People power has shut the doors on fracking in the UK

gazter

Bridgeton_Boy wrote: »

Thank goodness a council is listening to the people and not big business for a change. Fracking is nothing but a con. In the US many fracking businesses are going bust because it costs more to get the stuff out of the ground than can be bought in the open market. The whole business is a giant ponzie scheme financed on junk bonds which no doubt when the - - - - hits the fan the banks will be expecting tax payers to bail them out (yet again).
If we want a policy that works lets get a proper energy nationwide policy by improving insulation in all homes, give help grants to all households to fit double / triple glazing & solar panels, conserve energy (i.e do we need public buildings all lights blazing at weekend). look at alternatives forms of energy production - why not look again at Hydro electric and wave power. All this would be better than falling for the Fracking con.

Bless.......

Mistermeaner

Anti frackers - you do realise that shale (and oil and gas) are far more fundamental to EVERYTHING you touch and use in your daily life than just the energy that is required to make them?

Whatever it is you are using to read this internet page.... consider what it is made from and where those materials came from.

padington

tberry6686 wrote: »

Why are we even bothering to listen to people who have done so little research into this that they can't even spell fracing (derived from the word fracture, No K).

Fracing is actually very common in this country and has been going on for decades. So far there have been no major issues (that I am aware of) in this country. The US has had some problems - mainly due to badly planned and executed frac jobs.

Fracking is spelt 'fracking' because in English there is an established convention which dictates a 'ck' should be used after short vowels which require a 'k' sound. The industry use of the spelling 'fracing' is simply that, industry use. It's not conventional English nor will it ever become so.

The convention is useful, it helps you to know how to pronounce the word, even if you have never heard it pronounced before.

For example, pr!ck or !!!!!!.

zeupater

Hi

Should we consider that the use of language conventions are being used to frackture any possibility of consensus on this thread?

HTH
Z

tberry6686

padington wrote: »

Fracking is spelt 'fracking' because in English there is an established convention which dictates a 'ck' should be used after short vowels which require a 'k' sound. The industry use of the spelling 'fracing' is simply that, industry use. It's not conventional English nor will it ever become so.

The convention is useful, it helps you to know how to pronounce the word, even if you have never heard it pronounced before.

For example, pr!ck or !!!!!!.

Not in this case. Fracing is an abreviation of fracturing and is a standard industry term globally including the UK.

Mistermeaner

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing with anyone personally I would pronounce 'fracing' like 'facing' and 'fracking' like 'cracking'

Personally I'm giving facing and fracking my full backing because I like baking although as I bace my views on my opinion I may do some back tracking. Or tracing. I'm not sure anymore

padington

tberry6686 wrote: »

Not in this case. Fracing is an abreviation of fracturing and is a standard industry term globally including the UK.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/fracking

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/spellcheck/english/?q=fracing

Standard industry term yes. Correct spelling according to conventional English, no.

Some dictionaries will accept fracing as an alternative spelling. Newspaper editors however side with the 'ck' convention nine times out of ten and in my book, they are correct to do so.

The convention to remind us where a word orginates is less helpful than the convention which reminds us how to pronounce the word, in this instance.

I personally would have thought the oil industry would want to stop reminding us of the fracturing process and there lays one of the biggest industry PR own goals ever.

cells

Generali wrote: »

I was a supporter of fracing but increasingly have my doubts as I found out more.

Here in Aus a company I won't name were fracing and discovered that once the gas was no longer held under pressure it found natural fractures in the ground and headed up to freedom. This was only discovered due to bubbles appearing in a river.

Of course Co don't want to lose this valuable gas so this is an accident rather than acceptable losses but they admit that they have no idea how to prevent this and no idea whether what goes up can also go down and contaminate ground water. It's a reasonable assumption that contamination of ground water is at least a risk.

methane is called natural gas because it is produced naturally by decay of organic materials of which there is more than all quantity of fossil fuels

why would a quantity of methane bubbling into drinking water or the air be that big of a concern?

Also why would the fractured rock gas not flow up the unimpeded bore hole you just put down there but instead decide to flow through 2 km of densely packed rock instead?


The only thing I can imagine is if the frack goes to the edge of the shale and all the rock above it is porous but even then the gas would not all go up and exist one point on the surface. more like it would exit over a 10km2 region diluting vastly and as the old chemist saying goes, dilution is the solution to pollution

Generali

cells wrote: »

methane is called natural gas because it is produced naturally by decay of organic materials of which there is more than all quantity of fossil fuels

why would a quantity of methane bubbling into drinking water or the air be that big of a concern?

Also why would the fractured rock gas not flow up the unimpeded bore hole you just put down there but instead decide to flow through 2 km of densely packed rock instead?


The only thing I can imagine is if the frack goes to the edge of the shale and all the rock above it is porous but even then the gas would not all go up and exist one point on the surface. more like it would exit over a 10km2 region diluting vastly and as the old chemist saying goes, dilution is the solution to pollution

What they discovered was that once the gas was no longer held under pressure in the rock it could find its way to the surface via small cracks and faults in the rocks. The only reason that they discovered this was because some of the gas escaped into a river where it made bubbles!

I think that part of the concern is that if they can't be sure what is going to happen to the gas, they can't be sure what is going to happen to some of the nastier chemicals they use.

These gas producing methods are increasingly being used in and near farming areas and the fear is that valuable farm land producing an annual output will end up being ruined for a one-off production of gas.

Some of this has been reported in the press but part comes from private conversations my team at work has had with the company concerned.

cells

Generali wrote: »

What they discovered was that once the gas was no longer held under pressure in the rock it could find its way to the surface via small cracks and faults in the rocks. The only reason that they discovered this was because some of the gas escaped into a river where it made bubbles!

I think that part of the concern is that if they can't be sure what is going to happen to the gas, they can't be sure what is going to happen to some of the nastier chemicals they use.

These gas producing methods are increasingly being used in and near farming areas and the fear is that valuable farm land producing an annual output will end up being ruined for a one-off production of gas.

Some of this has been reported in the press but part comes from private conversations my team at work has had with the company concerned.

Your fear of chemistry is misplaced

chemicals almost always break down into inert chemicals or get diluted to the point of being totally harmless

Not long ago the worlds major cities rivers acted as the chemical dumps for all the factories nearby. Chemicals thousands of times worse in quantities billions of times greater and in concentrations trillions of times greater were dumped into the thames river every minute of every hour of every day and life didn't end.

even if you intentially wanted to make an area bad you wouldn't use chemicals as the quantity needed would be ridiculous and the effect gone so soon.


even our own bodies regulate its own chemistry.
If you drink three pints of beer you are not drunk forever
if you take coke you are not high forever
if you take antibiotics you are not immune from bacteria for ever
The chemicals break down fairly rapidly in your body

so overall mostly the fear of chemicals is one big fear over nothing.