Preston New Road, Lancashire, 20 February 2017. Photo: Ami Roberts
In this week’s post:
- Eight-person lock-on protest outside Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in Lancashire
- Protests against companies supplying or servicing Preston New Road
- Campaigners record equipment at Third Energy’s Pickering site in North Yorkshire
- Demonstration outside Barclays at Hebden Bridge
This post is updated throughout the week. Please let us know about news you think DrillorDrop should be reporting on this post.
Preston New Road, Little Plumpton, Lancashire
20 February 2017
Preston New Road, Lancashire, 20 February 2017. Photo: Ami Roberts
Eight people locked themselves together in a protest outside Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road shale gas site at about 7.30am this morning.
At 12 noon, a spokesperson for Lancashire Police said:
“We are dealing with a number of protestors who have chained themselves together and to some fencing, blocking the entrance to the Preston New Road Cuadrilla site.
“We are currently facilitating their right to peacefully protest and are negotiating with them to try and get the group to move on safely and minimise any further disruption.”
Above pictures used with the permission of the photographer
Protester removal team at Preston New Road, 20 February 2017. Photo: Miranda Cox
Police closed Preston New Road to traffic for more than an hour. The protest ended after 4pm. Reports said it lasted 9 hours and 55 minutes.
Police later confirmed that six people had been charged with breaching section 14 of the Public Order Act and would appear at Blackpool Magistrates Court on 22 March 2017. Two other men were bailed to appear in court on 8 March 2017.
21 February 2017
Toys left by anti-fracking protesters in the hedge opposite Preston New Road. Photo montage: Cheryl Atkinson
23 February 2017
Preston New Road during Storm Doris, 23 February 2017. Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
D Morgan, haulage company, Ellesmere Port
20 February 2017
Anti-fracking campaigners from Cheshire protested about what they said was D Morgan’s involvement in deliveries or operations at the Preston New Road fracking site in Lancashire.
Morgans, Ellesmere Port, 20 February 2017. Photo: Used with the permission of the photographer
Morgans, Ellesmere Port, 20 February 2017. Photo: Used with the permission of the photographer
Photo of article in the Chester Standard
CRH plant hire, Ashton-in Makerfield, Wigan
21 February 2017
Protest by campaigners against what they said was the involvement of the company in operations at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site near Blackpool
CRH plant hire, Wigan, 21 February 2017. Photo: Used with the permission of the photographer
Campaigners reported the protest had been successful, citing the email below:
Fox Brothers , Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire
23 February 2017
Protest by campaigners against what they said was the involvement of the company in operations at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site near Blackpool
Fox Brothers, Pouton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, 23 February 2017. Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
Fox Brothers, Poulton-Le-Fylde, Lancashire, 23 February 2017. Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
Pickering-1 wellsite, Pickering Showground, North Yorkshire
22-23 February 2017
Campaigners photographed equipment arriving at Third Energy’s Pickering-1 wellsite. The company announced on 21 February that it was preparing for a short workover programme to convert the gas production well into a production and re-injection well. Statement on Third Energy website Photos by Eddie Thornton.
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire
22 February 2017
Protest at Barclays ownership of Third Energy Holdings Ltd, the parent company of Third Energy UK Gas Ltd, which has permission to frack at Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire.
Barclays Bank, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, 22 February 2017. Photo: Ralph Nimmann
Archive
Categories: Opposition
DRILL OR DROP? 
“On shore shale gas is expensive”. What absolute misrepresentation (hope to find a word that will not be edited.)
This is the argument from John and Refracktion, but for our largest chemicals company they seem to have made it work. Do you really think a company that size invest in a fleet of ships if it is an expensive source. But then, they don’t know how to cost things, do they? Take a look at their financial performance.
If you want to find expensive energy look at new nuclear, that is required to prop up equally expensive solar and wind. And the even more expensive lagoon generated energy being proposed. Or how about burning wood pellets-that one’s a real “cheapy”!
I know it may be out of some realms of interest, but I received notice of how my tax for last year was spent today.
Around 25% on welfare. Nice to see on here where it goes. About 5% on public order and safety-ditto.
Here’s a great one. More on National debt interest than defence. That’s going to be an interesting one for the future reference energy security as many seem to fall back on the “over the horizon” supply to justify their anti fracking stance.
Never mind, the kids will pick up the tax bill, as they work through old age until they drop.
Don’t forget to mention you are working to pay £26 Billion a year in UK fossil fuel subsidies.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/new-figures-published-by-the-imf-show-the-uk-provides-more-subsidies-for-fossil-fuels-than-renewables/
Yeah cause your renewables industry was a cash cow for millionaire greens and is pretty much pathetic in current form for actual energy and jobs. So we are left propping up outdated and hazardous coal plants.
‘ pretty much pathetic in current form’
Uk wind power producing more than coal in 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/06/uk-wind-power-coal-green-groups-carbon-taxes
You really should keep up.
Lol, the Guardian, the first choice for the liberals. This paper does print a lot of nonsense but even in this article it demonstrates what a paltry effort your renewables are producing after a decade of making landowners huge sums of money with billions more of tax payers money on subsidies.
