Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road fracking site near Blackpool, 1 May 2018. Photo: Ros Wills
The scale of harm from shale gas to health is uncertain, but the danger of exacerbating climate change is not, two professors of public health have warned.
In an editorial for this week’s British Medical Journal, David McCoy and Patrick Saunders said:
“Although we can’t be certain about the scale of harm that shale gas production will bring to local communities and the immediate environment, it will exacerbate climate change. And on these grounds alone, the risks clearly and considerably outweigh any possible benefits.”
Dr McCoy, professor of global public health at Barts and London School of Medicine, and Dr Saunders, visiting professor of public health at University of Staffordshire, dismissed industry arguments about the environmental benefits of shale gas in the UK.
They said:
“Although it may offer some environmental benefit if produced and used efficiently, and if it displaces “dirtier” sources of energy like coal from the energy mix, this does not hold true for countries like the UK that have already phased out coal.
“The argument that shale gas is relatively clean and can assist with our transition to a sustainable energy system is thin, if not hollow. It also implies an unacceptable indifference from proponents of the industry to the global threat posed by climate change.”
They added:
“Methane, the main component of shale gas, is a potent greenhouse gas that leaks directly into the atmosphere at different points in the production and supply line, producing an additional global warming effect.”
The academics have previously co-authored two health impact assessments on shale gas for the health charity, Medact.
In this week’s editorial, they said the hazards and effects on health of shale gas developments depended on many factors. These included, they said, how many shale gas wells were drilled and over what land area, the size and proximity of local populations; how the industry behaved and was regulated, as well as local factors.
They conceded that shale gas production may not be a population level health threat on the scale of tobacco, sugar, alcohol, or motor vehicle pollution. But they added:
“Some evidence shows that it increases the risk of negative health and environmental outcomes, including increased risk of cancer, adverse birth outcomes, respiratory disease, and mental wellbeing.”
Public health review
Public Health England (PHE) published a review in 2014 of the potential public health impacts of pollution resulting from shale gas extraction. This concluded:
“The potential risks to public health from exposure to the emissions associated with shale gas extraction will be low if the operations are properly run and regulated.”
This report has been criticised for looking only at emissions from shale gas sites and for failing to take account of the most recent research.
Dr Frank Rugman and Claire Stephenson delivering a petition to Public Health England in August 2017
There have been calls for an updated report, including a petition with nearly 6,000 signatures delivered to PHE in August 2017.
In May this year, the Energy Minister, Lord Henley, said PHE “continue to review evidence on the potential public health impacts of emissions associated with shale gas extraction and have not currently identified any significant evidence that would make it change its views”.
PHE told DrillOrDrop a team of three-to-four staff focus “part of their time on onshore oil and gas”. They also have responsibility for assessing impacts from chemical incidents, air quality and industrial emissions.
The organisation said there was “an on-going process to identify new peer-reviewed papers” on shale gas health impacts. These were “assessed, summarised and reviewed to identify any new areas of public health concern”.
PHE confirmed that it had not published any further papers but “continues to review the evidence on emissions associated with shale gas extraction.”
Categories: Research
DRILL OR DROP? 
Perhaps these “professors” should ask another question: ‘what are the risks to climate change of doing away with fracking entirely?’ Given that a significant amount of oil and gas is produced using a fracking process, what would wiping out that production do to climate change? Let’s say that 1/3 of the world’s supply of oil and gas come from fracking (an approximation), the question is how would that energy be replaced? It couldn’t be replaced with wind and solar because these forms of power are intermittent, expensive, and impractical in many parts of the world. Wind and solar could replace part of the production, but at a cost to grid stability and energy prices. The rest would have to be replaced mostly by coal – and perhaps some nuclear. So, with the world relying more on coal, we would have greater amounts of co2, mercury, particulate matter, sox, and nox, in the air, which would certainly not help global warming or public health. And because the scientific consensus regarding fugitive emissions of methane along the natural gas supply chain is approximately 1.7%, the argument that natural gas is no better than coal has been summarily disproven. It is amazing that “professors” can be so thick, is it not?
MORE ………. BEAST FROM THE EAST for the UK as a result of Climate Change , Polar Scientist WARNS.
