Fracking firms should offer sweeteners – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/26/fracking-sweeteners-locals  ( 26 April 2013  see also fmn 105)

MP say cash -for -locals- scheeme could overcome shale gas fracking opposition http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/26/cash-locals-shale-gas-fracking-uk

SCOTLAND

Dart Energy are the leading unconventional gas player in Scotland. A Sunday Herald investigation on the weekend revealed that the calorific content of the gas from their flagship Airth coal bed methane project is too poor to feed directly into the grid. It seems as though they will have to boost it by adding propane, which will damage profit margins and make the project even more unpopular with locals.

Story below plus links to coverage of Dart’s financial woes and misleading public re fracking.
cheers

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/environment/revealed-secret-scots-fracking-plans.20661744
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/burning-issue-poor-gas-quality-could-end-scots-drilling-plan.20723754
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/business/company-news/dart-energy-scraps-ipo-and-sheds-jobs.20683286

Burning issue: poor gas quality could end Scots drilling plan
By Rob Edwards Environment Editor
Sunday 7 April 2013
Controversial plans to exploit underground gas in central Scotland could be stymied by problems with the quality of the gas, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The troubled Australian company Dart Energy has applied for planning permission to extract up to 60 billion cubic feet of coalbed methane at Airth, near Falkirk.

It has signed a £300 million deal with SSE for the supply of gas over the next seven years, and has said it hopes to start delivery before the end of this year.

But the Sunday Herald has seen evidence that the calorific value of the gas, which is crucial in determining its price for consumers, is unlikely to be high enough for the National Grid.

Dart has been warned about the problem by independent consultants.

The company has been told that the gas may need to be blended with higher-quality gas on the grid, which, if permitted, would have cost implications.

Anti-fracking protesters set up drilling rig in George Osborne’s constituency

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/04/anti-fracking-rig-george-osborne

Opinion: Fracking is a threat to health and well-being
By Charlotte Wilson, Special to CNN

Editor’s note: Charlotte Wilson is a campaigner for Frack Off, a website and grass roots movement in the UK dedicated to the elimination of fracking, a controversial process to extract oil and gas trapped in rocks underground by blasting water into the rocks to release the gas.

(CNN) — As easier-to-extract fossil fuels are depleted, techniques that involve more effort, environmental destruction and carbon emissions are being developed.

Each new wave of more extreme extraction methods, be it tar sands, deep water drilling or mountain top removal, brings a new level of destruction to the area concerned.

In the UK, gas production from the North Sea is in terminal decline. Prices have risen and consumption is falling.

It is within this context that the UK government has proposed building up to 40 new gas-fired power stations in the hope that some unconventional gas will be found to fuel them. This apparently insane gamble does have some, admittedly warped, reasoning behind it.

The threat to the energy corporations, whose influence in government is huge, is not energy shortages, from which they will profit handsomely, but sensible energy conservation which will make people less dependent on them. Whatever the outcome of that gamble, higher prices and less gas are assured, but the destruction of communities and the environment however, is something we do have a choice about.

In the U.S., the shale gas boom is fast turning into a bust. Fracking companies are losing money hand over fist, drilling has slumped, prices are rising and gas production looks set to decline. The drop in demand due to the 2008 recession is what has lowered U.S. natural gas prices and emissions, not shale gas. It is clear that the idea being pushed of a shale-fuelled economic miracle is just so much hot air, fuelled by the usual irrational exuberance.

The impact which a desperate scramble for unconventional gas will have on the UK would be profound. The tens of thousands of wells and thousands of miles of pipelines would have a vast greater impact than has been seen in the U.S. or Australia. The UK is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. As the evidence of water contamination, air pollution and health effect from the U.S. and Australia mounts up, people in the UK are scared.

The UK government is preparing to sell off over half the country for fracking in the next year. It has instituted an Office of Unconventional Gas and Oil to cut though what little regulations previously existed. Plans are also afoot to take planning decisions about these developments out of the hands of regional governments so that local communities will have even less influence of the outcomes.

On a global scale the threat from the exploitation of unconventional gas is even more dire. We cannot afford to burn the all the conventional fossil fuel reserves. The three main unconventional gas techniques are shale gas, coal bed methane (CBM/CSG) and underground coal gasification (UCG), which literally involved setting fire to coal seams underground to exploit the energy released. Between them they could unlock enough carbon to cause a five to 10 degrees Celsius global temperature increase.

In the UK, as with many countries around the world, ordinary people are organizing to resist this invasion of their communities. Groups are being formed, public meetings are being held, films are being made and protests are being organized.

People in the UK do not believe that their health and well-being should be sacrificed for the profit of a few. We take particular heart from Australia where a growing movement of organized communities appears to having some success in resisting the spread of fracking companies.

The message is clear — fracking and associated extreme energy methods like tar sands extraction, are intrinsically destructive to people and the planet.

