by Matt Ridley - The Times 15th Aug 2013
Shale gas does not cause earthquakes, pollute water or use
toxic chemicals. Wind turbines do far more damage.
It was the US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who once said:
"You are entitled to your opinions, but not to your own facts."
In the debate over shale gas, I refuse to call it the
fracking debate, as fracking has been happening in this country for decades -
the opponents do seem to be astonishingly cavalier with the facts.
Here are five things they keep saying that are simply false.
First, that shale gas production has polluted aquifers in
America.
Second, that it releases more methane than other forms of
gas production.
Third, that it uses a worryingly large amount of water.
Fourth, that it uses hundreds of toxic chemicals.
Fifth, that it causes damaging earthquakes.
None is true.
Let's start with the aquifers claim. The total number that
has been found to be polluted by either fracking fluid or methane gas as a
result of fracking in the United States is zero. Allegation after allegation
has been found to be untrue. The Environmental Protection Agency closed its
investigation at
Dimock, Pennsylvania, concluding there was no evidence of
contamination; abandoned its claim that drilling in Parker County, Texas, had
caused methane gas to come out of people's taps; and withdrew its allegations
of water contamination at Pavilion, Wyoming, for lack of evidence. Two recent peer-reviewed
studies concluded that groundwater contamination from fracking is "not
physically plausible".
The movie Gasland showed a case of entirely natural gas
contamination of water and the director knew it, but still pretended it might
have been caused by fracking. Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary, said this
month:
"I still have not seen any evidence of fracking per se
contaminating groundwater." Tens of thousands of wells drilled, two
million fracking operations completed and not a single proven case of
groundwater contamination. It may happen one day, of course, but few industries
can claim a pollution record that good.
Next comes the claim that shale gas production results in
more methane being released to the atmosphere than coal. (Methane is a more
powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but stays in the atmosphere for a
shorter time and its concentration is not currently rising fast.) This claim
originated with a Cornell biology professor with an axe to grind. Study after
study has refuted it. As a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology put
it: "It is incorrect to suggest that shale-gas-related hydraulic
fracturing has substantially altered the overall [greenhouse gas] intensity
of natural gas production."
Third comes the claim that fracking uses too much water. The
Guardian carried a report this week implying that a town in Texas is running
dry because of water used for fracking. Yet in Texas 1 per cent of water use is
for fracking; in the US as a whole it is 0.3 per cent - less than is used by golf
courses. If parts of Texas run out, blame farming, by far the biggest user.
Fourth, the ever-so-neutral BBC - in a background briefing -
has described fracking as releasing "hundreds of chemicals" into the
rock. Out by an order of magnitude, Auntie. Fracking fluid is 99.51 per cent
water and sand. In the remaining 0.49 per cent there are 13 chemicals, all of
which can be found in your kitchen, garage or bathroom: citric acid (lemon
juice), hydrochloric acid (swimming pools), glutaraldehyde
(disinfectant), guar (ice cream), dimethylformamide (plastics), isopropanol
(deodorant), borate (hand soap); ammonium persulphate (hair dye); potassium
chloride (intravenous drips), sodium carbonate (detergent), ethylene glycol
(de-icer), ammonium bisulphite (cosmetics) and petroleum distillate
(cosmetics).
As for earthquakes, Durham University's definitive survey of
all induced earthquakes over many decades concluded that "almost all of
the resultant seismic activity [from fracking] was on such a small scale that
only geoscientists would be able to detect it" and that mining, geothermal
activity or reservoir water storage causes more and bigger tremors.
The media has done a poor job of challenging the Frack Off
rent-a-celeb mob with factual rebuttals. So the debate is not between two
sincerely held but opposite arguments; it is an unequal contest between truth
and lies. No wonder honest folk such as the residents of Balcombe are
frightened.
Now it appears that the Diocese of Blackburn has circulated
a leaflet about how fracking "has lured landowners to sign leases to drill
on their land" and that it could cause lasting harm to "God's
glorious Creation". Hang on, bishop. Did you say the same about wind
power? Let's run a quick comparison.
Luring landowners with money: wind farms pay up to £100,000
per turbine to landowners and most of that comes from additions to ordinary
people's electricity bills. What has the Church to say about that?
Spoiling God's glorious creation: as Clive Hambler, of
Oxford University, has documented, each year between 6 million and 18 million
birds and bats are killed in Spain alone by wind turbines, including rare
griffon vultures, 400 of which were killed in a year, and even rarer Egyptian
vultures. In
Tasmania wedge-tailed eagles are in danger of extinction
because of wind turbines. Norwegian wind farms kill ten white-tailed eagles
each year. German turbines kill 200,000 bats a year, many of which have
migrated hundreds of miles.
The wind industry, which is immune from prosecution for
wildlife crime, counters that far more birds are killed by cars and cats, and
likes to point to a spurious calculation that if the climate gets very warm and
habitats change then the oil industry could one day be said to have killed off
many birds. But when was the last time your cat brought home an
imperial eagle or needle-tailed swift?
Wind turbines are not only far more conspicuous than gas
drilling rigs, they cover vastly more area. Only ten hectares (25 acres) of oil
or gas drilling pads can produce more energy than the entire British wind
industry. Which
does the greatest harm to God's glorious creation, bishop?
Wind provides about 1 per cent of our total energy. Last
weekend I drove from Caithness to Northumberland. View after view was spoilt by
the spinning monsters: alongside the Pentland Firth, above Dornoch, in the
Monadliaths, in the Lammermuirs, in the Cheviots, on Simonside. I was looking
at maybe one tenth of 1 per cent of all our energy production and an even
smaller impact on carbon emissions. Trivial benefit; vast cost.
You don't need to lie to criticize wind power on environmental
grounds. The truth is shocking enough.
Comments:
It’s fun to see some Brits defending “fracking” and pointing
out the down-side of “green energy”
For a while now, academics have been looking at the
world-wide production of crude oil to top out and decline. They called it “Peak Oil” This has not
occurred. We produced 74.6 thousand
barrels in 2012, up from 66.3 thousand barrels in 2000. Each time oil production flattened, the
academics “called wolf” and the drillers adopted new methods to drill in new
areas. This past year, a boat-load of
new oil was found in the U.S. and Canada, just laying there for the fracking.
With the death of the global warming hoax, we should be free
to drill and keep our cars running. We
should also be allowed to drop ethanol and abolish tighter mileage standards. We
wasted billions of printed dollars trying to implement wind and solar. We need
to send “green energy” back to the lab for a few more decades to develop
alternate sources to become competitive with current fuels.
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