Preston New Road shale gas site, 17 April 2017. Photo: Frack Free Creators Knitting Nanas of Lancashire
A Cuadrilla executive has predicted that shale gas from the company’s site at Preston New Road near Blackpool is likely to be used in local homes by early next year.
Matt Lambert, the company’s director of government and public affairs, told a Lancashire business conference this week:
“Probably, as early as the beginning of next year we will be heating homes in Lancashire with Lancashire gas. And then I think people will understand and start to see real jobs, real supply-side contracts coming through in significant numbers and people will say well what was the fuss about.”
He said the potential for shale gas in Lancashire “could be enormous”.
“This is just an amazing opportunity for Lancashire. And when you’ve got those opportunities, which are available, you just have to keep going and eventually we will get there.”
He said there was a “tremendous amount” of shale gas under the ground in the county.
“The opportunity to get that out safely with limited impact on the environment is really too good to miss.”
Protests and challenges
Cuadrilla began work at Preston New Road on 5 January 2017, about two-and-a-half years after it submitted the planning application for the site.
Protest at Cuadrilla’s Preston new Road site, 3 April 2017. Photo: Cheryl Atkinson
It has faced daily protests from opponents, who argue that Lancashire said no to the site when the county council refused planning permission in June 2015.
The Communities’ Secretary, Sajid Javid, overruled the council on 6 October 2016 and earlier this month (12 April 2017) a High Court judge dismissed two legal challenges to the minister’s decision.
Anti-fracking campaigners have said they will maintain their opposition to the site. But despite the legal actions and protests, Cuadrilla has said it is on schedule at Preston New Road. It said its timetable remains to begin drilling in the second quarter of this year (April-June) and fracking in the third quarter (July-September).
The company plans to pump any gas produced during extended well tests directly into the mains network. The planning statement submitted with the planning application expected this test would be carried out about 14 months after the start of work on the site.
“Hub for shale gas industry”
Mr Lambert was asked to estimate the impact of a shale gas industry on employment. He said:
“It’s hard to say but the studies have ranged between 10s of thousands of jobs, even up to a hundred thousand jobs in this area. Until we get the exploration done we just don’t know.”
These figures are higher than those referred to on Cuadrilla’s website, which quotes a study by EY. This predicted that a successful UK shale gas industry at its peak could generate 64,500 direct, indirect and induced jobs across the whole country. This scenario is based on the UK drilling 4,000 lateral wells on 100 pads between 2016-2032.
Mr Lambert said fracking had been made possible by directional drilling – the technological innovation that allowed wells to be drilled for several kilometres.
“We need to get that started here in Lancashire, make it a hub for the industry in Europe and I think there will be huge opportunities for research and development, for universities, for new apprentices, new students coming through with bright ideas and taking this industry forward for the rest of Britain and for Europe.”
Mr Lambert was speaking during an interview with Chris Maguire at BusinessCloud’s Lancashire Powerhouse event in Lytham on 19 April 2017. Audio of the interview here
Categories: Industry
DRILL OR DROP? 
Absolute lies from Cuadrilla’s P.R. machine as usual! Trying to placate their scammed Investors as usual!
Firstly the General Election may screw them up completely! Secondly there is not enough clean water available to lubricate their unwanted hydraulic fractures!
Thirdly the Protectors will not let this happen!
Both Martin and Paul are very optimistic about PNR. I am not sure why? Do you have connections with the engineering team there or someone work for the company? It is clear that Cuadrilla is running low and very tight on funds with very few management team to handle their businesses.
Something about Pauls comment about fracking in sand sand reminded me of something that was sent to me, so i looked it up, its the increasing number of sink-holes appearing in UK, this is an item from the Huffington Post and a brief possible explanation of what causes sink holes
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/what-is-a-sinkhole-and-what-causes-them_uk_573eec30e4b00006e9ae839b
What struck me when i read it was that the fracking process uses high pressure water and explosives to fracture the sub strata, there is no information on just how far subsequent strata, higher and lower, are also fractured, and what effect on natural cavities? Think of an explosion in open air and then the difference in a small space, the effect is to amplify the explosion, which is why gunpowder will just burn very fast in open air, but becomes a supersonic destructive wave in a container. What will be the effect upon the existing conditions? The process in this link is called cavitation, meaning cavities produced by dissolved strata, be it sand, chalk, clay, limestone etc. etc., The engineering use of the word cavitation also indicates that air mixed with water under high pressure also causes a condition know as hydraulic cavitation. That is the micro-bubbles formed by air cavities being formed and collapsing causing a destructive wave, it was that process that destroyed the Oroville dam spillway because it had not been provided with cavitation protection in spite of warnings of the problem of cavitation. In homes in the old water radiator heating systems, the water causes a potentially destructive wave known as “water hammer”, which is the same process.
