Bishop Hill The state of independence
Jun 12, 2015 Energy: gas Greens Media The Independent is nothing if not independent. Their article on shale gas today is a case in point. It seems that the government is going remove the requirement for public consultation ahead of exploration drilling. A fairly unexceptionable proposal you might have thought, but not for the Indy, which ploughs its very own furrow, steering well clear of the real world. So we have the usual litany of innuendo from the usual dismal suspects - Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and our old friend Robert Gross from Imperial - as well as the casual repetition of long-since-debunked green propaganda: earthquakes and water contamination and the like.
You would have thought in the very week that the US EPA announced that it had been unable to identify any inherent risks from unconventional oil and gas drilling the Indy might have been a little more cautious. But no, they have always been Independent and independent they will remain.
Independent of science, independent of reason, independent of integrity.
Reader Comments (94)
golf charlie...on the nail!
Eleanor Hawkins getting into the buff on the peak of Malaysia's mountain religious icon and posting a new-age selfie seems perhaps a mite insensitive but definitely inconsistent. I think she may have got into the buff to be closer to Gaia.
It was Gaia that expressed her tectonic displeasure a few days later and for which the locals made their incorrect causal attribution. After all, they have literary models that reliably predict associations of this nature with their god. They just got their gods mixed up.
EM
try this and try to wean yourself off the twerps at HuffPo with a bit more keyboard and clicking.
" Tomo
I am less interested in the source, than in the ability of a fracked well to kill
vegetation and force the permanent evacuation of houses 1/4 of a mile away."
EM, you didn't answer me, but as other people have said this is nothing to do with fracking but slightly mucky oil. It doesn't take long to clean up. Also there are alot of Organic Food people who much prefer Oil to artificial things like GM produced biofuel, I'm surprised you haven't met them? From what I've read I assume you are anti oil but pro wind/nuclear/gad is that correct?
Entropic you rightly raise legit concerns about Fracking contaminating the local water table.
So Entropic would you you drink the water if it was flowing next to a Cobalt Lithium or Graphite mining operation in China or African for use in the manufacture of Batteries for the demand Electric Hybrid Vehicles in the West
Tesla cars in Reno Nevada import their batteries in from China rather than from inside the U S and Canada.Maybe the notorious Chinese lax attitude to workers Health and Safety. and pollution. Cheap and out of sight.
So once again it's the poor exploited workers in the developing world having to pay for western environmentalist vanity.
Trial drilling should be delivered by government diktat. That is what they're there for; to make and impose decisions. £100k per test drill to the local community as a fee.
If a well is found to be unviable or there's 'issues' above a trigger threshold, then it's a no to full drilling. If it's potentially viable and passes safety issues, the frackers pay to the local community and away we go.
The whole thing has been a complete farce so far with environmentalist (mostly scaremongering) concerns given far too much weight. . Enough is enough.
EM
There is information in your "mess like this" link that you do not mention although you must be well aware of it? It should be a 'listed' site by now since it looks like one of the earliest wells I have seen; no horizontal drilling and an open cesspit of a waste liquid pool. I certainly would not like to live anywhere near that site. Back when that well was drilled there would have been little if any regulation and a single well today would replace all the wells in the picture.
Just because we favour fracking does not mean we are in favour of pollution or increased danger to human life but as many have pointed out there is danger in many other industries. Air travel is thought to be the safest form of travel even though we know that there will be a few accidents and unfortunately some aircraft will crash and hundreds will die.
The decisions are always a balance and you can not exclude risk from the world even if you never leave your home.
I noticed the length of time that was quoted for increased noise and traffic at the exploratory Cuadrilla wells, some of these were totally unrealistic but the increase would certainly occur. What people need to remember is that the shale deposit under Blackpool is the 'thickest (from the top of the deposit to the deepest point) and potentially the richest ever discovered The full thickness of the shale is unknown since Cuadrilla stopped drilling when they got 6000 feet into the seam. Nobody has ever explored a seam as thick as this so the exploratory work will take much longer, however once the exploration is finished then traffic will be much much less. To gain a national asset as potentially rich as this should be worth a short disruption.
