Water meters and fracking

We have been told that fracking is one of the major solutions to our energy problems but Tim Morgan in the Telegraph suggests that the figures don't add up. I'm no scientist and don't know if he's right, but this is an assessment on viability that doesn't seem to have got much coverage.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11006723/fracking-for-Shale-gas-the-dotcom-bubble-of-our-times.html

Thanks for your comment about water for fracking being recycled. I thought I had read that somewhere but couldn't be sure my memory was right.

In every aspect of life we pay for what we use; fuel, housing, clothing, food. I do believe that there should be help for those whose households include people with disabilities and the elderly frail, but if it is just large families with lots of children...

I think most people plan their families with their resources in mind. This certainly contributed to our decision to just have two children. If families choose to have a lot of children they should be prepared to pay the bills.

We seem to pay less on a water meter than previously.

Not really what this thread is about but what happens when we are all on water meters, where will the water companies get their profits from? Will all our bills go up?

When we moved here, where there have always been compulsory water meters, we found our bill to be so much cheaper than when it was based on our rateable value where we used to live even though we use the hose on the garden. Then a year ago they reduced it again because they had changed the rules for surface water drainage and put us in a lower band. At the time I wondered who was having to pay more as a result.

Presumably a lot of people will find themselves in the same situation and revenues will be lower. Those with large families will find themselves paying more.

Most of the water used in fracking is recycled after use. In the same way water used in the cooling towers of power stations is. All water returned to use has to be stored, cleaned and inspected by the EA before release.

If you think the EA decisions are influenced by government, all I can say is that I represent an environmental charity on a the Local Liaison Committee monitoring our local power station and from my experience the EA have technical standards etc that govern the activities of a wide range of industries and they enforce them to the letter.

Well if the water is trapped underground and out of harms way and it isn't taken from the sea, then doesn't that lesson the overall amount of water in the environment.

Not sure how independent the EA is as if the government is keen to frack then the EA will almost certainly be given the directive to look kindly on applications.

Interesting OP.
Sea water is only going to be an option if you are doing it near the coast.

Water resources are a complicated issue whitewave. Many farmers and other businesses have "extraction licences" to take huge amounts of water out of rivers. Or aquifers, I believe. Water companies also are allowed to extract water, to turn it into safe drinking water. I don't think a business can just set up shop and just take it.
I don't think the fracking companies will be asking for a mains connection as that would be metered and therefore work out a tad expensive.
I think it is down to the environment agency/dept of the environment (they are two faces of the same thing) to grant new extraction licences for business purposes. And that the impact on water resources in an area will have to be considered.
(all this "i think" is because I'm going to bed now and not reading government websites to check )
Goodness knows how this works in America. They do weird things like irrigating thousands and thousands of square miles of the Central Valley to grow crops like almonds.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/05/fracking-water-america-drought-oil-gas

I don't know that the salt would be left in. In any case fracking wells are very, very much deeper down than water tables and the water is used to displace trapped gas so, as I understand it, the water will become trapped water, completely out of the way and harmless to the environment, just as the gas had been.

What about the salt - not good is it for the environment?

They won't be using prime drinking water. Sea water will do, I should think.