Dart Energy plans 22 unconventional new gas wells at its site in Airth, Scotland. Yet the company planning the UK’s biggest onshore gas development has many different owners with no single controlling interest. Dart’s main shareholders are a bunch of mining companies, banks, investment funds and wealthy individuals who invest in oil and gas. The […]
Category Archives: Blog
Three lords and one Baroness – frackings vested interests inside government
The House of Lords is emerging as a powerful pro-fracking advocate inside government. Three Lords – Lord Green, Lord Howell and Lord Browne – and one Baroness – Baroness Hogg – each have financial interests in the fracking industry. And each holds either ministerial or executive rank at some of Whitehall’s most powerful departments: the […]
The Shale Revolution: A Peek Behind The Curtain
- Shale being promoted as an economic miracle
- It is claimed to have reduced US energy prices and carbon emissions
- In reality this has all been caused by the economic crisis
- Drop in demand reduced US coal and oil consumption by 10%
- Coal and oil redirected through world market to countries like China
- No world market for gas so US gas prices dropped instead
- Shale gas production costs are way above present prices, which must rise eventually
- Exploitation of shale is a sign of desperation
- Shale will only ever provide small amounts of expensive and dangerous energy
Fracking Nukes: Counting the kilotons
- First massive fracturing to produce gas
- Used nuclear bombs at bottom of wells
- 3 tests in US in late 1960s/early 1970s
- Gas turned out too radioactive to sell
- Massive hydraulic fracturing now used
- Comparible amounts of energy expended
- 16 well pad similar to Hiroshima bomb
- Takes weeks rather than an instance
- Damage to geology will be similar though
Guest blog: URGENT – HELP NEEDED TO STOP BIOFUEL (PROBABLY PALM OIL) POWER PLANT IN SHOREHAM
Biofuel company Edgley Green Power (EGP) has submitted plans for a 32 MW biofuel power station in Shoreham-by-Sea. The power station will burn up to 50,000 tonnes of biofuels a year. That’s 13,950,000 gallons of fuel. To help you visualise this, imagine the exhaust fumes from 5000 transit vans each driving 94,860 miles up and […]
Guest blog: Tom Rooker reports on the “Gathering on the Green” at Lytham St. Annes
Concerned residents gathered at the historic windmill in the town of Lytham, near Blackpool last week to denounce the process of hydraulic fracturing and exploration for shale gas in the area. They gathered together for a group photograph and to participate in a discussion led by local protest groups. Their call for a ban […]
Gas pollution seeps into government
The gas industry is not only environmentally irresponsible – it’s lobbyists, paid representatives and vested interests also pollute our democratic process. To do this, the industry uses a complex series of interventions to promote their case, almost all of it hidden from public view. Below we reveal some of the ways the gas industry exerts […]
Fracking fuels DECC renewables battle
The unexpected departure last week of the head Civil servant in DECC, Moira Wallace, shows the gas industry pushing for dominance of UK energy sector. Ostensibly over renewable energy subsidies, Wallace’s resignation illustrates a behind-the-scenes battle within government with the Chancellor, George Osbourne, firmly backing gas. In a recent letter to energy secretary Ed Davey […]