So consider water and air under high pressure, pumped into the oil or gas well-bore through various strata, each strata will act differently to the process. Failures in cement seal, incidentally, cement is not a seal, its a plug and existing fractures and cavities are often found causing loss of materials, this has all ready happened look it up, also casing joint failures and stressed joints, cavitation vibration caused by the fluids under high pressure making the tortuous route to the end of the bore, all that will have an effect on all the layers above too. Not only that, as casings are re-used after the initial well-bore are then subjected to additional stress from the re-injection of waste contaminants, which permanently contaminate the well-bore.
So where does that get us? Essentially sink-holes are all ready a problem due to the wildly fluctuating weather caused by climate change, whatever the cause, man or nature, probably both, and here we are proposing to inject high pressure fluids into unknown strata, all ready fractured and riddled with cavities, and we expect nothing “serious” to result from this?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me, and that is not even approaching the pollution consideration resulting from well-bore failure…..Watch this space……sorry….cavity…..
I think you will find that sink holes are generally caused by near surface geology or on surface issues. However oil and gas production can cause subsidence due to the extraction of fluids from reservoir rock (Ekofisk, chalk reservoir collapse), Groningen, and others. But extracting gas from shale will not result in subsidence, nor will fracking at the depths the shales contain hydrocarbons. Explosives are used to perforate the steel casings to provide communication to the shale for the fracture stimulation. Generally the length of a perforation will be less than 30cm. Back to the drawing board – or Mr. Google? They are shaped charges, same as used to penetrate the armour of a tank.
Return to your drawing board if you wish, i prefer CAD myself anyway, Mr google? No,I prefer ixquick, gibiru, wolfram alpha amongst others? much better and less censored, less corporate controlled and manipulated, the search algorithms in google are horrendously censored and shoved around to be trustworthy.
No my friend you are wrong in this aspect, its personal experience, you forget, i saw enough of this abroad and you want to know what caused it? look at Texas also if that is not too far for you? I saw similar in the middle east, not much talked about for obvious reasons, whole basins of topography sinking and holed.
I am not convinced by the assurances you give, I’ve seen too many foul ups for that, like i say, watch this…..soon to be opening…..space…..
“However oil and gas production can cause subsidence due to the extraction of fluids from reservoir rock (Ekofisk, chalk reservoir collapse), Groningen, and others. But extracting gas from shale will not result in subsidence, nor will fracking at the depths the shales contain hydrocarbons.”
Not a lot of shale gas / oil in the Middle East – but it is coming soon.
“What struck me when i read it was that the fracking process uses high pressure water and explosives to fracture the sub strata, there is no information on just how far subsequent strata, higher and lower, are also fractured”
Hydraulic fracturing uses high pressure water and definitely no explosives to fracture the sub strata.
There are plenty of published scientific papers which show how shallower and deeper formations constrain hydraulic fracturing.
Perhaps a little naive to say that a shaped charge to split open the casing will not fracture the surrounding stata? You must know that a shaped charge produces a shock wave that travels at supersonic speeds. This can be seen as an expanding distortion above ground, below ground in a confined space it is many times more powerful. The effect of that will undeniably produce an expanding supersonic wave which will split and fracture the surrounding strata structure, to say that it will not simply defies physics and common sense.
High pressure water simply opens up the fractures like a compressive wave used to sink ships.
I don’t care how many learned papers say otherwise, the explosions will certainly fracture sub strata. Its then a question of what that does to surrounding existing cracks, fissures and cavities, and what stress is put on, or released from certain existing semi stable structures and how that will travel and bring to bear additional stress on further cracks, fissures and cavities and so on and so on. Complacency will not disguise probability or alter physics.
Phil C – you are totally incorrect on this issue. All the charges are tested in the lab in rock concrete and the resulting perforation and any associated damage is physically measured and the charge given a particular capability so that oil companies know which to select for a particular application.
http://www.slb.com/~/media/Files/resources/oilfield_review/ors14/aut14/2_shooting.pdf
The surrounding stata is not “rock concrete” existing fissures, cracks and cavities cannot possibly be known. No amount of seismic scanning will reveal that sort of complexity.
I understand your need to deny this, but above ground testing cannot possibly predict conditions 1800 metres down in vertical or lateral wellbores, thousands of metres away it simply isn’t possible. The question still stands, and I am very far from being “totally wrong” on this issue, but nice of you to say so.
