I thought I would share with you a letter I sent to Simon Wright, MP for Norwich North, raising my concerns about fracking. While stating that I don't want fracking, I mostly focus on safeguards which we ought to be demanding, and which I hope would make it a much less attractive proposition than the government is trying to make it.
Dear Simon Wright MP
Hydraulic Fracturing for Gas (Fracking)
I wish to raise my concerns about the government’s strong support for the development of fracking in the UK. There are a number of important environmental issues which this raises particularly in relation to water. However it is not the activity of fracking itself which is the most significant issue in my opinion, rather it is that it maintains our reliance on fossil fuels for our power. If we are to meet our obligations under the Climate Change Act of 2008 then it is essential that we move rapidly towards renewable energy sources, and this is where the government’s efforts should be concentrated.
Renewable energy together with energy conservation, offers more job creation, greater energy security and in the long term lower energy costs than dependence on gas. It is highly unlikely that fracked gas will be produced in sufficient quantity here to have any material impact on the European gas market. The situation is completely different from that in the USA where the glut of shale gas has driven gas prices lower and the public are being misled by claims that the same will happen here.
Nonetheless in the event that a fracking industry is developed in this country, I think there are four crucial safeguards which you and the Liberal Democrat Party should ensure are enacted. While these cannot address the climate issue, they can ensure that some of the worst environmental damage which has been seen in the USA is not repeated here.
1. Companies engaged in fracking should have unlimited liability for cleaning up any water reserves which they cause to be polluted. The argument has been made that the regulatory environment in this country will be much stricter than in the USA and that fracking will not be allowed where there is a risk of methane or fracking chemicals contaminating the water table. If this is the case, then companies can have no argument against entering into an open-ended commitment to ensuring water quality in the vicinity of their operations. There is certainly no reason why water companies – and ultimately their customers – should pay to remediate any contamination emanating from a fracking site.
To ensure that companies cannot evade their responsibilities in such an eventuality, this commitment needs to apply to parent companies and not just subsidiaries established to operate in the UK. It also requires that water properties are evaluated prior to any fracking taking place so that changes can be clearly identified.
2. Emissions of methane to the atmosphere should be monitored at every site and if they exceed a given threshold the fracking company should have a short period to solve the problem, failing which the well must be permanently shut down.
In environmental terms the case for shale gas has been argued on the basis that the greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions of natural gas are much lower than those of coal, hence there is a reduction in ghg’s by switching between the two fuels for electricity generation. However this calculation does not take into account the effect of methane released at the drilling site. In the USA it has been calculated that between 4% and 8% of production is lost to the atmosphere (quoted in New Scientist 10 Aug), while a figure of 10% is enough to offset all the ghg reduction compared to coal.
Indeed the effect in the shorter term is even greater – methane is generally quoted as having a ghg effect ~25x greater than CO2, however this is on a 100 year basis, while on a 20 year basis methane is ~72x stronger. Given the immediacy of our need to tackle global ghg emissions I believe it is this shorter timescale on which the government needs to concentrate. Thus no well found to be emitting at most 5% (and preferably less) of its methane production to the atmosphere should be allowed to remain in production.
3. Water which flows back to the surface during the fracking process must be monitored for contamination and the companies must bear all costs associated with removing contaminants before it is disposed of.
4. Fracking uses large amounts of water and many parts of the UK are already water-stressed. The costs of any increased infrastructure required to meet the demands of the fracking industry must be borne entirely by the fracking companies, not passed on to other water customers through the return allowed on their infrastructure investment.
Implementing these safeguards is entirely consistent with the government’s argument that the stronger regulatory framework in the UK will prevent some of the worst environmental impacts which have been observed in the USA.
I look forward to your comments on these suggestions and hope that you will pass them on to the appropriate departments within the government.
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