Christmas is coming, the Paris Agreement and Fracking

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat. Please to put your todger in this old lady's twat. The penguin is so 'superior'; I thought that I would lower the tone for my first interregnal post. I am sure that there are lonely, 'old' (what is old?)  people out there, who would welcome a little bit of kindness and possibly physical affection during this unlikely balmy month. But, I hasten to add, only if they truly desire it. I am not advocating wholesale rape of the retired community here! And so, f**king leads quite naturally to 'fracking', hydraulic fracturing. (Hell, if it was good enough for 'Battlestar Galactica' to use as a euphemism, it surely allows me to make the connection, however tenuous.)

The UK parliament has just made it lawful to frack 'under' National Parks and sites of outstanding beauty or worthy of major scientific scrutiny (159 licences have been issued so far); in truth, anywhere at all. But it is safe to do so? The US and Canada have been doing it for nigh on twenty years so it must be safe; no? Surely, if it gets the UK out of the hole that it has dug for itself with its reliance on Russian-supplied natural gas and the dwindling supplies in the North Sea then this must be a good thing? On the face of it, one cannot argue with the short-term motivations for generating large-scale fracking operations in the UK.

But.

Despite signing up to the recent Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions by 2050 to no more than what is sufficient to increase global warming by less the two degrees, the UK government want to increase the carbon footprint of the nation by fracking shale gas and reduce the subsidies by over 50% to 'greener' technologies. I don't quite understand the logic here. Dissuade people from investing in technologies which might make a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions and, at the same time, make it worthwhile for people to invest in technologies which might increase carbon emissions.

So, is it all hypocrisy? Merely the pursuit of a fast buck?

I can certainly appreciate the short-term argument; what's the point of reducing our own carbon emissions when China and India (probably the largest producers) have no intention of doing so before at least 2030. Fracking might last for thirty or forty years before it becomes uneconomic in the UK, if that. And who cares about the 'Paris agreement' anyway. Almost certainly not the world's governments; it's not in their interests, after all. It's not binding; there is only a review every five years; you don't even have to meet the targets that you set for yourself and there are no penalties if you don't. The pursuit of profit will subsume all and we will be having the same lengthy discussion (read lengthy junket) in five years' time! Kyoto didn't work and, despite the mouthings of politicians keen to be seen to do something even if it is only talk, what's to say Paris will be any more successful. I personally won't be holding my breath.

So, fracking as a short term solution to the UK's 'energy crisis' might well seem attractive. Government can always play fast and loose with our children's future because they know that they will be not around to suffer the consequences.

However there is perhaps a more immediate problem outside of the potential damage to the water table and the blight on the landscapes from drilling platforms, pumping stations etc  in a ring around areas of outstanding natural beauty or value and that is: what are the consequences of pumping vast amounts of water into the shale rock and how do the oil companies propose to get rid of the excess water? One of the consequences of pumping water under pressure into the shale may over time fracture more than the shale and the effects of pumping waste water deep underground, according to more recent research, may be magnitudes greater.

There is growing evidence in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, at least, that some wells, or rather their waste, have been triggering earthquakes in far greater numbers and at more severe levels than at any time since the US was first colonised by the Europeans. Oklahoma, for example, had four or five +2.9 magnitude quakes until 2008. In 2009, it had 20 and in 2011,over 60; the largest being magnitude 5.7. Even the US Geological Survey has finally begun to sit up and take notice. So what do the UK Government do? Issue 159 licences to frack! On the face of it, it does seem rather silly to say the least.

Of course not all fracking wells and their attendant waste wells will cause a problem; in the US it seems confined to just a few at the moment but that may be a function of time not the volume of water pumped in. At the moment, there seems to be a great deal of uncertainty, especially among the USGS. Wouldn't it be better to wait until more research can be done? Of course, but there was no doubt a very singular reason why the announcement of the licences was made just before Parliament went on holiday.  I leave it for you to judge according to your own level of cynicism.