Deleted Uranium to add to the mix if you want to boost gas yields. Claim 3.
https://www.google.com/patents/US20110000669
I doubt they will use this in the Uk because of ‘gold standards’ although using lots of depleted uranium would produce better fractures therefore reducing the need to use as much fresh water therefore helping to make a ‘fracking’ application not a ‘fracking’ application as altered in the infrastructure act. Might make planning a lot easier.
The investors would probably say no to this sort of thing anyway.
Its not just the threat of depleted uranium John, the ulitimate end of the used fracking wells is to dump nuclear waste down the wells for which the operators/owners will no doubt be amply remunerated. The results of that are too horrifying to be contemplated and yet it has been proposed.
I would guess that to “perforate” (lovely safe little word that!) a steel casing, the charge would have to be at the very least some form of thermite? which if i understand it correctly, is the ingredient in demolition charges which produces the required destructive wave effect. I was once invited by a colleague, to go and see a pair of original Louis Gustave Mouchel designed chimney water vapour scrubber towers being demolished, quite an experience, fine until the wind turned towards us!
I dont suppose the fracking operators expect to find any water towers 1800 metres down? There is also the issue of thermite or its equivalent toxic effects, these can be seen in this link
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/833495-overview
It puts a somewhat more serious spin on fracking doesn’t it? this issue may also explain some of the more bizarre behaviour of police and security?
Dear oh dear, how did we get here? All i originally asked about was the effects of fracking and oil and gas depletion on sub strata and the connection with sink holes? If the response had not been so negative i would probably have left it there. It just goes to show, the deeper you dig!!! into this practice of fracking and fracturing, the more serious the issue becomes?
Everything left behind would be the responsibility of the tax payer.
Last minute amendment to get the industry off the hook.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/14/uk-to-allow-fracking-companies-to-use-any-substance-under-homes
Disgusting! This government has outstayed their unwelcome presence, anyone who votes tory should read this, of course this also paves the way for the dumping of nuclear waste and if this goes through, there is not a thing we could do about it.
Time to end this corrupt farce of a government and put a permanent stop on all fracking and o&g operations until some real laws with some real teeth are put in place.
Sorry, but you are wrong. However, if you are worried, I’d suggest you demand that oil companies use the ball drop sleeve system. It eliminates the need to perforate and therefore removes your concerns.
Sorry but I am not wrong and i am not worried about it, the operators should be perhaps.
Clearly some ruffled feathers here though.
a great example of “fake news”.
Clearly an example of a “fake response”
Phil, if what you say is true then there would have never been any need to develop hydraulic fracturing to overcome skin issues.
What I find enlightening about the whole fracking issue is that the method is based originally upon a brute force and ignorance effort to extract oil by a civil war colonel.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Real-History-Of-Fracking.html
There was no science in the method then, even the 1990’s modification to the practice suggested nitro glycerin and even nuclear weapons as a fracturing agent.
Shining a light on any aspect of the practice reveals a cobbled together loose science mix justification to legitimise the process, but is essentially a house of cards. Probing the self regulatory self congratulatory detail and the science involved unravels and the house of cards comes tumbling down as demonstrated here.
The resort is then to attack the questioner and the question, hence the accusation of being “totally wrong” and “fake news” used here because I dared to question the methodology.
What this reveals is that there is little real justification on scientific grounds for fracking, it is, and always has been brute force and ignorance and cobbled together self justification to achieve an image of refinement. The refinement of the methodology is rather more practice than science, there is no degree in fracking, no eminent body requiring study in fracking science.
Certainly engineering practices and qualifications are required, just as in any engineering industry, but a house of cards is still essentially what fracking is. I seem to have upset the house of cards here, that was not my original intention, I was actually asking quite legitimate questions.
Now I appreciate the need to justify the methodology, it is only obvious that the industry does that, but attacking my question wont help that, I would prefer an honest response rather than accusations of being “totally wrong” or my question being “fake news”!
Never mind, it is always enlightening to probe and see the response, it just shows that no one can possibly know what happens 1800 metres down and how little is actual science rather than practice.
If this were just an academic discussion, then no harm done, but this is intended everywhere beneath our feet and the consequences are simply unknowable in England and that is the real issue here.
Please make your own mind up on what this probe into the methodology of fracking really does reveal about what is about to happen right under our feet?
That was always a doubtful issue anyway.
A proven example that Cuadrilla do not do what they say.
Off their website.