What happens to air travel once we ban fossil fuels?
cheshirered, if only the same criteria were applied to windfarms ......
If a proper assessment of the damage caused, against the amount of power delivered was blended with the cost of the subsidies forcibly extracted from taxpayers in order to pay for them and enrich the developers, it would be a miracle if any got built at all.
The bitter irony of failed socialist economics being exploited by the greedy few, at vast cost to the population, without any gain whatsoever, is simply not understood by politicians accepting large "donations".
In other news. Lancashire farmers group together to support fracking.h/t GWPF
Farmers Sign Up To Support Drive For UK Shale Gas
Date: 13/06/15
Lancashire Evening Post
Shale gas supporters have set up an “agriculture panel” designed to show Fylde coast farmers how to work with the industry should it get the go-ahead.
The North West Energy Task force, a pressure group made up of businesses, has formed the new group, made up of four Lancashire farmers and GrowHow, a primary nitrogen fertiliser producer.
They will advise the Task Force on how the development of shale gas will impact UK food security and the agricultural sector.
Farmers James Harrison, John Loftus, Timothy Laycock, and Jack Wright form the panel.
Jack, who lives close to a shale gas operations site, said: “I have a borehole where I get the water from for watering my farm. The Environment Agency tests it every six months. Cuadrilla Resources have been operating in the area and the water hasn’t altered one iota.”
Anti-fracking campaigners maintian that most farmers are against fracking because of the potential threat through pollution of land, water and air and the impact on rural life.
Debbie Baker, a spokesperson from GrowHow, who is advising the panel, said: “Natural gas is the primary ingredient within fertiliser. A new source of gas within the UK, helps to diversify supply and potentially stabilise costs. “
@golf charlie - She wasn't naked ..the girls were only topless (even the guys had hands covering in the photo)
I'm in Sabah and can see strong parallels with the way Climate stories are run. Just like in the UK The press & internet gangs don't let the facts stand in the way of a good narrative ..allowing the buildup of witchburning hysteria.
- The facts presented yesterday by the prosecution seemed to be from a completely different case than the severe one they'd allowed to build up in the press. I'd been waiting for the full context & facts to emerge, but instead it was all rushed through. On being challenged the prosecution dropped the line about guide being present and being sworn at and just went with the defense admission from the 4 that they had taken some/all clothes off and taken a prank photo that they didn't think was going to cause any offense. (indeed ..complaints only came 3 days later)..Other claims/contradictions weren't even mentioned. Guess the full details/context will emerge in time.
..Meanwhile locals are wondering whatever happened to the tribal court prosecution that the politicians had been promising. Locals are generally very kind, but exaggerations/rumours are inclined to spread very easily.
- BTW Mainly due to the furore, on the day of the quake there were far fewer foreign backpackers on the mountain than normal ! Yes bizarre
Mick J, amazing how Green Economics was based on fresh air, and closer examination reveals that Fresh Air is what everyone can expect in return.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, the Green solution is to render the paying population powerless, and award power and its rewards to the chosen few.
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2015/jun/12/california-orders-large-water-cuts-farmers/
Blame Climate Change oh yeah.
Blame Environmental Legislation moratorium on dam or water pipeline construction in California for the last 15 years.
Thank Arnold.
EM: "Wind farms do not spray toxic liquids across the landscape."
No, they just leave huge toxic tailing ponds in China - so that's somewhere else you wouldn't want to live. What a pathetic piece of work you are.
we know Al Q'uardian is propped up for 1/3rd of their sales with OUR TAX MONEY by the indefinitely entitled scum in the bbc..its nice when you know 1/3rd of your daily produce is guaranteed..talking about equal playing field..
i wonder how this pile of parasites in "the independent of same thought" is propped up with our money??
