I personally am a sceptic, about almost everything, if you want to convince me of the viability of something then you have to show me that it works, that it doesn't harm anything and that it delivers substantial benefits to both me and the society in which we all live.

Having a Prime Minister in the pockets of the businesses who are eager to get fracking all over this country is not a good start to the argument to convince me.

Having the police brutally crush and harangue fairly inconsequential protestors on test sites is also not a good sign that this Government is prepared to evaluate everything impartially, when they then start to invent new laws to prevent objections to full scale fracking even when its being done underneath your feet on the land that you are supposed to "own" is also a dead sure sign of the puppet masters controlling the Government.

Of course, as I have already mentioned, I am a natural sceptic and all of this could be balderdash and we could easily find that no pollution results and oil and gas pour out of the ground in the same way as Jed Clampett found when he was out a-hunting for some food one day - it could happen, and we could be sitting on fuel too cheap to meter (again), we really could.

On the other hand our Prime Minister has already hinted that fracking will not reduce fuel bills.

And reports like this one where exploration businesses lie and cajole and make wild estimates of benefits before using bribery to convince, are just too common to even meter on the internet.

I personally am a sceptic, about almost everything, if you want to convince me of the viability of something then you have to show me that it works, that it doesn't harm anything and that it delivers substantial benefits to both me and the society in which we all live.

Having a Prime Minister in the pockets of the businesses who are eager to get fracking all over this country is not a good start to the argument to convince me.

Having the police brutally crush and harangue fairly inconsequential protestors on test sites is also not a good sign that this Government is prepared to evaluate everything impartially, when they then start to invent new laws to prevent objections to full scale fracking even when its being done underneath your feet on the land that you are supposed to "own" is also a dead sure sign of the puppet masters controlling the Government.

Of course, as I have already mentioned, I am a natural sceptic and all of this could be balderdash and we could easily find that no pollution results and oil and gas pour out of the ground in the same way as Jed Clampett found when he was out a-hunting for some food one day - it could happen, and we could be sitting on fuel too cheap to meter (again), we really could.

On the other hand our Prime Minister has already hinted that fracking will not reduce fuel bills.

And reports like this one where exploration businesses lie and cajole and make wild estimates of benefits before using bribery to convince, are just too common to even meter on the internet.

Shale gas does not cause earthquakes, pollute water or use toxic chemicals. Wind turbines do far more damage.

It was the US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who once said: “You are entitled to your opinions, but not to your own facts.” In the debate over shale gas — (fracking has been happening in this country for decades) — the opponents do seem to be astonishingly cavalier with the facts.

Let’s start with the aquifers claim. The total number that has been found to be polluted by either fracking fluid or methane gas as a result of fracking in the United States is zero. Allegation after allegation has been found to be untrue. The Environmental Protection Agency closed its investigation at Dimock, Pennsylvania, concluding there was no evidence of contamination; abandoned its claim that drilling in Parker County, Texas, had caused methane gas to come out of people’s taps; and withdrew its allegations of water contamination at Pavilion, Wyoming, for lack of evidence. Two recent peer-reviewed studies concluded that groundwater contamination from fracking is “not physically plausible”.

The movie Gasland showed a case of entirely natural gas contamination of water and the director knew it, but still pretended it might have been caused by fracking. Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary, said this month: “I still have not seen any evidence of fracking per se contaminating groundwater.” Tens of thousands of wells drilled, two million fracking operations completed and not a single proven case of groundwater contamination. It may happen one day, of course, but few industries can claim a pollution record that good.

Next comes the claim that shale gas production results in more methane being released to the atmosphere than coal. (Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time and its concentration is not currently rising fast.) This claim originated with a Cornell biology professor with an axe to grind. Study after study has refuted it. As a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology put it: “It is incorrect to suggest that shale gas-related hydraulic fracturing has substantially altered the overall [greenhouse gas] intensity of natural gas production.”

As for earthquakes, Durham University’s definitive survey of all induced earthquakes over many decades concluded that “almost all of the resultant seismic activity [from fracking] was on such a small scale that only geoscientists would be able to detect it” and that mining, geothermal activity or reservoir water storage causes more and bigger tremors. Professor Ray Davies of the University of Durham thinks that fracking “causes as much seismic activity as falling off a ladder”.