They must and will be opposed wherever they are being imposed on communities. In the end, fracking is a road to nowhere and the sooner we start heading back towards safety ground the better it will be for all of us.

www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/opinion/uk-fracking-threat-wilson/

www.frack-off.org.uk

Gas maffia - http://frack-off.org.uk/gas-mafia-infilitrates-greenest-government-ever/

http://www.eaem.co.uk/news/shale-gas-fracking-needs-tighter-regulation-eu-reports
EU report comment: – EU report comment

Osborne to offer tax breaks for shale gas- http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/osborne-to-offer-tax-breaks-for-shale-gas-8373865.html  (2 Dec. 2012)

Two very contrasting opinion pieces on shale gas in the UK

The first is from Boris Johnson who is the Mayor of London, a leading light in the Conservative party (the largest party in the governing coalition) and a possible next party leader. It’s at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/9733518/Ignore-the-doom-merchants-Britain-should-get-fracking.html

The second is from Andrew Rawnsley, one of the UK’s leading political commentators, in the centre-left Observer newspaper. It’s at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/09/shale-gas-frackheads-dubious-dream

This is all in the context of finance minister George Osborne announcing last week a consultation on tax breaks for the shale gas industry and a new Government office to speed up development, and ahead of a decision by Energy Secretary Ed Davey (who is from the junior coalition partners the Liberal Democrats) on whether Cuadrilla should be allowed to resume fracking.

Britain lifts ban on fracking – http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1213/breaking2.html (13 December 2012)

Fracking for shale gas gets green light in UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/13/fracking-shale-gas-green-light

The coalition’s support for fracking is based on ideology, not evidence- http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2012/12/coalitions-support-fracking-based-ideology-not-evidence

UK Government Reshuffle Positive for Oil and Gas – http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/120466/UK_Government_Reshuffle_Positive_for_Oil_and_Gas

Orkney - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/28/orkney-green-energy-wave-power

LISTEN

Fossil fuels, on the way back?- http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9685000/9685024.stm (24 Jan 2012)

Until recently, fossil fuels have widely been seen among scientists and environmental campaigners as a diminishing resource.

Science correspondent Tom Feilden reports on how the discovery of techniques to extract shale gas has rapidly changed the world of energy generation.

Fracking: answer to our energy crisis, or could it be a disaster for the environment - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/25/fracking-plans-pollution-uk-water  (25 February 2012)

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/government-backtracks-on-fracking-7768853.html  (20 May 2012)

Short article with basic info about shale gas and a map of energy resources in the UK and NI  – http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/energy/shaleGas.html

 University of Aberdeen and the research partners - http://www.abdn.ac.uk/geology/research/

The hunt for gas and the threat to Scotland – http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/the-hunt-for-gas-and-the-threat-to-scotland.16986259  (11 March 2012)

UK shale gas: an energy red herring? – http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=115800 (7 March 2012)

Fracking and coalbed methane – http://energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-11/fracking-and-coalbed-methane-unconventional-gas-uk (11 October 2011) Article about shale gas, method, maps of the UK and growing demand on energy with diagraph

Groundbraking data - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/oct/21/data-tracks-carbon-emissions-source

Fracking report

Shale oil and gas will help make western hemisphere self sufficient -http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/18/shale-oil-gas-us-energy-self-sufficient (18 Jan 2012)

Shale gas worse than coal for climate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053040  12 April 2011

Shale gas push ‘would wreck UK’s climate change targets - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/23/shale-gas-climate-change-targets

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REGULATIONS
__________________________________________________________________________________________

The UK’s lack of fracking regulations is insane (31 August 2011)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/aug/31/fracking-issues-resolve

Fracking industry will be minimally regulated in the UK -  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/23/fracking-industry-minimal-regulation-uk (23 September 2011)

Letters revealing lack of fracking regulation in the UK
Correspondence on shale gas regulation between government and its agencies, and former oil and gas engineer Mike Hill – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2011/sep/26/letters-fracking-regulation-uk

Please click on image for full story

Call for  moratorium on HF  by UK Parliament members  – http://www.edms.org.uk/2010-11/2292.htm  (20 October 2011)

Wiki leaks  23 December 2010
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2010/12/23/wikileaks-shells-secret-speculation-about-irish-gas-fields/

Irelands windfarms to fulfill UK’s sustainable energy demandand less depending on fossil fuels

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/18/ireland-wind-power-grid

 Tamboran quietly builds gas vehicle (18th March 2011)

Fracking for gas prompts Irish government study - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15202704 (6 Oct 2011)

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 FRACKING AND ECONOMY
_________________________________________________________________________________

BG cuts back on fracking for shale gas as prices slides
“BG Group has become the latest major energy giant to scale back on shale gas production amid falling prices …. BG said on Thursday that its production target for US shale gas would be 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day [boepd] in 2015, more than half the previous estimate of 190,000. ”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/09/bg-cuts-back-on-fracking-shale-gas-prices (9 February 2012)