“In accordance with the planning consent well plugging and site restoration work WILL be carried out after the wintering bird’s season, ending 31st March 2016 and BEFORE THE DEADLINE SET BY LANCASHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL OF 31st OCTOBER 2016”
No work whatsoever started at the Becconsall site during 2016, never mind finished.
A total disregard for the local community and the environment.
No wonder no one wants them as a neighbour.
This is ridiculous, Its an epic example of unwittingly showing how little you know about a subject.
Perforating gun charges are a series of teacup-sized shaped charges, either RDX or HMX explosive with a copper cover. They are designed to punch 1/2 to 3/4 Inch ( INCH !) holes though the casing, cement sheath and into the rock. They are designed to open channels to allow movement of fluid directly into and out of the surrounding rock, but they penetrate the rock, AT MOST, by 3 or 4 feet (thats 4 FEET !) away from the well. The channels then allow hydraulic pressure to be applied to the formation in order to propagate the fractures.
A series of these charges, which each contain 3 to 60 grammes of explosive (a hand grenade has about 60g of RDX explosive), are set helically in the perforating gun and fire sequentially. The energy released by this series of tiny explosions is miniscule and is undetectable on the surface, let alone causing “distortion at the surface”. You seem to be telling people about an atom bomb, when the reality is actually a hand grenade. The smallest level of googling “perforation gun” will show images of these tools.
With this fanciful idea of the physics of gramme-sized explosions and his abyssmal grasp of the geological causes of sinkholes, Phil C is clearly in no position to advise anybody on any form of science or engineering.
Well well, what do we have here? “They are designed to open channels to allow movement of fluid directly into and out of the surrounding rock, but they penetrate the rock, AT MOST, by 3 or 4 feet (thats 4 FEET !) away from the well. The channels then allow hydraulic pressure to be applied to the formation in order to propagate the fractures.”
That is all i was saying, now you have admitted it? So why the big fuss? You really must not be so angry at being honest, by the way we work in the metric system in this country.
My dear chap i would not employ you either, you clearly are far too angry to handle explosives,
never mind, onwards and upwards, as they say, not in the explosives department i hope?
Interesting this tirade of abuse isn’t it? You have to wonder at the methods of so called “discussion” employed by these guys, you only have to push a little and suddenly they turn quite nasty, clearly a defence mechanism? I have to ask why even the slightest challenge brings out this abusive attitude? Is it that, as i have said before, that the science is rather more practice than knowledge? Or is the industry simply so sensitive to any sort of questioning that it becomes paranoid and if the question cant be argued, then the resort is to attack, abuse and denigrate the questioner, bring his character into doubt and all these little strategies emerge?
Fascinating really, i was always trained to question established belief, particularly when it was jealously protected, because that usually hides a weakness or a flaw in the science? That always turned out to be true, where such an attitude emerged, and amply displayed here, quite fascinating that these are the sort of people we are supposed to hand our safety and our children’s safety to, i wouldn’t let them look after a rabbit?
I can ignore all the personal abuse, that is incidental and not true anyway, and its only a symptom of the deeper malaise, but what really concerns me is that the processes are so jealously guarded that the response is always abuse rather than discussion?
I find little to be comforted by the industry, the practice of fracking, nor the individuals displayed on these pages.
I wouldn’t let them handle a spade, let alone a fracking operation.
Phil C. The good news is that you are not in, and never will be in, a position to “employ” or “let them handle a spade, let alone a fracking operation”. There is such a thing as competency which you clearly do not have in the subject under discussion.
[Edited by moderator] Clearly something is being disguised here and you dont want to go there, even your American colleague admitted the effects of the explosives reached four feet, that about 1.2 metres to you and me, but that was stated by you not to be the case, that 1.2 metres clearly fractures the shale around it, and yet you said that was “completely wrong”, clearly it is not completely wrong, who is right, you or him?
“I don’t care how many learned papers say otherwise, the explosions will certainly fracture sub strata. Its then a question of what that does to surrounding existing cracks, fissures and cavities, and what stress is put on, or released from certain existing semi stable structures and how that will travel and bring to bear additional stress on further cracks, fissures and cavities and so on and so on.”
This is what I disagreed with.
Of course the rock is also perforated for a short distance – 3 or 4 feet possibly, usualy less (most of the industry worked in feet in the UK). If it didn’t why bother perforating? The perforation from a shaped charge is a small hole as noted above by Martin Decker. There would appear to be several people who have worked in the industry on this BB who know what they are talking about.
By the way, do you know what a “Martin Decker” is?
Now you know what a perforation is, you can further expand your knowledge…..
