- Frackers planning new seismic surveys
- IGas survey done already in East Midlands
- Now plans for survey at Glazebury, Warrington
- Aurora planning survey near Formby in May
- Survey data used to facilitate future fracking
- Survey process itself can be highly intrusive
- Impacts from noise to structural damage
- Involves coating area in cables, geophones etc.
- Explosives often used to create sound waves
- Companies trespass on gardens and fields
- Surveys have spawned global resistance
- From tearing up cables to blocking roads
- Informed, organised communities crucial
Category Archives: Blog
Seismic Surveys: The Fracking Spearhead
Frackers Close To Getting Their Hands On 60% Of UK
- Government pushing new licensing round
- Give away of 60% of UK to fracking companies
- Justified by strategic environmental assessment
- Report written by fracking consultants, AMEC
- Public consultation on report ends 28th March
- New fracking give away could begin soon after
- Report ignores massive scale and intensity
- Focuses just on shale gas, ignores CBM threat
- Completely ignores a large number of impacts
- Assumes someone else will deal with issues
- Ignores evidence from US, Canada & Australia
- Assumes things will somehow be different here
- Overlooks the radically new nature of fracking
GUEST BLOG: “I am sorry Ecotricity, but shopping will not save the world”
This is a personal response from a Somerset resident and member of Frack Free Somerset to Ecotricity’s offer of financial help in return for advertising space. I love this campaign. With all my heart. Since February 2012 when I first heard about unconventional gas and a new wave of industrialisation that threatened the land that […]
Mounting Evidence: The Harm Caused By Fracking
Summary Below we document the impacts of fracking. Click on a link to jump to a particular section: UK Specific Water Contamination Air Pollution Radioactive Contamination Human Health Agriculture & Animal Health Wildlife Methane Migration Climate Change Fracking Waste Water Usage Earthquakes Transport Pipelines Blowouts, Spills & Explosions Frack Sand Leaking Wells Orphaned Wells Industrialisation […]
Fracking Balcombe: A Threatened Community 2010-2013
In 1986 energy company Conoco drilled a conventional exploration well on the Lower Stumble site situated half a mile from Balcombe village. With the advent of high volume hydraulic fracturing, Unconventional Gas Exploration company Cuadrilla Resources returned to the site with the intention to frack for shale oil and gas. 25th Jan 2010 – Cuadrilla […]
Fracking Threat In The North West
- Wide range of fracking threats in North West
- Both Bowland Shale and various coal seams
- Cuadrilla have large license in Lancashire
- Drilled 4 shale gas test wells and fracked one
- Bogged down in planning at present time
- IGas holds swath from Manchester to Liverpool
- Targeting Shale and CBM at Barton Moss well
- Dart has group of licenses in Cheshire
- After CBM and Shale (helped by GDF Suez)
- Aurora Petroleum has licence north of Liverpool
- Looking for investors to exploit Shale Oil
- UCG licenses in Liverpool Bay and Dee Estuary
- Over 20,000 wells threatened across region
- Government to license more areas next year
- Peel Holdings looking to be fracking landlord
The Real Significance Of The Blockade At Balcombe
- Cuadrilla drilling tight oil well in Balcombe
- Similar to Bakken Shale in North Dakota
- Claim well ‘unlikely’ to go into production
- No one is celebrating with good reason
- Battle not just about this particular well
- Threat of thousands to follow real concern
- Potentially 300 within 5 miles of Balcombe
- Balcombe well will provide data to Cuadrilla
- Allowing them to get more investment
- They have no intention of producing anything
- Plan to prove viable, sellout to larger company
- With enough resistance can be made unviable
- Wherever they try to drill, community must resist
Underground Coal Gasification: Creating Hell On Earth
- UCG involves burning coal underground
- Same drilling technology as Shale/CBM
- Produces Syngas (similar to Town Gas)
- Toxic/Carcinogenic tars are byproduct
- Process out in open environment
- Small scale trials in past decades
- Resulted in serious water contamination
- Plans to burn billions of tons of coal
- Would guarantee climate catastrophe
- 24 UCG licenses approved around coast
- Onshore licence being considered now