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LANCASHIRE
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Energy firm Cuadrilla discovers huge gas reserves under Lancashire – http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/sep/23/blackpool-shale-gas-cuadrilla (24 September 2011)

Sonar studies to start across the county – http://www.lep.co.uk/news/lep-business/sonar_studies_to_start_across_county_1_3971975

Doubts raised about giant shale gas find in England – http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE78M3J820110923?irpc=932  (23 September 2011)

Shale gas drillling protest camp sets up in Lancashire – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- england-lancashire-14943127  (16 September 2011)

A blog following a visit to the Cuadrilla drilling site in Lancashire, UK- http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/campaigning/campaigns_news/?5535/Cuadrilla-defends-shale-gas—but-are-we-convinced

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BLACKPOOL – EARTHQUAKES
________________________________________________________________________________________

Blackpool earthquake tremors may  have been caused by gas drilling  - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/01/blackpool-earthquake-tremors-gas-drilling

Drilling did cause earthquake - http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/local/drilling_did_cause_earthquake_1_3876146 (15 October 2011)

Probe into ‘crazy’ shale gas loophole -
A LOOPHOLE which allowed a shale gas company to drill without a full environmental report is to be reviewed after it was claimed water contamination was a possibility.
www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/local/probe_into_crazy_shale_gas_loophole_1_4228619
(9 Febr 2012)

Cuadrilla fracking linked to earthquakes - http://www.naturalgaseurope.com/cuadrilla-fracking-linked-to-earthquakes-3051 (16 October 2011)

Firm says shale fracking caused earthquakes - http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/11/02/uk-firm-shale-gas-idUKTRE7A12QQ20111102

Fracking tests near Blackpool ‘likely cause’  of tremors - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15550458 (2 November 2011) Report from Cuadrilla

Cuarilla press release and link to report: http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Cuadrilla-Resources-Press-Release-02-11-11.pdf  (2 November 2011)

Final Report  Blackpool and earthquakes.
Lead investigator Dr. de Pater was the special guest at a briefing for TDs and senators hosted by Senator Susan O’Keeffe at in Leinster House  in Dublin  – http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Final_Report_Bowland_Seismicity_02-11-11.pdf  (article is removed: search the site for this article and appendix)
Here the report: http://ubuntuone.com/0WnMyhFyBhad8QckRQAdzT

When fracking get dangerous - http://www.streetnewsservice.org/news/2011/december/feed-308/when-%E2%80%98fracking%E2%80%99-gets-dangerous-800-holes-in-blackpool.aspx

Drilling and home insurance – http://www.homequotedirect.co.uk/home-insurance-blog/2011/11/controversial-drilling-procedure-may-affect-home-insurance-premiums/
Sitting and shaking in your house with a huge mortgage…..

Shale gas, a little nonsense please – http://blogs.endsreport.com/carbonandenergy/2011/11/17/shale-gas-a-little-less-nonsense-please/
……. relaxe, it is only a matter of perception…..

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Questions in the Parliament – http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2011-11-14a.79927.h&s=hydraulic+frac

Fracking probably cause of Lancashire earthquake – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/02/fracking-cause-lancashire-quakes?CMP=twt_fd (2 November 2011)

Shale gas is no game-changer in the UK – Damian Carrington’s Environment blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/nov/03/shale-gas-game-changer-fracking (3 November 2011)
Gas fracking, loved by some and loathed by others, can cause earthquakes. But, say the money men, it is unlikely to send major tremors through the UK energy market

Fracking Protesters storms shale gas site. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/02/fracking-protesters-storm-shale-gas-site

Anti fracking campaigners climb Lancashire rig again - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2011/dec/01/fracking-lancashire-hesketh-bank-cuadrilla (1 December 2011)

 Frack Off!’ 500 ft high Banner Drop Off Blackpool Tower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft7Y7hTTCtY

Statement of cuadrilla re: to protesters - http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Preese-Hall-Statement-02-11-11.pdf  (2 November 2011)page removed to: http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/protecting-our-environment/seismicity/what-happened/

Listen to Open Country – Fracking in Lancashire
Does the Lancashire landscape hold the key to cheaper gas bills? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgft

Exploration company’s arrival divides English village – http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1212/1224308954056.html ( 12 December 2011)

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 SOUTH WALES – VALE
___________________________________________________________________________________________

A decision on an application to test drill for gas in the Vale of Glamorgan is deferred by the county council for a site visit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/news/uk-wales-15101164  (29 September 2011)

___

SCOTLAND
________________________________________________________________________________________


Scotland fracking for gas given the green light – http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/fracking_for_gas_given_the_green_light_1_1950654______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
OFFSHORE
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Reuters -http://uk.news.yahoo.com/north-sea-drilling-hits-eight-low-182455954.html(19 October 2011)

Shale gas worse than coal for climate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13053040

Shale oil and gas will help make western hemisphere self sufficient -