BBC News - Fracking tests near Blackpool 'likely cause' of tremors

[sunny-dave]

Why do I have this feeling that if this fracking site was in the fracking Cotswolds or fracking Central London then the government wouldn't be quite so fracking keen on it...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...d-lancashire-15550458

[daffy654]

I live very close to where this is going on, it is quite worrying!

[China Doll]

I did not read that as 'fracking'...

[DrFilth]

this was the answer to a question in the sunday telegraph crossword

17a, forcing liquid containing sand or other material into strata round a well bottom (8)

fracking

[lindapalmara]

I will be very disappointed if this operation stops. What people don't seem to realise is that these tests have found huge resources of Shale Gas which could mean cheap energy for decades to come. This could revolutionise our energy supplies and make these awful eyesores, windfarms a thing of the past. Wherever this gas has been discovered, many parts of America, it has been a sucess. There must be a way of extracting this gas without disturbing the infrastruture of the earth. It has been done. Lets pour our resources into it rather than building a windfarm in the Thames Estuary costing £2 billion with a further £500 million to connect it to the national gridwhen it only works when its windy!

[sunny-dave]

Despite the (deliberately) controversial tone of my first post, I have a lot of sympathy with what Linda says - renewables are never going to fill the 'energy gap' and a degree of self-sufficiency in energy supply is going to be essential as the world's demand for LNG and oil begins to outstrip supply.

The main worry is that some government (of whatever colour) is simply going to take an opportunistic, short term view of this new resource and 'flog the family silver' in the same way as was done with North Sea oil/gas in the 1980s - rather than doing as the Norwegians did and ekeing out a finite reserve to benefit their country for a lifetime.

And, of course, the real answer is to build nuclear as fast as is humanly possible .... < and anyone who says otherwise better be prepared to live in a cold, dark country from around 2020 onwards >

[daffy654]

So you are quite happy for the possibility that the fylde coast will be poisoned (animals, plants and humans) just so you don't have to have a few windfarms in the Thames Estuary?
Nice to know that the NW is expendable to some people.

[DTCwordfan]

whats has doc been doing on his supension day?

[sunny-dave]

No - sorry daffy - perhaps I should have expressed myself better.

I think that the current 'fracking for shale gas' operation is highly dubious technology and would (as I suggested in my first post) not be allowed anywhere near the southern governmental heartlands - and hence is unacceptable anywhere else in its current form.

I was agreeing with Linda about the need for energy security and the inability of renewables to fill the gap - but I was then banging my personal drum about the blindingly obvious need for more nuclear (with the plants spread around the whole country, not just in the celtic/northern fringes)