Pages

Tuesday 20 August 2013

THE FRACTIOUS FAR LEFT!





"Fracking" or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth. Fracking makes it possible to produce natural gas extraction in shale plays that were once unreachable with conventional technologies. Recent advancements in drilling technology have led to new man-made hydraulic fractures in shale plays that were once not available for exploration. In fact, three dimensional imaging helps scientists determine the precise locations for drilling.
Horizontal drilling (along with traditional vertical drilling) allows for the injection of highly pressurized fracking fluids into the shale area. This creates new channels within the rock from which natural gas is extracted at higher than traditional rates. This drilling process can take up to a month, while the drilling teams delve more than a mile into the Earth’s surface. After which, the well is cased with cement to ensure groundwater protection, and the shale is hydraulically fractured with water and other fracking fluids.



Petroleum engineers have used fracking as a means of increasing well production since the late 1940s. Fractures can also exist naturally in formations, and both natural and man-made fractures can be widened by fracking. As a result, more oil and gas can be extracted from a given area of land. 
A few weeks ago I wrote condemning Friends of the Earth, (hitherto known as 'Fiends of the Earth) for their opposition to the shale fragmentation process known as 'fracking'. The main body of which I have included in this post.
It never ceases to amaze me that the 'Greens' and organisations such as Fiends of the Earth know better than the rest of us. Perhaps I need to hug a few trees to feel empowered or, take a trip to the countryside and mingle with the methane being emitted by farmer Giles herd of Jersey cows in order to feel justifiably enraged by this rape of natural resources.
The recent criminal activities of these unwashed, middle-class warriors down at the sleepy West Sussex village of Balcombe beggars belief. The BBC, ever ready for a headline which will disparage any organisation or legitimate company that is not leaning so far over to the left that it is in danger of falling over, made great play of the "peaceful demonstration" propaganda put out by various spokespeople who were, naturally, enraged that a legitimate company like Cuadrilla should be exploring for shale gas in such a peaceful part of the country when their money would be better spent by exploring sites for inefficient, grotesque wind turbines. The point deliberately missed by the hideous BBC, the Greens and the various protest groups is that Cuadrilla are sinking exploratory bores in the search for oil and NOT fracking for shale gas.  
These "peaceful" protesters blocked the B2036 road between Balcombe and Cuckfield. Glued and chained themselves across the emergency exit to the Cuadrilla site, invaded the head office of Cuadrilla in Lichfield causing management to send staff home. Six activists also glued themselves to the London HQ of Bell Pottinger, Cuadrilla's PR company. Yet, not once did the BBC or any other media outlet point out that the protesters were acting illegally. In fact it even took the police nearly a week to do something about these criminal activists.
Yesterday they eventually decided to act like a police force and Officers served a Public Order Act notice, saying the crowd might cause serious damage to property or disrupt the life of the community.They then proceeded to do what they should have done days ago, which was to arrest the more aggressive and plain stupid of the 'great unwashed' and clear the site so that Cuadrilla could get on with their LAWFUL activities. To great media fanfare during this process the police arrested Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the Green Party. Anxious to get her five minutes of fame, this fading light on the political scene, deigned to give her interview whilst in handcuffs and being carried away by the police.
Later, she said, and I quote: "People today, myself included, took peaceful non-violent direct action only after exhausting every other means of protest available to us."
"I'm in the privileged position of being able to put questions to the government directly and arrange debates in parliament, but still ministers have refused to listen. Despite the opposition to fracking being abundantly clear, the government has completely ignored the views of those they are supposed to represent.
"When the democratic deficit is so enormous, people are left with very little option but to take peaceful, non-violent direct action."
As usual Ms Lucas and the minority do-gooders like her are totally missing the point. This country cannot afford to import gas and oil, the EU has made it impossible for us to produce our own energy because of ridiculous emission targets that they have set for carbon fuels. The, so-called, sustainable option is too expensive and only puts tax-payers money into the over-stuffed coffers of the energy companies. Not only that but it is grossly inefficient. The Greens, the far left and the LibDems are against nuclear power so what is the government to do? Loathe as I am to agree with Cameron, we have to look to explore the possibility of reclaiming fossil fuel in order to sustain the energy needs of the country. Both now and into the future. Shale gas and shale oil meet those needs and the scaremongering should be exposed for what it is; scaremongering!
This leads me neatly into my previous post...

