Tendring Topics……..on Line
Fracking
A’fracking we will go,
A’fracking we will go,
Because our toil
Will find the oil
That makes the economy grow, grow, grow!
That makes the economy grow!
The above
ditty, which I offer free of copyright to anyone who wants it, could well become
a popular playground song of the 2020s though only, of course, if a strictly
non-profit-making activity like singing is permitted by the Directors of the
Education Industry (by then fully privatised and market sensitive) during primary
schools’ productive leisure periods,
formerly known as ‘playtimes’.
‘Fracking’ is
by no means the most attractive and melodious word to have been introduced into
the English vocabulary by modern technology – but it seems likely to be one to
which we will have to accustom ourselves.
It is a shortened form of ‘hydraulic fracturing’, a means of extracting
gas and/or oil from hitherto inaccessible, but apparently plentiful, reserves
of both these sources of energy in beds of shale deep below the earth’s surface.
Like the coal,
gas and oil to which we are accustomed they are ‘fossil fuels’ and thus doomed
eventually to come to an end. However
they will – if exploited - reduce our current dependency on oil and gas from
distant and unreliable overseas sources.
They will also postpone, perhaps for many decades, the exhaustion of
these sources of energy and their inevitable increase in price as they become
depleted. What a relief to politicians
– no need to persevere with those unpopular wind and solar energy farms! No expensive and unpopular barrages to be
built across the Severn and other estuaries to
harvest tidal power! That’ll really
confound the ‘green lobby’, and trim the wings of UKIP and other organised
opponents of green energy! A government
that welcomed fracking (thousands of jobs, smaller fuel bills, cheaper petrol –
perhaps) should surely gain thousands of votes. Any serious troubles that may arise
from it are probably several general elections away!
There will be trouble of course. The process of fracking, if I have understood
it correctly (and if I haven’t I’ll gladly publish any corrections that blog
readers send me!) is to bore vertically a mile or more down from the earth’s
surface, lining the borehole with concrete to prevent seepage of pollutants into
the subsoil; then, when a pre-determined depth has been reached, extending the
bore-hole horizontally for perhaps another mile underground. The ideal
situation, I understand, is for the horizontal excavation to be through porous
sandstone between two strata of shale.
Now the work
that gives the operation its name begins.
Water, charged with grit particles, is forced under very high pressure
into that horizontal bore-hole. The
pressure fractures the shale beds (the actual ‘fracking’) and grit carried by
the pressurised water prevents the tiny fractures from closing again. The water is then pumped out and oil and/or
gas that had been held within the shale leeks into the bore-hole from those
fractures. The borehole becomes a well.
As I typed those
last two paragraphs the sequence of events seemed to become more and more
improbable with every word I typed!
However, fracking has been carried out with success for many years in
all parts of the USA
and has been proved to be successful in this country too. There are snags about it. The actual fracking is done deep underground
but the surface works are extensive and, to say the least, unsightly. Pictures have been shown on our tv of
no-doubt formerly attractive countryside in the USA turned into desolate – but
highly profitable - wasteland. The
fracking operation has been known to cause earthquakes – only small ones
perhaps but earthquakes none the less! As well as the despoliation of the
environment, fracking brings very real dangers of pollution of lakes and rivers
and, in particular perhaps, of aquifers or natural underground water
reservoirs.
Unsurprisingly,
like sewage treatment works, landfill refuse disposal sites and waste
incinerators, no-one wants a Fracking operation anywhere near their home. They are the ultimate NIMBY (not in my back
yard!)
Lord Howell,
Mrs Thatcher’s Environment Minister and George Osborne’s father-in-law (a
weighty thinker if there ever was one!) recently gave members of the House of
Lords his valuable thoughts about the future location of Fracking wells:
‘But there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas.
Certainly in part of the North East where there’s plenty of room for fracking,
well away from anybody’s residence where we could conduct without any kind of
threat to the rural environment.’
Geordieland
is certainly ‘well away’ from Westminster and from London’s ‘stockbroker belt’ but I doubt if
the residents of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Durham and other North-eastern cities would agree that their beautiful unspoilt countryside and coastline were ‘desolate
areas’ offering ‘plenty of room for fracking without any kind of threat
to the rural environment.’’
As it
happens it seems that beds of shale offering rich pickings to frackers are
distributed pretty evenly over – or rather under - ‘England’s Green and
Pleasant Land’ There are areas of
southern England where the residences of some of the government’s most loyal (and
wealthy and generous!) supporters are to be found, that are particularly
promising. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
our Prime Minister demonstrated his enthusiasm for this exciting new
wealth-creating enterprise by encouraging one or two trial holes to be bored in
Buckinghamshire (not a heavily populated county) in the immediate vicinity of
Chequers!
I think
fracking is a very interesting idea that may well have a great future – but I’m
quite glad that no geological map of England
I have seen shows any sign of oil-or-gas bearing shale strata beneath the fertile fields, wind-swept heathland, winding estuaries and salt marshes of East Anglia
…….as others see us!
 |
| Ray and Ingrid |
Sunday
was their day to see the English seaside.
Where better than Clacton-on-Sea with which Ray was familiar (his home
is in Ipswich ) and Ingrid has visited on two
or three previous occasions. They spent
the morning and the early part of the afternoon on the pier and the beach and
called on me, for a cup of tea and a chat, at about 4.30.
I
found the two visitors to be very courteous and friendly young ladies who were
full of teenage enthusiasm for England
and everything English. They had
thoroughly enjoyed their visit to London ,
where they had seen all the places they had heard about or seen on German
tv. I was astonished that they commented
on the cleanliness of London ’s
streets – though it is some years since I have been to the capital and over
sixty since I lived there. Perhaps things have changed since those days.
They
were no less enthusiastic about Clacton . I am glad they saw us at our best. It was a warm and sunny day at the beginning
of carnival week. They had thoroughly
enjoyed themselves on the pier and on Clacton ’s
safe and sandy beaches – though of the four of them, only Ingrid had had a
swim. The others found the North Sea too chilly, even on a warm and sunny day in
August. They had been somewhat disconcerted
by the speed of the rising tide! The
girls had previously known only lake-side beaches and Ingrid had spent only a
brief time on a beach on her previous visits to Clacton .
The two girls
were learning English at school and our conversation took place in both English
and German. Either I said very little
(which those who know me best will consider unlikely!) or my German is much
better than I had thought it was, because Ingrid emailed me later to say that
one of the girls had subsequently asked her if I was German or English! Be that as it may, it is good to know that
two German teenagers have returned from their first visit to England with wholly positive thoughts about our
country and about Clacton-on-Sea and the Essex Sunshine
Coast
.
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