Cuadrilla's take on what fracking should look like. Apparently it can only take place near or in woodland.
Shale gas you say? Where they drill underground to break up
(‘frack’) the rocks, and get gas out? Well, we’ve all seen those less than
comforting pictures coming out of the States, where it turns out that not
everyone is thrilled about it (as a quick google will reveal)
See also
Cuadrilla answer our questions (Q&A)
What will it look like if we start doing it here? What will the changes look like on the ground in Lancashire? Exploration licenses have been granted across the UK, so drilling for shale gas will not just happen in what some conservatives may believe to be the post-industrial, apocalyptic wasteland somewhere at the end of the M1, but in the home counties too.
DECC and the Environment Agency have been rather slow getting back to me with their expectations; presumably they don’t have any, or they think it’s totally up to the companies doing it, or they are all on holiday.
However, I did have an illuminating exchange with Cuadrilla, who have gone on something of a PR charm offensive with a commitment to full public engagement and consultation.
How big, typically, do you expect the pads to be?
The pad is the drilling and extraction site - it will be 2 hectares when up and running, though smaller during exploration.
How many wells per pad could be expected?
When up and running each pad is likely to have 10 wells drilled down. Our shale is much deeper than in the States, so we will have to drill down a couple of miles/kms to reach it. Which isn’t easy. From these vertical wells they then drill out horizontally into the shale they want to frack and extract the gas from. Rather like an octopus, with its gas extracting tentacles stretching out in all directions miles under the ground.
How many miles of road would be required for the site?
None, apparently. “We would envisage utilising existing road networks for all our sites and this has been the case so far.”
What would you expect the extent of the horizontal drilling be?
Typically 1-2 milles (say 2km). It depends on the local geology and what is found during exploration, and although horizontal wells at Wytch Farm have been drilled out for 6 miles (10km) or more, Cuadrilla do not expect them to be that long in Lancashire.
Would you expect any flaring to take place?
Yes, during the exploration phase. This will be ‘shrouded’. Not once production is up and running, they want to sell all the gas to the grid.
And fugitive emissions?
The plans are for ‘green completions’, of capturing and processing all the fracking fluid and water used, and not letting any gas escape into the environment.
How will this work?
Let’s imagine how this would look. I grew up in rural Norfolk, not Lancashire, so give me some leeway. I remember cycling round the villages in Norfolk pretty well, so rerunning my childhood, just off the quiet roads with the sewage plants and the electricity substations outside the villages will be some fracking pads shrouded behind discrete shrubbery.
Which will be slowly rolled out across the whole county. Plus laying in the grid connections to pipe the gas, and some other equipment sprouting in the fields and hedgerows - the gathering stations, compressors, water treatment plants, und so weiter.
All to be shut down after 20 years, and in Norfolk at least to join the WW2 pillboxes growing weeds in the fields.
While cycling over to my friends house I’d also have to watch out for the water trucks too. If the fracking pad isn’t hooked up to the water mains they have to bring in the water by truck. An IoD report referred to a peak case of 17.1 trucks per day over five years.
Possibly more if the village is on the way to several pads.
Having grown up in a dairy farming area I find the comparison they use to milk trucks, in order to butter it up, mendacious to say the least.
How many of these fracking pads in 1200km2 license area? This is partly a packing problem of fitting as many discs on a tray as you can. If the pads drill out to a radius of 2km on average, then 95 to 100 pads gives a rough ‘upper’ estimate of how many can be squeezed in - with their octopus tentacles under the whole area, like something unpleasant out of Doctor Who.
Of course more may be needed if they can’t drill out as far, and less if they have to skip over some areas where they can’t drill for whatever reason.
Still, that would mean coming across a pad every 2-3 miles along the roads, which is pretty often.
And all of this assumes that Cuadrilla can drill wells which not only spread out like an Octopus for up to 10km around - but also do so on at least four levels.
If they can't do this - then they may need lots more wells. Four times more, in fact.
I’m not sure this roll out of infrastructure will be as innocuous as we are being told.
As pointed out by Michael Liebreich:
“Let’s also look at public acceptance. Sure, the British public does not like onshore wind-farms near their homes. But then they do not like roads either. Or chemical plants. Or nuclear power stations. Or sewage treatment farms. Or homeless hostels. They are going to love fracking operations.”
