Fracking

Fracking protestors and their oil-derived possessions

Government will not reach decisions on energy because they know that whatever decisions they reach will cause ructions in a sizeable proportion of the public, from those who object to wind farms/nuclear reactors/or any power generation scheme anywhere near them, to the natural environment groups worried about newts or seabirds, and those who object to the power source of any generating plant because either it is renewable - or not renewable.

I understand the politician's dilemma, but they are elected to make the hard decisions. Sadly, as JessM so elegantly puts it, the current lot and there predecessors, lack cojones

Indeed elegran - such high quality evidence is indisputable.
I have heard this misconception once before and laughed then too. Of course they remove a little energy from the wind not create it.
As a "local" now I think the wind farms along the N Wales coast are beautiful.
The sad thing is that there is so much energy squandered and that successive governments have no cojones when it comes to legislating.

It they make more wind than they use to create power, they must be connected up back to front. How to refute such evidence is difficult indeed, in fact impossible!

Deserving thanks for a great laugh:
"the wind they blow in makes it a lot colder on the front than it used to be How can anyone possibly refute this evidence, straight from the horses mouth?"

And - thank you to those who have researched all this for teaching me about it!

I bet, then when cracking finally gets the go ahead, middle England and other middle class communities will be the last to have it taking place near them!

(And please, I am not getting at any GNs who happen to live in such places - I did myself until recently.)

deserving

Frack by all means, bring on the nuclear power stations, they were needed yesterday. The cost for the delays will be enormous. A vociferous few are costing us billions. Being more than vociferous more obstreperous they grab attention, seem to be representative of more than they are, and frighten the government who are mainly interested in votes.
Wind power is a complete waste of money, water power is very limited in its application, we are frightened of ,(were we capable of doing so,) opening up the pits again. To be honest little else remains. I have not bothered to look at those scaremongering sites, many are biased and based on conjecture and few facts.
Let me give you a fact,one that I can personally vouch for, I heard it myself. Off the seafront at Llandudno a "farm" of wind turbines has sprung up, and like in other places has done nothing for the view.And has probably produced an insignificant amount of electricity compared to the cost of the installation.
A visitor to this seaside resort, apparently a longstanding visitor was remarking , within earshot," Those look ugly, they spoil the place, and the wind they blow in makes it a lot colder on the front than it used to be" How can anyone possibly refute this evidence, straight from the horses mouth?

Jack I am absolutely with you, what I find so frustrating is that those who most deplore fracking and the use of hydrocarbons, to supply power in the short and medium term 2015 - 2030 never tell us in any detail how else that power could be supplied, all we get is pious generalisations like; 'We must use renewables'

We desparately need the gas for power stations yet to be built for our electricity supply which we are in grave danger of losing. Without electricity no water would come into your home or be taken away after use for the pumps that serve you are powered by electricty. Without electricity you name it, it would cease to work. If wind and water power were so wonderful why did our forefathers give up windmills and water wheels; because they were unreliable. They went to steam, but we have progressed beyond even that. We need oil and gas until we can master nuclear fusion to save us going back beyond the dark ages.

Most sand comes from gravel pits or offshore, by a mile or two. I know it can affect the habitats of some sea creatures but I had not heard of it undermining beaches before.

Demand for sand and other aggregates has fallen over the last few years because demand is closely associated with the construction industry, which has been in recession during the recession

Funnily enough as I write this I can see the Wickes lorry that delivered a sack containing a cubic metre of pea shingle to us disappearing down the road. It probably comes from a local gravel pit. Together with the mind boggling quantities of gravel that I and my immediate neighbours have had delivered and spread over our common access road. I feel confident that when all other sources of gravel are exhausted there will be several years supply available from that access road.

Apparently we are using up sand at a phenomenal rate...........undermining beaches etc.

Chuckle: "carconogenic crystalline silica"; that's SAND to sane people

As far as I am concerned if they want to frack the land close to my house I have no concerns whatsoever. Ditto building a nuclear electricity generation station. I have lived close to nuclear sites of various kinds for nearly 60 years without once worrying about it.

As James Lovelock himself has pointed out nuclear power stations are one of the safest ways of generating power compared with using hydrocarbons and hydropower.

My objection to wind turbines is that they are undependable and do not generate when we most need the power. There are roughly 4,500 turbines in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), on land and at sea. That is potentially the capacity to generate about 8,000Mw of power. One day in February this year, when there was a high pressure area over the UK and temperatures were around O degrees C, between them these 4,500 wind turbines were capable of producing only 29Mw of electricity because high pressure weather systems, and very low temperatures are generally accompanied by calm windless conditions.

Locally a windpower company has built a diesel powered electricity generator right next to a more efficient and cleaner gas-fired power station to generate the power it has committed itself to supply to the national grid when its windmills are not turning. It is not the only wind power company to have such facilities but diesel generators are being installed nationally to deal with the problems arising from the fluctuating supply caused by the use of wind power.
UK backs up its windfarms with diesel generators

FlicketyB I've probably said this in the past but they should be using Thorium if doing fission. Thorium is much safer and more abundant and safer to mine. The reason they use uranium is because they can make plutonium in the process. China and India are all researching thorium but we don't seem to have even noticed. When they have it perfected are we then going to purchase the technology? ha ha Also Thorium does not need to be near water i.e. the sea which is going to RISE.
How strange thing is that people seem to be happy to accept the dangers (many) of nuclear, and also fracking (so long as not in their back yard so to speak). Yet make such a silly fuss about wind turbines?
Back from hols (they make wooden spoons in Wales)

Yet another resurrected thread... very apt at the moment, though. And another "for it or against it" situation which will run and run, I suspect.

This was in the Daily telegraph today

www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/10233955/The-town-where-fracking-is-already-happening.html

There carbon I agree with you. The answer, at least for the time being is fission not fusion.

For the past 43 years, to my knowledge, they've been saying fusion is twenty years away. Just an observation.

Actually that should be fusion. I think. It's the other one anyway. Without any scary waste.

Nuclear fission is getting closer.

Yes. They say it will only be "little" sites scattered here and there. It will still be more disturbance to wildlife and an eyesore into the bargain.

And you can't drill deep into rock without risking earthquakes.

If we don't leave them in the ground we end up in a terrible mess; that's the choice. We have to use a whole raft of renewable solutions, not just one or the other.

I do not think that anyone would disagree with the proposition that the less CO2 released into the atmosphere the better but there is currently no alternative. A major programme to construct enough nuclear reactors to provide us with the power we need to lead the life we are accustomed to would take upwards of 20 years to implement and wind and photo voltaics are far too unreliable and uncontrollable to depend upon, as the Danes have found out to their cost. Biofuels are contentious because wood produces health damaging particulates and growing biofuels on land that should be in food production is also questionable.

Electric cars are not a solution unless the power they use is generated from carbon free resources (see above) and battery technology is still many decades away from being able to hold a charge that enables vehicles to travel long distances. Oil is used widely in the production of the plastics and chemicals that form an essential part of our lives.

I quite agree it is best to leave hydrocarbons in the ground, but what is the alternative?