How much has wind power energy increased from 2015 to 2016??
You’ll notice gas is up 45%.
You advocate tourism as a big issue yet you want to promote horrendous wind turbines!
Gotta try far far harder. I remain bored of these losing arguments.
John – as usual you are cherry picking. Of course wind will produce more than coal when you shut down coal fired power stations. But more installed wind in 2016 produced less electricity than lower installed wind in 2015. Sounds like a winner?
And what replaced coal – NATURAL GAS.
From the same article look at the Graph. Look at the increase in gas. Back to 2009 levels.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/06/uk-wind-power-coal-green-groups-carbon-taxes
Of course the Guardian has difficulty interpreting it’s own graph.
You really should keep up…….
£8 billion/year is the latest cost of propping up solar and wind with reliable back up.
That is bad enough, but the real killer is that the “crutch” is about to become vastly more expensive. The economics of the madhouse. And we have the (possible) solution under our feet.
But then as a country that threw away the goldmine of the computer in the 1940s, we should be used to politicians messing up anything to do with economic competiveness.
Just noticed none of the protestors are smoking this time? Have they given up or the photographs a bit more staged this time? Another splendid use of Police resources. Need to get the farmer with the muck spreader on the job.
The farmer has been too busy today to make use of his muck spreader. He’s been attempting to drain the land in the field adjacent to the Cuadrilla site as with the heavy rain is turning the site into a quagmire.
Which would not have been the case if the protestors had not held up the site prep work and allowed the drainage and soakaways to be installed……. You can’t blame Cuadrilla for everything – look in the mirror.
Paul Tresto. “Which would not have been the case if the protesters had not held up the site prep work……” So you do acknowledge that peaceful protest is proving effective.
Yes, it is flooding fields? I thought a number of protestors had been arrested? Has no one been charged with anything?
Always fascinating to read that the bad habit of smoking is so evil when fracking intends to inject the earth with poisons and extract less than 40% of it, and release methane and toxins into the atmosphere, yeah Porter Ranch again, it wont go away will it? Then the inevitable acceleration of global warming….sorry the PC version is Climate Change isnt it? As if renaming something somehow reduces its impact and maybe Trump will make that a phrase the Environmental watchdogs are forbidden to mention?
Fracking will pollute aquifers rivers streams and land (oh yes it does), destroy the health of potentially hundreds of thousands, destroy house prices, businesses, imposing thunderous stinking convoys of over sized trucks shaking quiet little villages and towns to pieces, destruction of unsuitable country roads endangering walkers, horses and riders, stinking diesel fumes, partitioning off and razor wiring our beauty spots (have you noticed fracking is mainly taking licenses in on or near the most beautiful parts of our country? how do you explain that?)
Not to mention noise and light pollution, potential earthquakes and accidents, spills, and threatening future generations who will have to clean this mess up when non polluting renewable sustainable energy production should our main, if not only focus, depletion of all ready under pressure water resources, disposal (where?) of millions of gallons of polluted radioactive fracking waste, inundating waste treatment plants, or re-injecting filthy waste back into the boreholes, radon gas pollution, and of course, the real killer is the plans to dump nuclear waste in used drill holes……its true, look it up.
And a then person smokes and he is a protester, and the pros have a conniption fit……..I wonder how many policemen smoke? How many fracking workers and bosses smoke? How many of the pro posters here smoke? Perspective is a killer isn’t it?
Perhaps we will all soon be made to suffer not just primary, but secondary fracking? Won’t that be profitable? Perhaps the tobacco industry will start to advertise fracking with images of cool and wealthy individuals breathing in the fumes….The Marlboro man who died of lung cancer might be replaced by an image of “i breath unfiltered black tipped Cuadrilla methane lites, for the cool cold dead look it gives on the way to the respiratory ward” or, “i breath Ineos finest deep down vapour rich propants in new handy e-vapid casings and get an extra boost of non aromatic methane from my specially unfiltered tap water” and also, borrowing from the much missed Terry Pratchett,”Death recommends new Igas futures, a far quicker way to meet me than bullets and bombs”
There are many courses available to stop addictions you know, i think i will start a class to help stop addiction to fracking, you know it makes sense, doctors and Jeremy Hunt will be able to reduce the NHS budget for the next twenty years to zero and sell it off to Donald Trump who only smokes when he grabs a cat……or did i misunderstand that?
Phil C – you have been watching too many Ian Crane videos….”the real killer is the plans to dump nuclear waste in used drill holes……its true, look it up.” I’d like to see you get a 42 gallon (US of course) drum down a 6″ hole.
Oil and gas companies prefer beautiful areas to drill because the view from the “office” is very important. I would have thought you would congratulate them on looking after their staff’s well being?
It has nothing to do with the geology at 6,000ft below of course.
By the way, it looks like your “heroes” in Dakota may be in a spot of bother. Is this where you have been – helping out, in the field so to speak, at the sharp end?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39059983
What an odd comment? is that it?