We back on an even keel now? you have a bad day or something? I know you disagreed with my comment, you made that quite clear, if you had given me time to say so, rather than jumping down my neck, i would have explained.
Listen Paul, i was not involved in the exploration and extraction side, our job was to discover the problems relating to distribution and storage, large scale fuel depots and the like, i know that does not make me an expert on fracking, that came later after i had moved on, but hey! I’m not a fool and i know what happens on site and so do you.
“Of course the rock is also perforated for a short distance – 3 or 4 feet possibly, usualy less (most of the industry worked in feet in the UK). If it didn’t why bother perforating? The perforation from a shaped charge is a small hole as noted above by Martin Decker. There would appear to be several people who have worked in the industry on this BB who know what they are talking about.”
That is all i was saying, so what was all the fuss about? OK, I know that you say that a perforation of the casing does not effect strata at the surface, i beg to differ, but what i saw was the effects of depletion of the pressure in the reservoir dome, but it still left a deep impression…..there i go again! that is OK, we all see things differently, never mind onwards and upwards…..hmmmmm, must stop doing that.
Martin Decker, a reference to a pressure gauge isnt it? but it was a few years ago now, i have forgotten better things than that, I didnt think it was his real name anyway, such things are rare in these blogs, i am sure you have another explanation, perhaps Mr Google will know but frankly i cant be bothered to look it up. Enlighten me oh guru.
Phil
Re the effect of explosives at depth and affect on the surface. In good old British Coal, we used tonnes of explosives per year driving roadways in seam and cross measure. We worked 400 to 1000m deep.
Cross measure drifting in Sandstone, siltstone had the bigger bang than shale. But, happy to say, nothing happened in the vicinity ( outwith what was intended ) or on the surface. No sink holes, tremors, or moving faults, even though we drove right through faults on 16/17×12 ft steel arches.
This was not the case when we mechanically cut the coal out and dropped the strata by up to 2m. Apart from the subsidence, there were small tremors, which have continued since mining ceased, as faults settle. At 2.0 ML or less most are net felt. ( See New Ollerton Eartquake Activity). The land remains lowered, not that many people now know where.
The Bunter Sandstone Aquifer, which was above the deeper workings, was and is OK.
No sink holes either, but shallow coal workings do collapse and cause man made sink holes-Newcastle have a few recently.
The O&G industry are quite refined when it comes to stressing the strata with explosives.
“i know that does not make me an expert on fracking, that came later after i had moved on,”
No, genuinely, you are not an expert in fracking. Its not a personal attack, its a cold statement of fact. Everything that you have said points to that. In your mind, you may think you are, but as a North Sea veteran of 3 decades, I can tell you, you don’t even have the basics.
I can see the well-honed cry of victimisation in an attempt to imply some evil intent, but its just the online equivalent of screaming dramatically as the policeman on an demo gently pushes you out of the road. Its very transparent. Frankly, there are people around the protest movement [edited by moderator] claiming to be experts who repeat the kind of junk science you have written in these threads to other people who know even less than you, in an attempt to deliberately frighten them into supporting you. If you dont intend to deliberately frighten those people, then your misinformation has a by-product of doing the same thing as a ‘happy’ accident.
If a genuine expert points out to you the many (many) misunderstandings and plain physical impossibilities [edited by moderator], it is for your own, and others, understanding, and hopefully it is done with corroborating links where you and others can check it yourself if you can be bothered. But the frustration of having non-engineers and non-scientists repeating such rubbish is very common, so dont be surprised if people occasionally are direct with you, particularly oil industry people, who generally are pretty direct when they see BS.
So heres some education for you to check on Wolfram Alpha or whatever: a “reservoir dome” is an anticlicinal hydrocarbon trap, where gas and oil collects in a permeable rock such as sandstone which forms a high spot under a sealing formation. Its got nothing to do with shale gas and oil, where the hydrocarbon remains trapped in its (shale) source rock which is also its reservoir. Because of this, domes are not shale targets.
And there are infinitely smaller pore spaces in shale than sandstone, which is why you dont see compaction on the surface unlike some chalk and sandstone reservoirs.
And you reckon you could ‘see’ “the effects of depletion in the reservoir dome” eh? I dont think there are ANY recorded subsidence events associated with the the thousands of shale wells in the USA. I suppose you can find some evidence to link to it can you?, or has the most surveyed and litigious country in the world just conveniently ‘missed’ that ? (theres room for a conspiracy theory or two there Phil C, maybe a chemtrail causation?). Come on then, you know the actual location, google away and post a link about the damage caused. Are you absolutely sure this wasnt a conventional reservoir you saw?