With a looming energy crisis just around the corner one would think that everyone would be pulling together in order to avert said crisis. Not so the tree-hugging Friends of the Earth. This country has the potential, not only to produce relatively cheap energy from beneath the ground, but to become a major exporter of gas and oil. We have, so the experts tell us, enough reserves of gas and oil locked in shale deep underground to last for up to one hundred and forty-one years.
It will come as no surprise to readers of "The Lunatics Monthly" that the tree-huggers are using EU Regulations, Global Warming and the threat, (imaginatively conceived) to wildlife as the main thrusts in their argument. They, like Labour, argue for 'renewables'. Ironically it was proved to be the case that Friends of the Earth were no friends to wildlife when a bird - rare to British shores - came upon a wind turbine.
Much to the astonishment and despair of the assembled 'twitchers', who had gathered to witness the arrival of the White-throated Needletail, the poor thing was decapitated by the swirling blades of the wind turbine. Not so renewable wildlife dispatched to the Great Aviary in the sky by one of the tree-huggers favourite methods of renewable energy. Oops, doesn't cut it!
The frightening thing about Friends of the Earth is that, on the surface, their arguments are plausible. However, you only have to dig just below the surface to realise how weak and nasty their case against fracking is. Scaremongering of the very worst order! They say that chemicals used in the fracking process will contaminate the water table. At this point it would be sensible to ask yourselves, 'how many chemicals occur naturally underground'? Too many to list in this blog anyway! These are filtered out by our water companies as part of the process of supplying fresh water to the populace. The next question is, 'what chemicals are the fracking industry using?' Well, we have NaCl, a mixture of sodium and chloride However, don't panic as you are probably sprinkling it on your french fries as you read this. It is common salt. The other is commonly used by wearers of contact lenses to lubricate them. Nothing "TOXIC"  as Friends of the Earth would have you believe and nothing that cannot be dealt with and rendered safe.
Of course there is always the 'biggy,' Global Warming! They base their evidence on their belief that methane, which is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, will be spilling into the atmosphere through the fracking process. Again, studies have shown that, yes, methane will be released but not in the amounts spouted by Friends of the Earth and any such leakage can be contained and controlled. Further, shale gas is less of a pollutant than natural gas.
There is another irony to this sorry tale, while the Friends of the Earth are dragging shale gas exploration through the courts, the esteemed George Osborne is giving just under two billion pounds of our money to "climate aid" abroad. This at a time when we need every penny that the Treasury can save. It is utter madness and no surprise to find that, once again, our politicians are bowing to the diktats of a Federal European Union. The Green Policies eschewed and put into Law by the power-hungry elite in Brussels are costing this country billions of pounds and causing the loss of thousands of jobs. It simply cannot go on. When is someone going to have the strength to stand up to these crooks and say enough is enough!?
Remember these words from four years ago? "No party which detaches itself from the EU mainstream can claim to be committed to acting on climate change." Yes, spoken with a straight face by our very own, one-eyed 'Man o' the Manse', Mr Gordon Brown. a Prime Minister so inept that he single-handedly made the Labour Party unelectable. So sold on the idea of Climate Change and Global Warming was this drip that he put into legislation laws which would ensure that four years down the line this country would be facing a serious shortage of energy producing plant.
I will remind you again of this idiots vision: "And at home we are implementing a radical set of climate policies. Our Climate Change Act makes the UK the first country to put our emissions cuts into law – by 34 per cent by 2020, and by 80 per cent by 2050. And the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan we published in July (www.decc.gov.uk) is the first in the world to give every department responsibility for its own "carbon budget". Of course, Labour were too busy congratulating themselves to realise that if you de-commission perfectly good power stations then it is prudent to have new ones on standby.
They like the loons in Friends of the Earth will tell you that wind power, biomass, hydro, wave power and solar power are the future for our energy needs. They haven't told you that we cannot afford these ridiculous, still in development, forms of generating electricity. by the way, Friends of the Earth are no friend to this Planet!  Some facts: - Solar power, photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar thermal panels (CSP). PV takes up 3.5 to 10 hectares of land per megawatt of energy produced. CSP takes up to 4  - 16.5 hectares of land per megawatt of energy produced. This land cannot be utilised for anything other than the production of energy.
PV plant creation involves the use of some very nasty chemicals. HCl - hydrochloric acid. H2SO4 - sulphuric acid. HNO3 nitric acid. HF - hydrogen fluoride. C2HCl3 - trichloroethane. C3H6O - acetone.
Wind turbines take up between 30 - 141 acres of land per megawatt of energy produced. Yes this land can be re-used but the use is limited. Add to this the cost in compensation that the Government is paying to landowners for this land. Not only that, but when the useless wind turbines fail to produce energy because the wind is too strong then the owners of the turbines are compensated to the tune of millions of taxpayers money!
Strange how the tree-huggers look the other way when confronted by facts such as the above. The truth is not in their remit nor, does it follow EU diktat.  If all else fails they will tell you that fracking causes earthquakes. Really? Studies have shown that coal mining causes more earthquakes than fracking.
Until we get strong government in this country we are going to be plagued by minority groups such as Friends of the Earth, with their loony agendas, holding up our economic recovery. It is time we ditched the present crop of useless Westminster incumbents and instead put our faith in sensible politics. Politics with the interests of Britain and the British people at its heart. There is only one Party which can and will deliver sensible politics and I fear that if Britain does not wake up that Party will go the same way as the wretched White-throated Needletail!




No comments:

Post a Comment