A polar scientist has warned of more weather events like the Beast From the East as climate change worsens, saying with the world’s current carbon emissions, humans will struggle to produce food and enough clean water within the next fifty years.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-weather-latest-climate-expert-warns-of-more-beast-from-the-east-weather-events-and-says-we-will-a3794066.html%3famp
Perhaps they should stick to the health issues, rather than campaign outside of their professional competence, and then use their health credentials to justify their opinions outside of health issues?
How come it will exacerbate climate change when it is uncertain what the production would replace? Maybe it would simply replace USA fracked gas imported to the UK, and that would reduce any impact upon climate change! At the same time, it would contribute in UK taxes to the UK NHS. Pretty unbalanced approach by health professionals!
I do wonder if these same medical professionals are amongst those constantly wanting greater resource from the magic money tree?
“They conceded that shale gas production may not be a population level health threat on the scale of tobacco, sugar, alcohol, or motor vehicle pollution. ”
So scientifically they agree with the government and industry assessment of the potential risks of fracking which is not systemic and can be mitigated.
What the antis keep whining about ?
Giggle winter of 1963, Jack. Makes the Beast look like a mouse. I think there was similar just after the Second World War ended. Our winters in the UK are going to be more impacted by changes to solar activity, from other scientists reports.
Perhaps we should lock the various “experts” in a room and let them battle it out as to who gets the biggest subsidies for their individual theories.
That’s the trouble with too many experts, Jack. They start to contradict each other.
Humans will struggle to manage their resources, whilst the numbers of humans keeps growing and their lifestyle expectations multiply. That is disconnected from climate change, but will be the biggest impact upon it. No one seems to want to grasp that nettle. But, as always, it will be the strongest who grab what they want and the rest will be left in problems. It is already happening. Just look at the cobalt and lithium markets, as a small example.
Except the climate scientists don’t contradict each other Martin – not that your clearly biased sources would inform you of that. I think you’ve been befuddled by Infowars or Piers Corbyn, or perhaps Nigel Lawson’s crazy spreaders of climate disinformation. The O&G industry is full of that kind of crap, including the solar activity nonsense – a typical scapegoat.
MARTIN ,
I agree , an explosion in human population growth, coupled with the fact that the 100s millions of people in developing countries are not satisfied anymore with a bowl of rice a day … They instead are wanting Cars, TVs, Fridge Freezers and Holidays Abroad, all of which adds to an ever growing demand for energy and a continual increase in CO2 emissions.
I believe that China is NOW, as we speak relaxing the one child policy …. 1 billion population soon be 2 billion , 4 billion and so on.
Add to the above, the ENDLESS WARS that consume HUGE amounts of energy before , during and after ….. How much of the earth resources/energy does it take to re-build a war torn country ??
Greed , apathy and plain old stupidity, that’s whats destroying this planet…..
Along with population control , Fossil Fuels WILL HAVE to be soured and consumed in a more responsible way …. MORE IMPORTANTLY , they will have to play a secondary, back up role to 100% renewable energy …. NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND like it is now ,
IF the human race is to have any chance in the future .
MARTIN if you need any more convincing about the serious problems associated with the burning of fossil fuels and the climate change it causes, here is what the NASA space agency says .
NASA space agency , the problems and causes of Climate Change .
https://climate.nasa.gov/
Climate change is the defining challenge of the century. Wake up guys. Health-wise it’s already causing huge stress in some parts of the world and meanwhile the UK is hiding its fossil fuel subsidies.
Methane is the stalking horse measurably driving us towards dangerous tipping points globally. Your complacency is regrettable.
This is how to bring down CO2 emission Levels…
https://eu.delmarvanow.com/story/opinion/2018/06/09/natural-gas-miracle-fuel-column/684512002/
And for all the people who believe wind turbines are pushing coal out think again…
GAS is kicking coal into the long grass… 100%
Right now what is keeping the lights on?
GAS 40%
Nuclear 33%
Coal 2.2%
French ICT 7.6% (I am sure post Brexit a deal will be in place with the same agreement we currently have to share fuel???)
Dutch ICT 3.6% (Coal Burning)
Wind 1.9% (I think this is the highest wind has been for a few weeks…)
Solar obviously Zero%
Go Intermittent Renewables
It’s going to be a long time before you can all start shouting about how much energy wind turbines are producing, maybe in a few months?
And for anyone who wants to see a higher CO2 emitter than coal there is always Biomass 7.9%
Biomass… Please watch Dispatches Channel 4 “The true cost of green energy” available on catch up
Please comment on the Biomass episode… Nobody has mentioned it yet…???