You must have a very strange idea of how hydraulic vehicle brakes work if you think fracturing is done with some sort of compressional wave cavitation black magic.
The truth is that shales at depth are heavily stressed by tectonic forces like a pane of glass being slowly twisted. The simple hydraulic power of pressure is enough to crack the glass. It is fully contained, so it just fractures rather than falling to pieces. The shale breaks like an old fashioned laminated windscreen, where the layers are slightly different physically so the fractures dont travel through the whole thing. So theres no explosive travelling supersonic cavitating waves or other BS like that. You can go through pore pressure, fracture gradients, bulk modulus, Youngs modulus and all the other intricacies on Wolfram [edited by moderator].
Just providing and transferring the physical energy required to just fracture tens or a hundred m around a well is at the cutting edge of modern engineering. To suggest that they fracture any further out is endowing mankind with superpowers that it simply doesnt have. And oh look, we’re back to the atom bomb and hand grenade thing.
[Edited by moderator] What a display? Such arrogance? Keep it up! its worth its weight in coal to see this as a typical reasoned discussion from the fracking fraternity, it just shows why we don’t want it anywhere near our communities.
[Edited by moderator]
Any more ZEOP fabrication from the black tragic fracking industry? Now that you have gotten all that out of your system, for your and Pauls information (or are you the same with a dash of peeny?) myself and the team hired many engineers, but we always looked out for the creative types who were not afraid of asking questions and not following the crowd, because rigid thinking was no good to us. you spout all this rigidity as accepted information as if it was fact, reality is that every situation is different, the more complex the situation, the more flexibility is required to solve it, you cant jam the world into a set of bookish rules, each must be examined on its own merits and the nearest set of parameters then pertains.
The info you give is interesting but rigidly inflexible, stated with an almost religious zeal, when in fact they are primarily observations that fit a known probability. true science is to sort which probability is the primary one, rigid inflexibility only sees one probability, usually the accepted one, that is no good in a complex series of events.
I stand by everything i say, you even confirmed it yourself, but i noticed you would not say who was right you or Paul, if indeed you are different, though that was not at all what the original point was, but that is no longer worth pursuing since any reply would just be more of the same……quality……
Never mind, it has been interesting though, always an education, but not in the way you would think.
I think you’ll find that Paul was struggling to render from your pseudoscience, a correction to your apparent misapprehension that it is the explosive of the perforating charges that does the fracturing of the formation when they punch a series of 3/4″ circular holes (as opposed to your “split open the casing”). The need to create radiating holes in the way a power drill would, by penetration into the surrounding steel, cement and rock, is why shaped charges are used. Now you can dance on the head of a pin and say “but that would fracture the rock” but it would only fracture it propery in the path of that charge and not ‘hydraulically”. That would be explosive fracturing which was a thing in the 19th and early 20th century.
Shaped charges very specifically concentrate the power into a jet which goes in a straight line for a distance decided upon by the company based on the physical properties of the rock. Harder rock, larger charges, but generally between 1 and 3 feet. From those cylindrical holes in the rock radiating from the wellbore, the hydraulic pressure is applied and only then does hydraulic fracturing occur.
“High pressure water simply opens up the fractures like a compressive wave used to sink ships.” is what you said. Err no. The most basic tenet of hydraulic fracturing is the fact that the fracturing is done ‘hydraulically’ (hydraulic: the use of a pressured fluid to do work). And despite all the time and effort you have apparently so far spent opposing this process, this is new to you?
Once there are holes in the casing and rock, it is a carefully monitored slow and steady build up of pump pressure from a “frac spread” to the ‘fracture pressure’ of the rock which fractures the formation, not some wierd supersonic wave from the perforating explosives which have a radius of effect of about the same as most people’s kitchen when cutting through rock at 4 or 5000 psi confining pressure.
You say that the information above is given with ‘religious zeal”, well thats not religious zeal, that is solid engineering and science, which generally has one answer to one question, whatever the ‘school of life” may have taught other people.
Then you say “you spout all this rigidity as accepted information as if it was fact,” Well, sorry, it IS fact. thats why Ive said it. Facts are verifiable, as is everything Ive said to you if you care to check. Your statements are less so, and despite my request, you didnt provide any evidence for your observations of ‘reservoir dome’ problems or anything to back up anything you have supposedly seen or think youve seen.
