Friday
Feb052016
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Now what were those arguments against shale gas again?
Feb 5, 2016 Energy: gas 
Next week, the long-awaited public inquiry into Cuadrilla's planned shale gas developments in Lancashire kicks off. Witnesses from Cuadrilla will face off with representatives of green groups and protestors. Weeks of fun will ensue.
Readers at BH will no doubt be looking forwards to Friends of the Earth trying to convince m'learned friends that builder's sand is a dangerous carcinogen.
Reader Comments (105)
@Mark Hodgson: thank you for your contribution. The problem with greenies is that they systematically dissemble. Their claims are not objective evidence but deliberately falsified in many cases, e.g. Greenpeace claiming silica is carcinogenic when the slightly increased cancer risk following Silicosis is probably from increased susceptibility to real carcinogens. If silica were a significant carcinogen, beaches and deserts would be no-go areas!
As for the Climate Models, in 1976 a GISS team used Science fraud to justify incorrect radiative physics in another paper. Together these two papers form the incorrect, fake heart of IPCC pseudoscience. The proof that it was Science Fraud is that in year 2000, a member of the original modelling team, James Hansen, then Director of GISS, admitted the deception to an American Institute of Physics interviewer. All these facts are recorded in open literature.
Thanks for the 3 responses, gents (I assume gents, even if that is sexist). I don't disagree with any of you. And I certainly understand where jferguson is coming from. Aware of my scientific limitations, I hope I only ever comment on generalities, which I feel are within my paygrade (high though that might be, Dung!). If I ever stray into areas where I obviously don't understand the science or other complexities, please feel free to call me out. I won't be offended, and might even try to avoid dissembling ;-)
Mark Hodgson,
thank you for your kind remarks. i once thought of writing on how much it was possible to accomplish with a 15 percent grasp of a thing, but decided that I must have been very very lucky not to be whacked by something in the remaining 85%. I suppose, if nothing else, i've gotten better at discerning who really does know what he/she is talking about. I'm sure you have, as well. cheers.
Having done the odd frack job, I have to agree that frac sand is potentially dangerous.
So dangerous that we ought to treat it like nuclear waste.
Bury it deep beneath the ground in specially constructed wells.
Maybe even force it into the formation under pressure ...
PC claims "the fracking process produces dust from the sand".
PC demonstrates an echo chamber understanding of fracking in his assertion.
Fracking takes place thousands of feet below ground.
Mixing the proppant into the fracking fluid (sand is a popular proppant) produces little if any dust.
Yes, it really is difficult to comprehend how such deliberate ignorance correlates to the level of extremism displayed by the true believer.
Yet here we have PC proving up the link in nearly every post.