An oil industry geologist from Aberdeen has told Church of Scotland members that they must fight the threat of fracking on moral grounds.
Hannah-Mary Goodlad, moderator in-waiting of the National Youth Assembly, said technology was advancing so quickly that it would be safe to extract unconventional oil and gas from underneath the ground from an environmental perspective in about five years.
The 25-year-old, who was speaking in a personal capacity and not on behalf of her employer Statoil, told ministers and elders yesterday that they must argue that future energy needs must be met through renewables, not fossil fuels.
A study says fracking has the potential to unlock 140billion barrels of global oil supplies.
The amount would be equivalent to Russia's known reserves, according to analysis by IHS.
According to the report, countries such as Iran, Mexico, China and Russia are likely to benefit most from exploiting techniques in the US shale revolution.
Decisions will be made on two controversial fracking applications in Lancashire in late June, the county council has said.
Lancashire County Council’s development control committee had originally been due to make decisions in January on applications by shale company Cuadrilla to drill, frack and test gas flows at two sites on the Fylde Coast between Preston and Blackpool.
Most of the country’s national parks are unsuitable for fracking because of their geology, a report has found.
Scientists from Durham University’s Department of Earth Sciences have reviewed existing data for each of our 15 national parks and found only four where it could be considered.
The briefing document found the four parks with geology to interest companies looking to exploit shale gas, shale oil or coalbed methane were the North York Moors, the Peak District, the South Downs and the Yorkshire Dales.
Half of the 41 fracking companies operating in the US will be dead or sold by year-end because of slashed spending by oil companies, an executive with Weatherford International Plc said.
There could be about 20 companies left that provide hydraulic fracturing services, Rob Fulks, pressure pumping marketing director at Weatherford, said in an interview Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston.
Demand for fracking, a production method that along with horizontal drilling spurred a boom in US oil and natural gas output, has declined as customers leave wells uncompleted because of low prices.
Nearly a third of people would be less likely to vote for a candidate who supports fracking in their constituency, according to polling for Greenpeace.
The environmental group said the poll showed that backing the shale industry, which hopes to explore for and extract gas and oil through fracking in a number of areas in the UK, could be “political suicide” for candidates in key marginal seats.
The ComRes poll of 2,035 people found that 31% would be less likely to vote for a candidate who backed fracking in their local area, compared with 13% who said they would be more likely to vote for them.
Some 44% said it would have no impact on the way they voted.
A new UK regulator for onshore underground energy should be established to give the public more confidence in the fledgling shale gas industry, a task force has recommended.
The new regulator should conduct proactive, independent monitoring of fracking sites, particularly assessing the integrity of wells to make sure any problems that could lead to leaks are discovered and remedied, a report by the Task Force on Shale Gas said.
And the local community should be given the chance to be involved in the monitoring to verify the process, it said.
The operator of Scotland’s largest petrochemical plant at Grangemouth has started a community consultation process in a bid to gain support for fracking.
Ineos said its information programme will give the public the facts about shale gas extraction while highlighting both the issues and benefits.
The development of unconventional gas extraction has been halted by a Scottish Government moratorium while further research and a public consultation is carried out.
Spin is beating science in the debate over unconventional oil and gas in Scotland, according to the boss of a leading engineering firm.
Keith Cochrane, chief executive of Weir Group, said he fears the country will be left behind if it does not take advantage of shale gas opportunities.
The Scottish Government has announced a moratorium on granting planning consents for hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” - the method by which the gas is extracted.
It will be in place while a full public consultation is carried out alongside further research into the technique to look at planning, environmental regulation and the impact on public health.
Scotland’s future will be “poor and cold” unless it takes steps to replace the offshore oil industry with onshore shale gas fracking, an expert has claimed.
Economist Gordon Hughes, an Edinburgh University professor and former World Bank advisor, suggested that efforts to tackle social injustice in Scotland will be put at risk unless the controversial energy resource is developed.
At the same event yesterday, a boss at the giant Grangemouth petrochemicals plant warned that its future would be plunged into fresh doubt without a local shale gas industry.
Scotland’s largest petrochemical plant at Grangemouth is unlikely to have a long-term future unless an indigenous shale gas industry can be developed, according to the firm that owns it.
Chemicals giant Ineos proposes using shale gas as a raw material for its chemicals plants, and has revealed plans to put millions into exploration.
But developing the industry could be stalled or even prevented after the Scottish Government announced a moratorium on granting planning consents for hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” - the means of extracting the gas.
Beset by falling prices, the oil industry is looking at about 50,000 existing wells in the U.S. that may be candidates for a second wave of fracking, using techniques that didn’t exist when they were first drilled.
New wells can cost as much as $8 million, while re-fracking costs about $2 million, significant savings when the price of crude is hovering close to $50 a barrel, according to Halliburton Co., the world’s biggest provider of hydraulic fracturing services.
While re-fracking offered mixed results in the past, earning it the nickname “pump and pray,” the oil crash is forcing companies to pursue new technologies to produce oil more cheaply.