Youve suggested dumping nuclear waste (no evidence), thermite (plain wrong), “nobody can know what happens at 1800m” (try looking up Measurment While Drilling) and you dont know the basic process of how a rock is fractured. Now I dont know what ‘peeny’ means, and have no idea what ZEOP stands for either but, your line “I don’t care how many learned papers say otherwise, but…,” is a phrase nobody should admt to. Its very similar to “Well, that just, like, your opinion, man”.
“I think you’ll find that Paul was struggling to render from your pseudo science”
How very sad that you insist on trying to insult and denigrate any form of protest. As a PR exercise that is not only a failure it has entirely the opposite effect, as for me it simply confirms that the ZEOP’s (ask Paul he is fond of labels, or peeny, you can ask Paul on that too) spend far too much effort attempting to crush and discredit any dissent towards fracking, that attitude appears is across the board, and is little more than a transparent strategy to dominate this site with pros only.
I see no reason or value to be willing to continue discussion with this grossly insulting arrogant behaviour, it is simply childish and as about as far away from any engineering principle that it can get.
[Edited by moderator]do you not understand that you are in an enviable position to inform and support for your industry, instead it is displayed it as secretive, aggressive and insulting and arrogant. That may be the reality of your association, but it is a gross dereliction of duty in every other way.
The epithetic accusation of “pseudo science”. is laughable, its only a denigrating labelling strategy used by the unscrupulous to hide behind.The hope perhaps that the public will be fooled into submissive acceptance that the unwarranted assurance that the industry knows what it is doing, no evidence of that so far..
The consequences of these loose practices are all ready seen, and will accelerate alarmingly as the operation spreads. Further looseness of operating practices and abject failure to follow what few regulations that are applied, are allowed and protected by a complicit government and co-opted constabulary. That only goes to show how weak the reality is and how bankrupt the operation is.
it will be interesting to see if planning approvals are forthcoming from county councils and tax payers when they see how much they will have to pay for policing the sites, and to whom they will send the bill in future now that Sajid Javid has refused to fund policing centrally.
I see the figure you quote for fracturing the surrounding sub strata has suddenly now become 2 to 3 feet, we are in the metric system in this country, and that was 4 feet last time you wrote, is it shrinking? What next? How low will it be tomorrow? Pseudo science indeed?
This is interesting, “High pressure water simply opens up the fractures like a compressive wave used to sink ships.” is what you said. Err no. The most basic tenet of hydraulic fracturing is the fact that the fracturing is done ‘hydraulically’ (hydraulic: the use of a pressured fluid to do work). And despite all the time and effort you have apparently so far spent opposing this process, this is new to you?
Really, go get a lump of rock and play a high pressure hose against it……no fractures appearing? No, try fracturing the rock first, and then play the high pressure hose against it? Yes? cracks are opened up aren’t they? Why is that? Two things, first the rock was all ready fractured, secondly that hateful little word “cavitation” comes into play, oh dear oh dear, that is the formation and collapse of tiny bubble sized cavities in the cracks formed by high pressure water and air combined, resulting in destructive waves…..eeerr yes? look it up, look at the Oroville dam spillway damage while you are at it.
I could go on, but i cant be bothered.
You see what rigid thinking does for you? PS, don’t use google its a compromised search engine for the unwary, try something less manipulated.
[Edited by moderator]
As for myself, i don’t give a damn, I’m not foolish enough to think that anyone’s opinion of me says anything but where it comes from, what you think or write is only your opinion, not mine.
“Well, that (is) just, like, your opinion, man”.
Bizarre event, with a courier motorcyclist, reported by refraction.
http://www.refracktion.com/index.php/facilitation-takes-some-strange-forms/
Since the UK just had its first day without needing coal since the industrial revolution, I wonder how that will change the energy equation in the next few years.
I guess it’s easy to throw out various risk scenarios without any estimate of their probability. I suspect that no industry is without it’s risks. It’s a matter of calculating risk and balancing that against benefits.
All the contributors on this thread (with the exception of Paul T) give me the impression that they are academics from the University of Google, just like myself. My piece of ignorant opinion is based on the “knowledge” that there have been 100,000 frack jobs in the USA over the last 5 years without significant harm compared to the average for industry as a whole. That’s in the most litigious country in the world. At the same time the displacement of coal by gas and renewables in electricity generation has meant the USA has lower CO2 emissions, lower pollution and higher GDP than would otherwise have been the case.
Again I watch the building of 500 new homes in he the small town where I live and think about risk. At a micro level one can anticipate that someone will be seriously hurt in the building process or by the increased traffic, the statistics on accidents tell you that.. At a macro level this building scheme is being repeated across the countryside with certain unknown risks to the environment as a whole. Yet we continue to do it….why because the benefits in terms of increasing the housing stock outweigh the risks I guess. Same with shale gas, increased energy security, gas with a lower carbon footprint, possibly cheaper more affordable gas, outweigh the low probability risks …probably!!