There should be a word 'in-deep-end-ent' meaning someone prone to jumping in at the deep end without thinking.
jamspid, if only California had a green genius like Tim Flannery. He pushed for the construction of seawater desalination plants in Australia at huge cost to Australians who got no choice in the matter. The flooding that subsequently occurred was a bit of a wash out for everyone, especially the Green, who don't understand why no one takes them seriously any more. Maybe they should blame Mother Nature for wrecking their plans to save the world, from Mother Nature.
wind and also the lack of it , has cost the lives of millions of people throughout history..
ABOUT A MILLION TIMES MORE THAN NUKE ENERGY
when is the Left Scum gonna mke the first tally on THAT
Venus..
Greens don't do sums. Psuedo pscientific fwaudsters do, and Greens accept their fabricated sums, because they prove everything and anything they believed was unbelievably impossibly worse than they previously thought.
Green thinking is that simple. A few people know how simple Greens are, and exploit them. Everybody else has to suffer their simplicity.
EM: "Wind farms do not spray toxic liquids across the landscape."
In my neck of the woods the wind farms aren't doing much of anything just now due to there being no wind for them to farm.
Stonyground, windfarm subsidies grow, and are harvested whatever the weather. It is a miracle of the Green economy, that everybody else HAS to keep paying for, for years and years and years.
Subsidies are the only 'renewable' thing about unreliable power supplies.
EM,
The damage you are salivating over IS temporary. However this damage is permanent AND irrapairable;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2350267/Rare-bird-white-throated-needletail-killed-wind-turbine-crowd-twitchers.html
Then again it is only a winged rat.
Mailman
Analysis which shows the cause of climate change:
1. Establish a least-biased assessment of all reported measured average global temperatures (AGT).
2. From examination of historical AGT and historical solar cycles, form the hypothesis that a relation exists between sunspot numbers and the planet warming and cooling.
3. From examination of historical AGT and other information, determine that ocean cycles contribute to AGT and the effect of ALL ocean cycles on AGT can be approximated by a saw-tooth function with period 64 years and amplitude of approximately ±1//5 K (to be determined more precisely later).
4. Apply the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy) to obtain an equation relating the historical measurements. Incorporate coefficients on each term in the equation to facilitate optimizing the equation to best match the calculated temperature anomalies to the measured temperature anomalies.
5. Apply the mathematics of coefficient of determination, R2, to compare the calculated temperature anomalies to historical measured temperature anomalies.
6. Adjust the coefficients in the equation alternately and repeatedly to obtain the absolute maximum R2. This results in R2 greater than 0.90 irrespective of whether the influence of CO2 is included or not and an equation which predicts a future down trend in average global temperatures.
7. After Schwartz (2007) and other considerations, rapid (year-to-year) variations in reported average temperatures contain substantial random uncertainty as to the true energy content of the planet. This uncertainty is substantially removed by taking a running average of reported measurements. A 5-year running average increases R2 to greater than 0.97 leaving less than 3% to explain all factors not explicitly considered such as volcanos, aerosols, measurement errors, noncondensing greenhouse gases (the average sunspot number is a proxy accounting for average water vapor, the sunspot number anomaly is a proxy which accounts for cloud variations), difference from assumed wave form of ocean cycles, ice change, etc.
This analysis, along with independent proof that CO2 has no effect on average global temperature (and therefore no effect on climate) is at http://agwunveiled.blogspot.com .
Dan Pangburn, that is all jolly good, but the average Green can't spell IQ.
golf,
A lot of them can't read their own tattoos.
Michael hart
"Mud, plus hydrocarbons isn't that damaging. And bulk fracking chemicals are chosen to be relatively innocuous."
Then what killed the vegetation in that brown fan spreading out from the site towards the camera?
Michael hart
"Mud, plus hydrocarbons isn't that damaging. And bulk fracking chemicals are chosen to be relatively innocuous."
Then what killed the vegetation in that brown fan spreading out from the site towards the camera?
Probably mud and hydrocarbons, EM. That is, if the vegetation is actually dead and not just dirty due to being covered in mud and hydrocarbons, which seems more likely.