The effect of the U.S.A Shale Industry…
According to the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks produced by the EPA for 1990-2016, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion used to generate electricity fell from 2,267 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MMT CO2 Eq.) in 2001, to 1,825.3 MMT CO2 Eq. in 2016 — a 19.5 percent decline. The greenhouse gases included in this report are carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and methane, the primary component of natural gas.
This is an incredible accomplishment: electricity usage increased by 9.1 percent and emissions fell by 19.5 percent. Almost all of this increase in electric generation is powered by natural gas. Almost all of the decline in greenhouse gas emissions is a result of the switch from coal to natural gas.
Just think what the development of the U.K shale industry could do for our emissions?
https://eu.delmarvanow.com/story/opinion/2018/06/09/natural-gas-miracle-fuel-column/684512002/
Oh please! Kishenny.. you’re linking to an opinion piece that was torn apart by a following item (you obviously missed the reference at the bottom stating “finance professor gets it wrong”). Here’s the riposte: https://eu.delmarvanow.com/story/opinion/readers/2018/05/12/clean-energy-salisbury-professor-just-gets-wrong/598318002/
Two separate pieces Phil, keep up…
The piece you post was posted on May 12 2018 which refers to another article in which nuclear is championed and climate change is not addressed
The piece I have posted was on June 9th 2018 which relates to CO2 reduction brought about by the rise of shale gas and what a definitive positive effect it has been to the environment and the economy
The piece I refer to is about reducing CO2 Emissions, you are avoiding the point. The U.S.A has reduced it’s CO2 Emissions through the development of shale gas…
If you can please refer any article that states the U.S.A has increased it’s CO2 Emissions please post the link
Or if you want to talk about how the German Energiewende intermittent renewable strategy is going propped up by coal please feel free
Here are a few to start
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/10/11/germany-miss-climate-targets-disastrously-leaked-government-paper/
The main picture says it all, static wind turbines with mountains of coal being burnt in the background…
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/reactions-germanys-official-launch-coal-exit-task-force
How can Germany get anywhere near their climate targets? Ditch coal and use…………GAS…
The floor is yours…
Read more closely Kish. You obviously didn’t read (or understand) enough to see that the critic was pointing out that Ervin had shifted position from that of an even earlier article where he was praising nuclear.
The discrepancy in dates was simply down to the response being targeted at a full article which was from a month earlier in another Maryland publication. Your link was to a recycled part of that – tweaked a bit to look like it was addressing greenhouse gases but failing to – that much is clear because the criticisms are are valid and to the point. Anyway the ‘professor’ (almost any teacher in Higher Ed in the states is called a professor) reads like a PR hack. Here are two main points of criticism:…
“he [Ervin] now returns to advocate for continued or increased reliance on fossil fuels — citing specifically the fracking boom in other parts of the country, and the proliferation of pipelines for oil and natural gas. Even Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has concluded, based on a detailed bipartisan study, that fracking was a bad idea here in Maryland.”
… and …
“Most surprising of all, Ervin fails to say a single word about climate change and its predicted consequences. He does not contend that the crisis is fictitious, or is not man-made. Rather, he ignores the issue entirely – though even the Trump EPA is now beginning begrudgingly to acknowledge its likely impact, while our Defense Department is spending billions to shore up vital facilities around the world against climate damage.”
All those wind turbines…
Yes you guessed it
1% of our electricity needs again, how many weeks is this, anyone know?
Solar panels, it’s sunny; must be lots!
8% of our electricity needs………………..is that it?
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
well; my little ‘carbonphile’ and ill informed Kisheny.
It’s summer? Yes that mighty season where wind is less but the UV hits the solar panels from dawn (4.43 to 21.16 if you live in London) to dusk and oh yes you forgot to mention that the solar on grid watch is a [poor] estimate – if the government encouraged precise monitoring then the carbon investors would implode.
Solar for me today 100%, coming to you from a computer powered by the sun.
And before you throw in the other crap;
https://www.thephone.coop/personal/phones/fairphone/
someway to making amends; enjoy
UK shale output since applications passed in 2010 and millions spent by the supposed best at the job.
Must be billions of cheap therms flowing into UK homes.
Actually no
Not a whiff
http://planningregister.lancashire.gov.uk/PlanAppDisp.aspx?recno=5520