There are risks and risks, some are easy, no real consequences of failure, gambling goes on all the time, its a disease of the mind, a hope of gain from a turn of the card, a race, “yes/no” result, even when the game is rigged….interesting word, rigged, isn’t it? Then there are calculable risks, the statistical probability of success or failure, financial systems are little more than calculated gambling, you win some you lose some, at the end of the day the player only gains or wins someone else’s money, the winner will gain, the loser will suffer, who cares its just a job?
Then there are incalculable risks, exploration, space travel, wars, conflict, speculation, specialisation etc etc.
But then there is another sort of risk, that is essentially a fraudulent display of confidence in an action that the results of which are perfectly well understood. But you don’t want the victim to know that, so you drown the risk in false statistics, cobbled together science, politics, corruption, blackmail, bribery, financial pressure, behind locked door lobbying and co-opting spokespersons. The result is known, but lies will hide the truth, untill people begin to see through the lies, then you co-opt the enforcement bodies of the preprepared bodies you have all ready corrupted. You have also co-opted the media, the newspapers, failures never get reported, investigators are removed or fired, papers that criticise the activity are hidden and delayed until they can be censored or buried, you highlight protest as the problem, not the original activity, you denegrate and bully any opposition and you hide behind fake statistics, empty promises and false predictions of success. Failure is never allowed to reach the victims, you have them where you want them, ignorant and distracted by all the pap and pomp and bread and circuses you throw at them. That sort of risk is called fraud, lies, disinformation, corruption…..in effect that is what fracking is, its simply risk averse fraud, and by risk averse, I mean the that the risk of being found out are so overwhelming, every effort, in fact any effort will be made to conceal it.
The 2.7 million, going on 3 million wells in USA are so configured by top level corruption, so embedded into the political machinations that its the same there if not worse, litigation is all about money there and here, the coffers of the o&g multinationals are bottomless, they can afford the best lawyers and corrupt judges, corrupt the media, corrupt the government, its all a rigged game, medical facilities are similarly co- opted, mistakes and failures are buried in counter litigation and the industry squats over the whole process and claims there has been no problems. Risk averse fraud is all about avoiding the risk of being found out.
There have been and will be here severe and long lasting catastrophic effects from fracking, it is undeniable, but to a risk averse fraudulent industry all the votes have been rigged, all the bases covered, all the bribery, corruption and blackmail in place, and they don’t give a flying frack about anything other than profit.
There is also of course mitigation of risks, it is interesting to see that operation Gotham? in NYS/NJS today coincides exactly with the maximum solar flare strike on earth which has all ready produced power outages in NYS and California in last few days.
Scientist went to the senate several years ago to ask for funds to EMP proof the generator grid and insure that sub stations and satellites were proofed against EMP effects from solar flares. They were refused, in fact they were laughed out of the senate. Now we see the results of that insane ignorance with this on our doorstep.
This is the sort of complacent attitude which causes low risk to be amplified into high even unacceptable risk, and yet the authorities ignore the risks.
I used to think the human race were intelligent, but complacency, corruption and perverted game theory and the illusion of the absence of consequences has come to pervade the western so called 1st world from top to bottom.
It is that unwillingness to address real risk that pervades the o&g industry, we are clearly not an intelligent species and we no longer can face up to reality.
Looks as if there is something in the water already, or perhaps there should be more water in the something!
[Edited by moderator]
Quite simply, as far as PNR is concerned this will go ahead and we will see if Cuadrilla manages to find commercial quantities of gas. They will NOT run out of money to do so. (And if they did, someone else would farm in immediately.) If Cuadrilla are successful at PNR it will accelerate all the other licence holders. If they get a “duster” then it will not mean an end to exploration, just a review and a re-adjustment of approach by themselves and others. (There are pretty simple techniques to use to determine this, if you exit the fantasy world.)
For the time being, I shall concentrate on the arrogance/ignorance syndrome elsewhere. This is getting silly, and will get sillier, before sense returns, and then-I’LL BE BACK!. Meanwhile, have fun(?)
Is Phil C the only anti with anything technical to contribute to the debate (albeit mostly incorrect but at least he tries)? This is why the antis are not going to stop fracking, little appreciation of the process and led by EOI and Greenpeas anti industry agenda, and their emotions…..
[Edited by moderator] I was enjoying taking the “fracts” apart one by one? Never mind just a frack in the plan.