Fracking may well kill coal; the hysteria surrounding it (or global debt) has certainly now caused a slow-down in the mining boom in Australia. However, as numerous commentators have observed, fracking may have a small physical footprint on the Earth’s surface but, when you factor-in all the tanker journeys to convey the product to market, it does not have a low carbon footprint.

If nature’s capital “has always been a source of income” then, you could argue, we humans have been on an unsustainable resource depletion path from the day we started deforestation 7000 years ago. Either way, however, our problem today is that a 50% growth in the human population (from 7 to 10.5 billion) in the next 50 years has very little chance of being sustainable – unless we all stop eating meat and build an awful lot of solar-powered water desalination plants.

With a caveat: I disagree somewhat about the traditional mumbo-jumbo on “capitalism”, “collapse”, etc. Marx had a restricted understanding of “Das Kapital”, and the collapse has been stridently predicted since. As a physical scientist, I think in term of energy. Fracking makes geopolitical sense, if one is cynical enough (you said as much yourself a few months ago). It is precisely because it makes sense, that it is so dangerous.

This being said, fracking, well done, could be used to KILL COAL, so maybe ecologists should use it that way. The swiss are proceeding full blast, and fracking there could start in 5 years. it’s not just Britain.

Nature’s capital has always been a source of income, and there is a race between exhausting it, and advanced tech.
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And then there is of course the Alberta tar sands imbroglio.

Thanks to Twitter, I was alerted to an online debate sparked by Mark Lynas and David Santillo (Greenpeace) on the Guardian website today. To which I trotted out my now familiar line:

When will environmentalists stop arguing about whether fracking is inherently dangerous (because of its immediate and localised impacts when poorly engineered and/or executed)… and start focusing on the fact that it is intrinsicly dangerous (because we need to stop finding evermore esoteric and unconventional fossil fuel sources to exploit)…?

However, I think my favourite comment is this one by someone called leedsjon:

…there are also significant economic reasons why this strategy should be abandoned once and for all – far from being any kind of ‘cheap’ energy, shale gas would increase our energy bills by up to £600 over the next 10 years, compared to an increase of £100 if energy was switched to renewables! So, despite the ill informed rhetoric of the Chancellor George Osbourne, this is actually going to be the most expensive option to be considered… The argument that shale gas is low carbon originates from the claim that, compared directly, it emits lower emissions than coal. Yet this comparison does not take into account the vastly increased carbon footprint generated by the process of transporting extracted gas to gas fired power stations (which may mean convoys of up to 300 heavy goods lorries per day travelling through the areas where the shale gas mines are located)…

Gas fracking: Ministers approve shale gas extraction to which I have responded with this:

All the signs from North America show that this process has many dangers not only an increase in seismic activity.

There is a great danger of drinking water sources being contaminated by process chemicals (What’s in these, the operators are reluctant to be above board here?) and leaking gases.

It has been discovered in the US that the methane fraction in the air above the area of operations are elevated, posing a great risk of adding further to the total greenhouse gas (GHG) imbalance.

Once many factors of operation are internalised as cost then the economic case collapses.

This is a most unfortunate decision by a PM and Chancellor who are either woefully ignorant of the truth or don’t care about same for short term game.

I was expecting this with the scare stories about power shortages being promoted through the media. If true, and it probably is in part, then shale gas is not a viable option especially if the UK’s signed up to targets with respect to GHG outputs are to be met.

Others may wish to add their own perspective in the comments there.

Other points: the Qatar gas is processed in JUST one super giant, hyper protected factory, miles long. However, one supersonic cruise missile would shut it down.

Although I do agree with Jules (& Martin) about the necessity of having a much more efficient economy, that is ABSOLUTELY NOT the route presently chosen by the USA. Quite the opposite. The USA plans to export gas, oil, and coal to China…

Of these things world wars are made.

In the greater scheme of things, any outcome involving peace, long term, will have to depend upon not only renewables, but also new forms of nuclear related energies (e.g. Thorium).

As it is worldwide anti-corruption day, I wrote an article on Susan Rice, somebody as much for massive pollution as you will ever find. Obama is trying to make her the third personage of the USA in rank, just behind VP Biden.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/no-rice-no-lice-no-dice/
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