What, no, ‘dumping nuclear waste will not happen’? Not, ‘there are no plans to put nuclear waste into used boreholes’? Not, ‘its all a lie, its scare mongering’? Really? Pf’s have a whole arsenal of epithets, used with glee and abandon on these pages, yet the best you can come up with is, how you gonna fit it down the drill casing? You serious? Dont ask me? look it up, it depends upon the level of radioactivity i guess, If the used fuel is reprocessed spent fuel rods, as is that from UK, French, German, Japanese and Russian reactors, HLW comprises highly-radioactive fission products and some transuranic elements with long-lived radioactivity. These are separated from the used fuel, enabling the uranium and plutonium to be recycled. Liquid HLW from reprocessing must be solidified. The HLW also generates a considerable amount of heat and requires cooling. It is vitrified into borosilicate (Pyrex) glass, sealed into heavy stainless steel cylinders about 1.3 metres high and stored for eventual disposal deep underground. This material has no conceivable future (only about 500,000 years worth!) use and is unequivocally (financially) waste. I imagine that is too big to be flushed down a 9” dia casing? So maybe low level or intermediate waste? Damned if i know, ask the authors. Maybe they will transport it from Fukushima? That is mostly radioactive salt water, around 80.000 gallons a day and 530 seiverts per hours worth.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx
Love the nice view comment, pity the locals cannot say the same? I suspect congratulations of such location choices would be somewhat warmer than anticipated if the local people were ever invited to enjoy the view from their perspective? Not very likely though, is it, they will hide behind their razor wire and enjoy the view of stationary trucks and car accidents.
6000 feet, whats that in metric UK? 1.828km? and what about back pressure? artesian effects? Spills? Well integrity for waste with a half life of 500,000 years? Earthquakes? Land upheaval? Future generations that know nothing of the hazard beneath their feet and wondering why they are dying of cancer and worse? How much is recorded of human history? 5,000 years? 10,000 years, 100,000 years perhaps? Try a half life of 500.000 years? Memory a bit poor for that? What about the written record? 40,000 years the oldest (known) cave paintings, carvings are more difficult to date, so what do we know of 500,000 years ago? Estimates of humans in our present state of evolutionary development vary widely, but perhaps 250,000 years, maybe less? 500,000 years would take it way before human recorded history. How many cave paintings then? Digital information only has an assumed life of 25 years. If the Romans had nuclear power upwards of the 9th century BC, nearly 3,000 years ago, they would still be guarding the waste now, perhaps their skeletons would anyway
Look at the film “Into Eternity”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film)
It’s about the deep nuclear waste dump in Finland, because human memory may not record today’s history there are warnings in all languages and symbols at the entrance which try to tell future races, that the elements contained are poisonously active for at least 500.000 years and not to enter at any or all costs. How will the fracking industry warn future generations of their hazards?
Heroes? Is that meant to be some sort of hook or barb, a bit lame isn’t it? Heroes are for children, have you no heroes? Respect is what it takes and they have that.
Do we really have to do this again? OK this is a waste of time, but as you express an opinion…rather a doubtful one admittedly, but an opinion none the less…….
North Dakota, Standing Rock and the native tribes protest against the Dakota X pipeline, i assume thats what you mean, don’t you just love the BBC? Not partisan a bit are they, almost as objective as you?
Perhaps you could have discovered this yourself, the tribal chiefs and leaders declared in January before Trump was elected that they would be breaking camp in February ready for the spring thaw because of the danger of the spring thaws, natives are too clever to stay in one place and have always moved to a better location. Some want to stay on but the camps are all ready breaking up before the Trump imposed deadline.
The intention is to pursue other avenues of protest, the concern was that all though people were willing to withstand the psychopathic brutality of the hired thugs masquerading as police and militia, many unarmed peaceful protesters have been seriously hurt, blinded and limbs destroyed by the brave heavily armed and armoured unmarked anonymous militia, the threat of flooding in the spring thaw is the real reason to break camp, not a decision to stop the protest. Look it up.
Regarding the media fake news concentration on the division of tribes, It is interesting to note that the tribal councils are government funded and controlled and it is the tribal chiefs who represent the native peoples, it was always part of the government plan to divide and control the tribes by installing their own representatives, and destroying the reservation treaties in order to make every native a US citizen, the fact that the tribes do not want to be US citizens, is conveniently ignored. But as with the breaking of every treaty with the natives by the American government in the history of the US, they failed to see that it is the native peoples who elect and choose their chiefs and advisors, not the government, and the people have little but contempt for the Bureau For Indian Affairs and the FBI who control the tribal councils, who have been given judicial power and in turn have abused that at every turn. That is the so called split, its nothing of the sort, it has always been so.
So where does that get us? Yet another broken treaty? Trump triumphant (Trumphant?) in the subjugation of the native peoples of his own land in the name of profit? No, it is just another sorry embarrassing episode in genocidal attitude towards the native peoples, another injustice of the native peoples to prevent them having even a little say so in their own land, which, by the way, since all the treaties were and are continuously broken, legally, under US Law reverts all of the tribal lands to the native peoples. unlike the average American who owns land, the natives arent even allowed to own the rights for mining under their own feet, a bit like us in UK.
That’s it, that’s all you get, sweet dreams.