'Well'... the US have done it...

Yesterday, I was suitably unenthused by the declaration that the PM was “going all in” on fracking. His visit to a fracking site around the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough followed the announcement that French oil giant Total was investing £30 million in two exploratory wells in Lincolnshire. The “going all in” apparently entails financial ‘incentives’ (widely being described as bare-faced bribes) to the tune of allowing local councils who permit fracking to retain 100% of the business rates from the shale development, as well as receiving 1% of the revenues from the respective company. Even if the area is seen as unviable, if the council allows exploration, they will receive £100,000 from the drilling company (Pincher, 2014).

Cameron claims that encouraging fracking could create 74,000 jobs (a figure seemingly plucked from nowhere considering that current explorations are minimal and the industry is just starting out), and could bring in £3 billion in investment and improve energy infrastructure in the country (Johnstone, 2014). And yet, Cameron is claiming his climate commitments remain intact. Well I say they are looking worse for wear. There are some more understandable arguments, such as if shale gas replaced the 23% share that coal contributes to our energy mix, then this would decrease carbon emissions for the 23% share, by 50% (Gross, 2013). However, I feel the likelihood of this either being regulated for or occurring through market forces, is slim due to the decreasing price of US coal.

The process of fracking:

Essentially, once the well is dug (approximately 1-2 miles deep depending on the geology), a solution of water, sand and chemicals – namely acids to dissolve the minerals, gelling agents to suspend the sand, and other substances to aid fracturing of the rock (Gross, 2013), is forced down the well to release the gas.

The perceived dangers:

The (thankfully) widespread opposition to fracking in the UK is based on a few key aspects of perceived effects on the environment and humans. These are mainly: 

• The risk of earthquakes and tremors
• Risk of pollution to groundwater and downstream
• Effect of the wells on the landscape

Earthquakes have featured very prominently in the UK media following the early Cuadrilla earthquakes in Lancashire registering at 1.5 and 2.3 on the Richter scale, not long after the drilling commenced (Gross, 2013). The main problem with the risk of earthquakes is that insufficient research has been conducted in specific areas to ascertain whether this will be an ever-present risk.

Regarding the risk of pollution, this is also dependent on location-specific factors such as geology, however the numerous stories (and now even films) shower the US media with ideas about the effects of pollution, and even when taken with the necessary pinch of salt, do indicate a relatively widespread issue. The groundwater pollution is caused when the boreholes have cracks and the fracking solution reaches an aquifer. This can have ecological effects and effects for domestic water supply – hence the pictures/videos of people seemingly setting their tap water alight in the US due to the hydrogen gas concentration. Environmental effects come in two main categories; huge water demands that fracking bring (i.e. 750,000 – 1.5 million cubic meters per frack (BeebeeJaun, 2013)) and the water pollution which occurs through the wastewater disposal.

The landscape is a key concern, especially in sensitive areas such as around the Lake District where fracking is being explored already. The exploration and possible exploitation of shale gas will exclusively occur in rural regions where the communities are more concerned about their local environment overall.

The US excuse:

The US have done well from it, with a 75% increase in natural gas production between 2004 – 2011; mainly due to the exploitation of shale gas on a massive scale, in some areas of Texas there are up to 12 wells per km² (Beebeejaun, 2013)! Their energy prices have dropped – leading to the EU importing huge amounts of their coal (very climate conscious… cough). However there are rather a few differences between the US and the UK; population density, known shale gas reserves, and primarily – land area.

Recent announcements:

The encouragement of shale gas exploration and exploitation is seen as premature, as Bamberger and Oswald believe that a complete ban on fracking is required before a full and comprehensive evaluation of the risks and possible resources present in the UK. This is related to the fact that it has been speculated that French company Total have only invested in the UK because France have banned fracking completely, the Netherlands have a temporary ban until more research is conducted (Revell, 2014) and Germany are strongly opposed to it. In regards to the financial incentives for fracking, Sir Cockell (chair of the Local Government Association) responded to the 1% of company revenues to be given back to local councils as a ‘token’, and he asserts this should be increased to 5-10% to be in line with global standards, and this money should be put directly into a community fund (Vaughan, 2014).

