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1. Pingback: Beyond the Politics of UK Fracking – John Gelmini « Dr Alf's Blog

2. I certainly agree that fracking does indeed have its dangers and that it does have its very own environmental impact. But I don’t subscribe to all the arguments against fracking and in favour of other forms of energy presented in that article. Let me pick out just a few:
   – It is simply nonsense to maintain that wind, solar and tidal energy will cost nothing. Turbines [wind or water] need to be built and installed, and one reason why solar energy is not more widely used is the prohibitive costs. This nonsensical argument devalues the complete article, to my mind, and makes it look like a biassed piece of opinion. And that is a pity for such an important subject.
   – It is also not true that “wind and solar power […] are safe, efficient, proven and reliable”. “Reliable?” Does the sun shine at night? “Efficient”? How many square miles of solar parks [that in itself a euphemism] would you need? “Safe”? Never heard of turbine blades falling off? Or of burds and bats being killed?
   – In the “recent study” mentioned the researcher states that burning coal is preferable to gas from fracking because burning coal leaves us with sulfur dioxide and black carbon in the atmosphere. Never heard of acid rain and lung cancer?
   My conclusion, btw, is a very negative one: whatever mankind does is detrimental to the planet we live on. So, whichever way, we’ll ruin it – soponer or later.

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   • Hi Pit,

     Many thanks for sharing your views on this thread. Given your personal experience of fracking across the road from your house in Southern Texas, I certainly respect your views on fracking.

     Obviously, the UK still still new to many of the debates which you guys have had in the US.

     Whilst i respect the need for low cost energy, I think that there is room to debate the alternative energy opportunities and their environmental implications.

     Of course, there is a debate much larger than fracking and energy policy, it’s about how we respect our environment and indeed flora and fauna, as well as fellow humans.

     I empathize with your conclusion and hope that common sense will prevail.

     Reply

     • Dear Alf,
       I readily agree that there are many questions about fracking still begging for reliable answers. And certainly I do have my reservations, too. As to a debate about fracking: as I said in a comment to a different blog post of yours, there hasn’t been very much debate hereabouts. Not in rural southern Texas. But there is ongoing debate in other areas of the US.
       Best regards from southern Texas,
       Pit

     • Hi Pit,

       It’s always a pleasure to get the view of my German expat friend in Southern Texas, especially on fracking, when you have a drilling site across the road from your house.

       Best regards

       Alf

3. Like Dr Alf I would prefer that fracking was not necessary and that we could simply conserve our way to energy self sufficiency as Left Foot Forward suggest.

   Sadly, because of lack of planning, a failure to control the population, rising birthrates, a failure to build new nuclear power stations, a failure to invest in conservation in earlier years, the squandering of money on overseas aid, unwarranted military adventurism, the Barnett Formula, too many civil servants, a bloated public sector there is no longer enough money to conserve our way out of trouble.
   These are matters which have to be dealt with but we are now where we are with an urgent problem which requires an immediate solution.

   A look at the facts says that we have to frack and frack now, as I have been saying in other posts.
   The British public does not know that fracking is not the answer as the headline suggests and conservation would not save us from the blackouts that will almost certainly occur within the
   next 19 months of this Government given a harsh winter.

   As an island, without the means to protect our coastline being “connected to global markets” simply leaves us vulnerable to price hikes by the Russians, OPEC and anyone else who sells us gas or any other fuel we buy to help generate electricity.

   We are also vulnerable to the French who sell us nuclear power directly and to Eon the German owned power company which operates in the Midlands and has paid no corporation tax in the last 8 years.
   The lights will go out without nuclear power stations which take 15 to 20 years to build and Professor James Lovelock the octegenarian GAIIA worshipper and arch environmentalist has said so many times.
   With 4% extra generating capacity one hard winter will take us over the precipice and into the world of blackouts and 3 day weeks which no-one under the age of 60 can possibly imagine.
   Those nuclear power stations are not being built or even planned so what is the alternative?
   Wind farms only work for 14% of the time and are heavily subsidised.
   Without a new generation of electricity pylons they simply mean ever rising power bills and more blots on the landscape plus more cancer for anyone living within a mile of the pylons(proven over decades by the Russians who will not allow any dwelling to be within a kilometer of a pylon while our Department of Health and NHS denies the evidence and keeps the public in the dark).
   Their is insufficient mortgage finance to facilitate all the remedial home improvements required over and above what is already going into help to buy
   There is an even bigger shortage of mortgage funds in Wales for the energy conservation required and in any case for most people with families £97 gbp in disposable income at the end of the month is not going to pay for very much home improvement.
   In addition ,16% of the population cannot get finance of any kind either on normal terms or at all and the Green Bank does not have enough funds to retrofit all the eligible houses in the UK to the conservation standards required.
   Over and above that we lack the construction workers and builders required to do the work since many were laid off in the last recession and are now working as taxi drivers,or perversely,are on the dole.
   Hot rocks in places like Hampshire could help as could Osprey style wave power off our coasts.
   Another invention I became involved with in 2012 in the form of market feasibility,capital raising,joint venture formulation and market entry,(a mobile flood barrier placed in rivers and areas of storm surge) could help, but this is at the prototyping stage and is not yet a proven technology.
   The Solution
   ———————–
   The real solution to our energy worries in Singlepoint Energy which was discovered by the Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla who died in 1944 and who worked for the original JP Morgan in America.
   His invention which allowed the limitless supply of energy to be extracted from the earth,s magnetic field in perpetuity was bought from Tesla by JP Morgan for $1 million USD together with certain other ones, including Scalar weaponry, which are now being used by various military establishments around the world.
   The release of Singlepoint Energy would put energy companies out of business and cut tax revenues which is why Bill Clinton and Al Gore ,under instruction from the plutocrats they reported to ,kept the technology embargoed as has every Government on the planet to this day.
   In the absence of Singlepoint Energy,we are left for the moment with fracking.
   So we must frack and frack now but compensate people for any damage they incur as happened with coal mining in the past and do so with great care.
   Whilst I am one of David Cameron,s harshest critics and wish to see him replaced,on this occasion I have to acknowledge that the man is right.

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