Almost all the areas being made available for fracking in England will be hit by new regulations restricting the controversial process, analysis suggests.
Greenpeace renewed its call for a ban on fracking, as it said 97% of the areas made available for new onshore oil and gas licences would be at least partially affected by the new conditions.
The Government has accepted Labour moves to ban fracking from national parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and some groundwater protection zones, areas which feed aquifers.
Energy minister Fergus Ewing has announced a moratorium on granting planning consents for fracking developments in Scotland to allow a full public consultation on the controversial issue.
Mr Ewing also announced a programme of further research would be carried out into the technique to look at planning, environmental regulation and the impact on public health.
Environmental campaigners had called on the Scottish Government to rule out hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, for shale gas after a move to introduce a UK-wide moratorium was heavily defeated at Westminster on Monday.
Residents from a village which was at the centre of huge anti-fracking protests have seen the completion of their first community-owned solar panel project.
A total of 69 panels have been installed on a cow-shed as part of a long-term plan to generate enough power to match the entire electricity use of Balcombe in West Sussex.
Thousands of protesters converged on Balcombe in the summer of 2013 after energy firm Cuadrilla started exploratory drilling for oil, sparking fears that it would go on to frack there.
Lancashire County Council has deferred a decision on an application to explore for shale gas for a further eight weeks.
Councillors met today, a week after planning officers recommended the sites be refused planning permission due to noise and traffic.
A leaked letter has revealed the Government’s behind-the-scenes efforts to get fracking off the ground as MPs call for a moratorium on the controversial process.
The letter from Chancellor George Osborne, written last year, called on Cabinet colleagues to “make it a personal priority” to implement measures to help boost the shale industry.
He called for rapid progress on developing three or four “exemplar drilling sites” to prove the concept of safe shale gas exploration, contingency plans if Lancashire County Council turns down planning applications and a strategy to push fracking to the public.
A moratorium on fracking is needed amid concerns over local environmental risks and climate change, a committee of MPs has demanded.
The cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) warned extensive production of unconventional shale gas, which is extracted through the controversial process of fracking, is not compatible with the UK’s goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The committee also called for fracking to be “prohibited outright” in protected areas such as national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and ancient woodlands, and banned in all water source protection zones, which feed drinking water aquifers.
A group of MPs has been accused of putting thousands of jobs and the entire UK oil and gas industry in "peril" after launching a bid to derail crucial North Sea reforms.
The 10 politicians were branded "ill-informed" after attempting scupper a "crucial" measure recommended last year by Sir Ian Wood in his landmark review.
On Monday, MPs will discuss the Infrastructure Bill for the final time, including a section which would enshrine in law "the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum".
Fracking could happen on a large scale in the UK despite a recommendation from council officer to refuse two applications in England.
Cuadrilla said it will appeal any decision made councillors following the findings of a report by Lancahire County Council planning officials.
The recommendations were made over fears regarding the amount of night time noise and traffic the applications would generate.
Nearly two-thirds of coalition MPs could face the prospect of fracking in areas that feed water supplies in their constituencies despite public opposition, environmental campaigners have claimed.
Analysis by Greenpeace shows the constituencies of 220 Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs have an overlap between areas being made available for onshore oil and gas licences and groundwater source protection zones, which feed aquifers.
The research was published by the green group ahead of MPs voting on the Infrastructure Bill next week, which contains legislation on fracking.
Proposals for “fracking” for shale gas at two sites in Lancashire should be refused, planning officers have recommended.
Lancashire County Council has published reports with recommendations on planning applications from shale company Cuadrilla to develop two new sites to explore for shale gas by drilling, fracking and testing the flow of gas.
The council’s development control committee is due to make decisions next week on the planning applications for the two sites, at Preston New Road, near Little Plumpton, and Roseacre Wood, near Roseacre, both between Blackpool and Preston.
Geology experts will carry out independent monitoring of two fracking sites in Lancashire if they are given the green light.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) said it will expand its national monitoring programmes for environmental issues, including seismic activity and groundwater, to carry out detailed research in areas of the UK that may see shale gas extraction.
This will include independent analysis of the controversial process of fracking at two proposed shale sites in Lancashire, if they are giving planning permission.
During the holidays, a friend was driving home and said she spotted a fracking well soon after she crossed into Texas.
She wasn’t happy about it. Another friend posted on Facebook a picture of gas prices below $2 a gallon — something that hasn’t happened in more than five years — and commented that the low price made him feel as if “he was stealing something.”
In America, the world’s largest energy-consuming nation, the biggest fractures occur not in deep underground shale formations but in the way we separate our perceptions of energy from reality.
Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) operations in the US that involve fracturing may be harming human health.
By inference, research being carried out at the University of Missouri may sound alarm bells in the UK and wider EU where shale gas extraction (and oil) industry has yet to start.
Up to now in the US, discussions have largely concentrated on potential air and water pollution from chemicals used in these processes and how it affects the more than 15million Americans living within one mile of UOG operations.
