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1. The anti-frackers will protest at Caudrilla site Mon-Frid 9am-3pm. Weekend off.
   Wow. Sound like a full-time job. Who pay them?

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2. “Fracking firm Cuadrilla has started prep work at its Lancashire site on Preston New Road.
   Workers have begun to ready the area for drilling – despite the fact there are still two legal challenges to their work, and despite thousands of local people still objecting to their plans.

   Though fracking hasn’t started yet, it seems clear that in 2017 our movement will need to work harder than ever to keep the fracking industry at bay.”

   2017 will be the year Cuadrilla, Third Energy, the new I-Gas owners, and possibly INEOS will establish if there are commercially viable shale gas reserves in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Notts.

   The “movement” will have to work very hard to stop this – and why should it be stopped? Let’s see if there is anything there worth arguing about? At the end of 2017 we will either have development applications or it will all go away. But if it does go away it will be for technical and commercial reasons, not because of a few protestors.

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   • I agree Paul. Shale gas is an important strategic energy resource that need to be explored. While those oppose shale have ligit environmental concerns that need to be addressed by the industry and Government regulations they dont see the bigger picture. With the Middle East and Russia become more increasingly unstable and troublesome and North Sea is declining UK energy security is more vulnerable to these factors than ever. On top of Brexit or not Brexit, Scotland will become more autonomous and so is the North Sea and England will become more dependent on Scotland both for oil/gas and their renewables energy resources. Shale have low incremental investment cost to develop and quicker scale up (apart from the council planning permission and activist protesters). It can act as swing producer to keep up with demand to complement big oil/gas project and production. The climate change debate and environmental concerns are important and can be addressed with better regulated development of shale gas in conjunction with compensation for local disruption.

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     • ‘North Sea is declining UK’

       North Sea production is up 5.7% in the first half of 2016, following a 10.4% increase in 2015 when the basin produced 602million barrels of oil/gas.

       The low prices which are problematic to the well established conventional North sea industry would destroy any unconventional onshore industry.

       The clue is in the fact that shale gas has been known about for decades.

       It is the dearest and dirtiest gas. Exactly why it has been left till last.

       If prices go up North sea produces more therefore less imports required.

       No need or room for a shale gas industry in the UK

       I hear said that Norway is quite friendly. Lucky as we get around 80% of our piped gas from them.

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3. It is not widely known that the UK uses a depleted oil field in the Noth Sea, known as Rough, as it’s main source of large scale back-up gas storage. This facility is becoming less usable due to age. Centrica, the operator, has recently gone out to consultation regarding reducing its contracted capacity. If the size of Rough is reduced then the UK will be increasingly dependent for its gas supply on interconnectors from Europe and imported LNG from the Middle East at times of high demand.

   The next week looks like being the harshest weather of the winter and therefore high electricity demand. It will be interesting to see how the make-up of our electricity supply responds and the price. Generally high demand means increased use of coal-fired stations that are normally kept on reserve. It looks like the National Grid was right in saying that electricity supplies will be “tight but manageable” this winter.

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   • ‘the harshest weather of the winter and therefore high electricity demand’

     It is widely known that, historically, January has the highest UK wind speeds.

     If the UK had much greater onshore and offshore wind energy capacity we would be burning the least amount of fossil fuel possible and maximising on free source renewable energy.

     Imports would drop

     This government has no common sense when it comes to energy security

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     • John, the bar chart in the Guradian article linked below tells us where our electrcity came from in 2016. Ignore the headline, misleading….

       What it should say is that more than 50% of coal electrcity production was replaced by gas in 2016, more wind capacity installed and commissioned (nearly all offshore) in 2016, but wind output lower by nearly 5% than in 2015. Thank goodness we have gas…..

       https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/06/uk-wind-power-coal-green-groups-carbon-taxes

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4. If one reflect on the energy need of each side of the argument i.e. the protestor and operator, they are both selfish in their needs. In their small comfortable little world their energy need is low and simple just mainly heat and cooking which can easily met with either firewood or renewables. And for these protesters their world view of energy is simple and that’s pretty much it, keep themselves warm and boild a kettle. On the contrary, the shale operators see the burdening growth and energy need of the modern world and Western civilised society and there is profit to be made and therefore their world view of energy is significantly contrast to the protesters. For any modern civilization energy security mean economic security military security and civil stability. While it easy to for the protesters to scoff and sniff at new sources of energy just because they are already got used to live in a society of stable energy security supply and their personal lifestyle choice of living on firewood it is a different matter in a real world where industry and running of a secured modern society required a different energy need. Just take a look at country like Ukraine who have to depend on on big bully state for their energy need. And the US how much military spending on Middle East to secure oil prior to their shale revolution. Throughout history of humanity, energy resources have alway been, and even more so true in the modern world, a key tool of national and empire economic and defense power (unless they fall into the hand of corrupted incompetent dictators Iraq Venezuela Saudi come to mind). So both side should reflect on other side needs as well as their own.

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5. Just a note to recommend Jonathan Stern’s intelligent paper on the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies’ website this week. Amongst his comments something that was new to me was his suggestion that decarbonisation of methane was a possible solution to the CO2 emissions of burning natural gas. Decarbonisation of methane involves splitting methane into hydrogen and solid carbon. Hydrogen could be used as a non-polluting heat source while solid carbon is a useful industrial raw material. I’m sure it’s a technology which is very far from being possible at an industrial scale but certainly an area where perhaps the government should be sposoring research.

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