EM: "Then what killed the vegetation in that brown fan spreading out from the site towards the camera?" I don't know, you tell me. Agent Orange?
Beware, Entropic Man; that stuff is coming to take you away.
=========
EM was there a Green protest camp there? They are particularly damaging to the environment, with all their gas fires, charcoal barbeques, petrol generators and untreated sewage. None of them turn up in battery powered cars either, they have probably realised how uneconomic they are, and impractical unless you have a decent sized petrol generator in the boot.
Dear All:
This moronic f*ckwit that goes by the name of entropic man, has posted only 3 comments on this thread (one of which is a duplicate), yet between you all, you have responded with 20 retorts. You have let it totally derail this thread. Please DNFTT
EM of course it is possible that another Green publicity stunt went wrong, connecting gas tanks up to water hoses seemed popular for a while, trampling over another countries archaeological heritage got great publicity.
Is it possible that Green activists could have made another mistake? They have a proven track record to maintain, and so many idiots wanting to wreck something.
Salopian
Indeed. I am reminded of the aclarity with which hit blood cells rust to an infection site.
I suggest that further fracking discussion move across to the Discussion board.
Good suggestion EM
Just to get you started; you do not read many posts so you will have missed my earlier one of course, that well is an OLD well in the USA SO THE FRACKING FLUID COULD HAVE CONTAINED ANYTHING AT ALL.
O/T but funny: has anyone already calculated BBC carbon voice Roger Harrabin's carbon footprint of his yearlong "sabbatical" in the US ??
You know, the leisurely vacation while his TAXPAIDFOR job in the BBC remained guaranteed
Some lefty scum have it good, don't they.
@ EM, 9:22 am: "I am reminded of the aclarity with which hit blood cells rust to an infection site."
You seem to have suffered either a spellchecker or cerebral malfunction, silly troll.
Salopian, EM is obviously referring to some top secret medical advances, that only he knows about. His medical knowledge, like his understanding of climate science, is simply not of this world.
Is an "aclarity' a red wine from the bordeaux region? I wasn't sure if a pun was intended given the haematology reference.
Salopian
Both.
I post using a tablet which is very keen to change whatever I write. Sometimes I spot them, sometimes not. That should have been white cells, of course.
Golf Charlie
Nice pun. ☺Wish I'd thought of it.
Salopian
Both.
I post using a tablet which is very keen to change whatever I write. Sometimes I spot them, sometimes not. That should have been white cells, of course.
Golf Charlie
Nice pun. ☺Wish I'd thought of it.
Golf Charlie: Is this the new warmist excuse - " It wasn't me Guv, honest, really, I never said that, all that global warming and hockey stick stuff - it was my tablet, I was out the back having a fag in the bike-shed, and my tablet did it all by itself - and posted it twice again, honest."
As this discussion seems to have spread over two threads, let me risk your collective ire by repeating myself:
Entropic Mann: you maintain that the vegetation in this case was killed – what evidence you have of that is a photograph with a lot of brown vegetation. As has been pointed out, what has been blown out of the well was a lot of muddy water, which suggests that it could be a strong probability that the reason the vegetation is brown is that it is covered with mud; the probability of instant-death browning of the plants is not high. The plants might not appreciate this covering, and might have trouble photosynthesising, but this does not necessarily mean that they are dead, or will die.
Salopian, maybe an unexpected ray of sunshine caused a spike in the supply from the photovoltaic panels. This was not forecast by the Holy Hockey Stick.
EM,
You mean it's the tablets fault for changing your original well reasoned and thoughtful posts to what we see now? ;)
Regards
Mailman
Let me call a halt to this silliness about Entropic Man. Even I, dim as I might be, could see what was meant, and can understand how touch-screen tablets (or phones, in my case) can seriously corrupt your typing. Accept EM’s explanation and stop these childish taunts. Return to reasoned, rational argument, else you will soon be accused of descending into the gutter which we maintain is presently the preserve of the alarmist community.