Tag Archives: South Texas

A Trans Atlantic Perspective in Support of UK Fracking

August 6, 2013 By in Business Administration, fracking, People, UK Tags: , , , , , , 3 Comments
Against fracking 01

Against fracking 01 (Photo credit: Bosc d’Anjou)

Further to my reblogging of the article entitled “Fracking ‘biggest threat to countryside after housing’, says ex-minister, published in the Telegraph, I received two very thoughtful responses in support of fracking.

The first response was from Pit, a German expat living in Southern Texas who has a fracking site adjacement to his house.

The second response is from John Gelmini.

I am publishing both responses below although for me the UK Government still needs to answer many important questions on fracking.

Pit – A German Exapat Living in Texas – opposite a facking site  

From what I see around here in the middle of the Eagle Ford Shale in southern Texas, fracking certainly does ruin the countryside. In that regard Cuadrilla’s boss, Francis Egan, is definitely not telling the truth. At several times in the last two years I’ve been able to see 7 to 8 drilling-rigs just from the front porch of our house, with one directly across the highway from our place. And whereas those rigs are gone after a few weeks, the pads, sometimes with tanks, sometimes with pipelines and machinery, sometimes with pumping-jacks, remain, and they are a blot on the landscape. Bearing in mind that those pads of necessity are close to each other [horizontally the drilling can reach for 5,000 ft at most], that means a lot of blotches in the end. I readily admit that drilling and fracking have become safer over the years, but still – as with any other technology – Murphy’s law applies and what can go wrong will go wrong sooner or later.

All that notwithstanding, I know that – may it be now or may it be later – getting oil and gas by fracking will just be a necessity, and therefore I personally am not opposed to that technology. We simply need it.

As to the protesters: I’d really like to know if they ever think of where the energy they use comes from.

Best regards from southern Texas,
Pit

John Gelmini

This is more grandstanding from a man who has resigned from his post and is attempting to curry favour with “Middle England” by piggybacking on the anti-fracking demonstrations in Balcombe, West Sussex.

Nick Herbert knows full well that with 4% extra capacity in the Grid, just one hard winter will be enough to create blackouts, an inability to refuel vehicles and economic chaos.

We had harsh winters with Arctic conditions in 1981, 1992, 2001, 2002, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The same happened in 2012 and this year, when the snow did not clear until May.This prompted the Met Office to have an extraordinary general meeting in Exeter and cite a repetition of a weather cycle from a long time ago as the cause.After the meeting the press cited Climate Change as the cause.

Conservation, Green Energy, OSPREY, Wave technology and hot rocks will not be enough, nor will extending the lives of existing power stations earmarked for closure.

Nuclear power can close the gap but not until 15 years from now, which leaves fracking as the way forward.

Unrepresentative Protesters and Nimbies on the March
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An examination of the Wikipedia entry for Balcombe village shows that the total population is 1,765 people yet even the most optimistic and generous estimates show that the number of protesters ,photographed and appearing in newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph,the Guardian and the Daily Express was less than 300 with a maximum of up to 50 protesters blocking the the route to the Caudrilla site.
By my arithmetic this means that 16% of the population protested whilst the vast majority of 84% did not protest but either stayed at home or went about their day to day business.

A look at the dress and backgrounds of these people almost suggests that Johnnie Boden the trendy clothing designer kitted them all out ready for the sort of summer festival David Cameron attends at Cornbury.

These are people with money, time on their hands and little to do other than waste police time.

In short, a vociferous minority of people no more representative of their village than the fictional detective Chief Inspector Barnaby of Corston CID was representative of Midsummer, the fictional English village populated only by English people.

Explaining the Energy Situation We Face
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The Government has been derelict in its duty to make the case for fracking and to explain just how perilous our energy supply is.

It has failed to explain the risks of not acting,it has failed to plan for the future and because of what it has said in the past about global warming it is finding it difficult to be credible about what measures to take over harsh winters.

It must do so now.

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A True Fracking Story – UK Take Heed – Part 4

August 4, 2013 By in Austerity, Business Administration, David Cameron, fracking, Natural gas, People, Politics, Society, Texas, UK, US Tags: , , , , , , , 8 Comments
Against fracking 01

Against fracking 01 (Photo credit: Bosc d’Anjou)

In case you missed the first,  second or third blogs, this is a series of blogs about the reality of fracking. Fracking is coming to the UK soon, perhaps to your neighbourhood. See today’s alarmist headline in the Daily Mail.

Let me again introduce Pit, who is a German expat who lives in Southern Texas. In this series of blogs, Pit describes his feelings as they started fracking across the road from his house in Texas.

Perhaps, the technology might be slightly different in the UK, but this is likely to be what happens when fracking arrives in town.

Here are links to some of Pit’s blogs, published in Spring 2012:

Thanks again Pit!

For Pit, the fracking came to town in December 2011 but to bring you up to date, here’s what he thought in July 2013:

Hi Alf,
Sitting in the middle of the Eagle Ford Shale fracking area as we’re here, I keep thinking about the pros and cons of it, and I haven’t come to any conclusion that satisfies me. On the one hand, fracking as any other technology has its risks. They can and will be minimized, though. But then, there’s Murphy’s law, and it would be foolish to assume that there will be no accidents. On the other hand, fracking not only produces oil, but also – and quite a lot in some places – natural gas, which in itself is a very clean source of energy. I’ve read about a study, though, that says that the methane which – at least at present – comes with the fracking (nearly) outweighs the advantages. But then, there are also studies that here in the US the output of carbon dioxide has been drastically reduced due to generating electricity from natural gas and not from coal. As said before, for the present time I don’t really know. But in the long run fracking – as well as getting oil out of tar sands, btw – will be unavoidable. Mankind will always want more energy that’s easy to come at whatever the consequences will be.
To finish on a personal note: for us down here the oil-boom generated by fracking is really double sided. It has certainly dimished the quality of life for us to the extent that we’re seriously planning to move elsewhere, but only because of the money we’re getting through royalties we’re able to move. And for our region itself: it’s certainly brings (plenty) of money into a formerly very poor region, but then also way too much traffic and deadly accidents, to name only that negative aspect.
Best regards from out of the middle of fracking country,

Pit – A German Expat’s Life in Texas

Also, once again, thanks to the efforts of David Cameron’s Government, fracking will be  coming to rural England soon.

Isn’t it time for Little Englanders to challenge the political classes?

Any thoughts?

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