You dont half develop strong wrists from whirling those Lancasters about to out turn those Messersmitts

Les

 

So I can only presume that you would happily drink the fracking liquid even though you dont know what they have laced it with!

Les

 

One can only hope that the strength of the profit motive does not overcome the responsibilities of the extracting firms in the future.

Les

 

No i wouldn't (and neither would i drink coal mine coolant, oil well lubricant or Vulcan bomber de-icer either) - but you obviously didn't read the link that said what was in the fracturing fluid! It is all gubbmint approved, non-hazerdous, non-toxic stuff.

Sure, if they are lying then sue their ***** - but until (and if), let them go about their legitimate buisiness,

mb

 

Seems odd to me that both you and Warren are basically cheer-leaders for this process. How comes?

 

I think we have to establish,and quickly,why we shouldn't go ahead with it


Or we could be left stranded like we are now, buying our leccy off the French cos we were forced to abandon nuclear ( due to the fear of it warping all our children if it ever got loose)

 

It's called progress.

 

and common sense

 

How is fracking 'progress'? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking action to reduce our dependency on other countries for fuel/energy but it still leaves us reliant on fossil fuels.

 

What are the alternatives? continue with being reliant imported fossil fuels? Renewables are no way near being able to achieve a level of sustainable energy this country requires let alone the escalating costs of this form of energy generation. Shale gas has the potential in securing this country's energy needs for many years to come, and the viability of this at the least needs to be explored.

 

How does the fact that a fuel is available from a domestic source rather than being bought in from overseas make any difference to whether or not it's necessary?

The elephant in the room that people seem afraid to mention is that, in the near to medium term at least, the alternative to fossil fuels isn't a happy, cheery land of windmills and solar panels. It's darkness, cold and misery because the lights have gone out and there's no heating any more.

There seems to be this unwritten assumption that the only reason renewables aren't our normal, everyday sources of light, heat and power is because of a lack of incentive - and that's complete b*llocks. Whoever manages to provide enough clean energy to actually supply the bulk of demand will make billions.

The stumbling block has nothing to do with incentive, it's not something that can be waved away with a dismissive shrug of "they'll figure it out". Politicians and the general public have no clue about the difference between something which is hard to do because it requires clever engineering, and something which is hard because there's a fundamental limit in the way.

The two words we should be seeing and hearing in every single news report about the subject are energy density, because energy density is the single biggest factor in determining the viability of any commercial power source. Sadly the fact is that basic science and arithmetic get little or no news coverage, and the result is that people remain afraid and confused about their options.

 

Well domestic fuel sources should (theoretically) be less susceptible to wider international market forces, so price should be more stable.

That and domestic sourcing makes the country less reliant on overseas supply, hence global politics have less of a baring on our supply.

 

Those factors will affect the price, but not the demand... there's very little correlation between the two, and demand for energy is supremely inelastic.

If the country's power stations still burn gas, then the burning of gas is what keeps the lights on - and wishing that the alternatives were viable doesn't make them so.

 

Err, because i don't want to spend future winters freezing and in the dark!

YMMV,

mb

 

From Friday Funny – fracktional thinking



mb

 

Yeah but in this particular situation we're talking factors on supply, as you say demand for energy is very price inelastic (with demand being much more dependant on non monetary factors).

Now supply in theory supply should be fairly price elastic. That being said however, I'm not sure how far that goes.

 

Fracking = short term solution to a long term problem

 

If you call 50 years short term - then yes

 

And in that sense, it's perfect

 

I am surprised that the government can approve the additives when they have excused the drilling firms from disclosing what they actually add to the fracking fluid.
Would it concern you if the fracking liquid contaminated the natural ground water, especially if it was your own water supply?
Les

 

Also if contamination did occur, there's no knowing how long it would last for, you really don't want to damage underground water aquifers.

 

Depends on what you define as perfect

 

Why don't we ask someone who knows something about fracking and science. Maybe someone as qualified as Former chief scientist Sir David King.

I'm sick of my energy bills going up, and there's plenty of reports in the press suggesting our bills are all going to go up another £140 this year, a lot of it down to the green levies. I don't want green energy, I want cheap energy.

 

Doesn't explain why you are being such an evangelist

 

http://www.water.org.uk/home/news/pr...n-gas-fracking

These people don't sound like they've read the daily fail, for goodness sake

 

Dave's thrown his full weight behind the scheme

 

I got notification of a 17.8% increase in my electricity costs last week.

 

Have you noticed that apart from being something of a ******** that his "full weight" is steadily increasing?

Les

 

Well this has been an entertaining read for someone in the oil and gas industry and who has had direct involvement with the drilling of wells related to fracking. I am not too sure where to begin with some of the nonsense written but I am tempted to start with the drilling/ fracking fluids. There has been talk of the radioactive waste left by this and yes, some drilling fluids are radioactive....but so is the house I live in as it's made from granite. When wells are drilled (oil/gas/whatever) they are 'logged' to obtain information about the formations being drilled through. There are hundreds of possible measurements made, but one of the standard ones is the measure of background gamma radiation in the formation. In 3 and a half years of working with well log data I have never seen a well where radiation levels hit zero. That is because all rock formation pretty much is radioactive. Now, when drilling wells a common additive to drilling mud (the liquid used to cool the bit, remove cuttings and through which real-time telemetary is pumped) is Potassium which as, I'm sure most will know, is radioactive. So when this 'radioactive' mud is pumped into the well I'm sure you all imagine the gamma ray reading tool suddenly goes off the scale with the stuff.... nope, it just goes up a bit and actually 99% of the time the gamma radiation is still lower than can be found in many naturally occuring formations.

Next point is all these mystery fluids that are being used and chemicals that the government don't know about. This is absolute nonsense of the first order. There are legal requirements for fluids and their compositions to be documented. And they are. I can look up some of these documents right now if I so wanted to. The industry is very heavily regulated and it's not just a bunch of 'evil and secretive' companies sneaking about behind the authorities backs as some of you would have us believe.

I see little point in continuing to go through more points so what I will say is this - the people who are regulating this industry know more about it that what a few NIMBYs do. And the companies drilling and fracking have no interest in fouling up anything - they make money from this so the last thing they want is for some massive environmental disaster that will cause a knee jerk reaction from the government and see the whole thing banned.

And for those of you excited by it being just a short term solution, well so is petrol but you are all on a car forum driving cars powered by the stuff. Ultimately there will need to be life after the hydrocarbon fuel, but until progress is made in the renewable and green sectors we need to use what we can access....and I for one quite like a world with power in it. Stop worrying people, this isn't going to kill the children and poison us all!

 

You're just in the pay of big oil......