hopefully if enough reports say this, I'll get to stop reading in newspapers and environmental publicity that shale gas is more dirty than coal. Emissions from shale gas-fueled electricity are 41 - 49% lower than emissions from coal. That's a really significant chunk we could take out of our GHG emissions just by switching from coal fired power to gas.

And is there evidence to back this up? There sure is! US CO2 emissions are plummeting as cheap shale gas displaces coal from the electricity generation market. While some of the 9% decrease in CO2 emissions can be attributed to improved efficiency reducing demand, and increased renewable energy sources, the major bulk (77% by John Hanger's estimate). Wouldn't it be nice if we could have cheaper energy bills while reducing our CO2 emissions over here in Europe?