Personally, I believe that although gas is a better alternative to coal, this argument is too flawed to be relied upon, as there is no guarantee that it would be coal trade which suffers and not renewables. The point that gas could be used as the transition fuel to a renewable system was made at least 20 years ago, and therefore exploiting another (harder to access and less efficient) form of gas should not be used as an addition to this excuse. The three risks outlined above, although serious if fracking becomes prominent, are secondary to the issue of the delayed movement to a primarily renewable system, and in a similar fashion to my previous post on geoengineering, is distracting from the development and investment in win-win renewable technology.

The A&E climate doctor?

Moving in the opposite direction to a few of my previous posts on the topic of small scale or locally governed renewable projects; geoengineering (GE) has resurfaced in the last few weeks in both popular and academic circles.

Geoengineering mainly consists of two broad categories of technology/methodology:

1. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) – to prevent the root cause of climate change
2.  Solar Radiation Management (SRM)  – to offset the effects of climate change

Within these categories;

CDR: increasing carbon sinks, using biomass for sequestration and an energy source, enhancing natural weathering to remove CO₂, and the direct uptake of atmospheric and oceanic CO₂.

SRM: brightening structures, covering deserts in reflective material, sulphate aerosols and shields/deflectors in space (Royal Society, 2009).

CDR is widely accepted as the better approach of the two as it addresses the problem and the cause of climate change, as opposed to SRM which carries higher uncertainties in regards to indirect and unforeseen effects of reducing the radiation reaching the earth’s surface. The merits of SRM are that they do act immediately and stop a certain amount of radiation reaching the earth’s surface, therefore could be used in times of emergency – although I am critical of the reality of this eventuality. Who will decide the category of ‘emergency’, and how will this be funded as there is currently no international body with a mandate to regulate geoengineering projects (Royal Society, 2009)?

Recently, research was published which caught the media’s attention; as it concluded that using SRM could have huge drought-enhancing effects in tropical regions. The research focussed on using sulphate aerosols (to the equivalent of five Mount Pinatubo eruptions!), and they showed how this affects tropical overturning circulation which controls rainfall. The droughts could be caused by the layer of sulphate aerosols removing the temperature gradient, therefore suppressing convection and reducing precipitation (Ferraro et al.,2014). This would have devastating effects on billions of people, mainly through the effect on agriculture.

The effects wouldn’t be entirely uniform but are expected to affect the tropical areas in S. America, Asia and Africa. However, the benefits of the technology are predicted be felt in the higher latitudes, therefore creating a risk of conflict between the nations who have installed/funded the technology and those who are being negatively affected by it (Carrington,2014). There will need to be an international body created to deal with the issues of geoengineering as currently “changing another country’s weather is even classed as a war crime under the Geneva Convention” (Hogenboom, 2013). The effects of creating GE technology would resonate globally (both positively and negatively), therefore this cannot be implemented unilaterally or bilaterally. However, due to the speed of previous and current climate change negotiations, I cannot see a functioning and fair international agreement being created.

In the UK, ‘SPICE’ was created to trial sulphur particle effects on the atmosphere and was tested in September 2011, and the UK was early to the game of geoengineering, as the US has only recently begun to catch up. The testing has not been done on a large enough scale to affect the global climate; yet (Macnaghten and Owen, 2011), and the UK government’s vague stance on geoengineering simply states that there is insufficient research into the technology thus far.

Personally, I feel some geoengineering methods – those which are more ‘natural’ such as reforestation and increasing other carbon sinks should be encouraged as those often involve simply restoring the environment to a previous state (i.e. before humans got their hands on it). Otherwise, geoengineering in its current state is too under-researched to become viable safely, and the levels of governance required are not present either; and I am doubtful as to whether an international agency could feasibly be created for technologies which could have such varying affects globally. Most importantly, I feel that attention given to geoengineering distracts researchers, investment and governments from the main climate change action which should occur – changing and diversifying the global energy mix to a renewables dominated system.