Please can you provide the quotes or links to the quotes to show your claim that "our government has already openly admited that shale gas will not lower consumer gas retail prices in the UK"

Sources:

http://scientific-alliance.org/scientif ... s-fracking

http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-shat ... -fracking/

http://moneyweek.com/fracking-what-is-i ... -the-news/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -shale-gas

Shale gas does not cause earthquakes, pollute water or use toxic chemicals. Wind turbines do far more damage.

It was the US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who once said: “You are entitled to your opinions, but not to your own facts.” In the debate over shale gas — (fracking has been happening in this country for decades) — the opponents do seem to be astonishingly cavalier with the facts.

Let’s start with the aquifers claim. The total number that has been found to be polluted by either fracking fluid or methane gas as a result of fracking in the United States is zero. Allegation after allegation has been found to be untrue. The Environmental Protection Agency closed its investigation at Dimock, Pennsylvania, concluding there was no evidence of contamination; abandoned its claim that drilling in Parker County, Texas, had caused methane gas to come out of people’s taps; and withdrew its allegations of water contamination at Pavilion, Wyoming, for lack of evidence. Two recent peer-reviewed studies concluded that groundwater contamination from fracking is “not physically plausible”.

The movie Gasland showed a case of entirely natural gas contamination of water and the director knew it, but still pretended it might have been caused by fracking. Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary, said this month: “I still have not seen any evidence of fracking per se contaminating groundwater.” Tens of thousands of wells drilled, two million fracking operations completed and not a single proven case of groundwater contamination. It may happen one day, of course, but few industries can claim a pollution record that good.

Next comes the claim that shale gas production results in more methane being released to the atmosphere than coal. (Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time and its concentration is not currently rising fast.) This claim originated with a Cornell biology professor with an axe to grind. Study after study has refuted it. As a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology put it: “It is incorrect to suggest that shale gas-related hydraulic fracturing has substantially altered the overall [greenhouse gas] intensity of natural gas production.”

As for earthquakes, Durham University’s definitive survey of all induced earthquakes over many decades concluded that “almost all of the resultant seismic activity [from fracking] was on such a small scale that only geoscientists would be able to detect it” and that mining, geothermal activity or reservoir water storage causes more and bigger tremors. Professor Ray Davies of the University of Durham thinks that fracking “causes as much seismic activity as falling off a ladder”.

Please can you provide the quotes or links to the quotes to show your claim that "our government has already openly admited that shale gas will not lower consumer gas retail prices in the UK"

Sources:

http://scientific-alliance.org/scientif ... s-fracking

http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-shat ... -fracking/

http://moneyweek.com/fracking-what-is-i ... -the-news/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -shale-gas

Clearly you missed the discussions within government that were reported in January of this year, they basically revolve around the fact as confirmed by Ed Davey that the UK will have no control over the retail pricing of its own shale gas as it has to be touted on the european gas wholesale market, Cameron didnt like to promote this fact but he did warn other european countries not to put legal challenges in the way of fracking or no-one in europe would benefit, in other words the whole of the european market has to get involved or the UK contribution will be negligible on the retail markets - many european governments arent quite so keen as Cameron is.

Meanwhile the report from Cuadrilla Resources in 2011 is available for all to view on the internet in which they freely admit that their activities in Bowland Lancs concluded that it was "highly probable" that their operations caused at least two local earth tremors and they later closed down their site there at significant cost, not really the actions of a company who think they are innocent, dont forget this was their report quoting their own seismic engineers.


Lord Browne is at least very honest about the risks and benefits associated with fracking, which is more than can be said for some

Clearly you missed the discussions within government that were reported in January of this year, they basically revolve around the fact as confirmed by Ed Davey that the UK will have no control over the retail pricing of its own shale gas as it has to be touted on the european gas wholesale market, Cameron didnt like to promote this fact but he did warn other european countries not to put legal challenges in the way of fracking or no-one in europe would benefit, in other words the whole of the european market has to get involved or the UK contribution will be negligible on the retail markets - many european governments arent quite so keen as Cameron is.

Meanwhile the report from Cuadrilla Resources in 2011 is available for all to view on the internet in which they freely admit that their activities in Bowland Lancs concluded that it was "highly probable" that their operations caused at least two local earth tremors and they later closed down their site there at significant cost, not really the actions of a company who think they are innocent, dont forget this was their report quoting their own seismic engineers.


Lord Browne is at least very honest about the risks and benefits associated with fracking, which is more than can be said for some