Helen Savage responds to government support for fracking from the West Sussex village of Balcombe, scene of anti-fracking protests in summer 2013.
A fortnight ago, the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, formally announced the lifting of the moratorium on fracking in England. He described opponents of fracking as Luddites and later suggested that the shale gas industry should canvass for support door-to-door, like politicians at election time.
The oil site at Balcombe has been largely mothballed since Cuadrilla drilled an exploration well nine years ago. Since then, villagers have established the solar company, RePower Balcombe. A bid to test the Balcombe well was refused by West Sussex County Council last year. A decision on an appeal is awaited.
Speaking from experience – Helen Savage
The moratorium on fracking is being lifted, therefore I can only assume that Liz Truss and her government no longer wish to remain in power!
Have they not noticed the spread of anti-fracking campaigns across the country since 2013? The climate emergency?
I speak from experience in Balcombe. When oil and gas come knocking at the door, local communities very quickly discover what bad neighbours they are; from broken promises on noise and traffic to damaged wells.
After an avalanche of objections, West Sussex County Council unanimously voted ‘no’ to more work from Angus energy in Balcombe. According to the West Sussex Joint Minerals Plan, it’s clear such exploration should not be happening here. And yet the company can appeal and has.
We now wait for the final decision from someone in a government office.
If they overturn the council’s refusal it would make a mockery of local democracy.
There are already rumblings that fracking sites could be considered Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, which would bypass normal planning requirements.
What community would willingly say yes, after all? Or are government and the industry assuming people will take bribes in exchange for lowering their air quality, supersized trucks rumbling past their schools and being kept awake by the sound of drilling and worry of earthquakes?
It makes me sick to think of Jacob’s Rees-Mogg’s oily salesmen going door to door to try and prove they have community consent. We’ve had our fair share of misleading industry spin first-hand in Balcombe.
Rees-Mogg calls opponents of fracking Luddites.
Tell that to Repower Balcombe, a community energy collective set up in the year that Cuadrilla came here. It has been able to donate thousands to local community lighting projects with its profits.
No-one has protested, no air has been sullied with fumes, no-one has been kept up at night and there is no risk of earthquakes.
Solar energy has turned profits in Balcombe, not climate changing fossil fuels. Who then are the real luddites trying to resurrect dinosaur technology?
Categories: guest post, slider
DRILL OR DROP? 
Exactly that Helen , the wannabe Victorian is the Luddite , how ironic and embarrassing for a government that has lost touch with the people.
Except, I have yet to see anything about a proposal to frack at Balcombe within the current application!
In terms of other energy generation, that has always been the case for the UK. Always a mix, not either or, and I agree with that. In Balcombe itself they use fossil fuel and products produced from fossil fuel, and not just electricity from renewables. Now, I do agree for those who deny that they are not best described as Luddites. The more accurate word is Hypocrites. But then he was specifically discussing fracking so it would appear his focus was a long way away from Balcombe.
I see Helen Savage ,and I quote (Speaking from experience)relating to Fracking ,must have spent considerable time in the U.S. A. Where extensive fracking and associated work has been taking place very successfully transforming their energy dependence from liability to Asset !! I also presume thar H .S. is an advocate of felling trees by the thousands of acres in Western Canada, bringing the proceeds by road and rail thousands of miles then transporting by Sea thousands of miles to the great U,k off load then transport to the vale of York and feed the said timberadapted to suit into a power station and received enormous amounts of green energy grants to supply Electricity !! For gods what sort of brain have these always very vocal large minority of people have , oh won’t mention a little village a few miles from Drax with a closed top quality coal mine for which Drax was finally chosen back in the late fifties ,ironically virtually all other countries are still using coal for energy sustainability ,our politicians starting with the great brain Blair have been happily walking blindly into an energy nightmare holding hands with the green and mainly unwashed brigade ,Don’t hold your breath this Winter especially if we have a proper one .
C R
Good point tho
The cost of coal at the time was the death knell for Kellingley. UK Coal went looking for a grant to keep the place open alongside one for Thoresby (for West Burton/Ratcliffe). That the priviatised company needed a grant to do that, and it was not forthcoming. Hence imports were preferred and at the time cheaper.
A grant to keep open a coal mine would have been a bit difficult given the gov (past and present) pledges re Coal Fired Power Stations / carbon tax system, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth over coal subsidies across europe (DOD Passim). Indeed one could expect more violent protest (although never at the pit gate) at coal fired power stations had their closure not been announced. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/17/ten-arrested-ratcliffe-climate-protest
The same could be said for the Rough Gas Storage site. A very large bung to keep open a fossil fuel storage site would no doubt not go down well with those against such subsidies as well as those looking to beggar pension funds by encouraging public sector funds to divest from such activities. Not that it would help us much as our biggest storage sites are the existing gas fields and Norway.
A few coal fired power stations available for a bit longer would help as storing coal as cheap as chips compared to storing gas and once you have it on site (in large black mountains) it is not likely to be exported.
Looking at the extract from Wiki below, presumably Matt Hancock is the patron saint of extinction rebellion, as keeping existing, known and recoverable coal in the ground reduces global coal use, as the corollary is that extracting it increases global coal use and that it was replaced by imports is neither here nor there (for those arging the Biscathorpe one well increases global use argument). Indeed Matt should have shown how much CO2 was saved by his saintly decision, as he could easily ignore the buring of imported coal as that does not count?
Kellingley Colliery closed on 18 December 2015, marking the end of deep mining in the United Kingdom.[14] UK Coal had first proposed its extension by three years, alongside a similar extension to the life of Thoresby Colliery in Nottinghamshire, which closed in July 2015, but business minister Matthew Hancock argued that the £338 million said to be required for this plan “does not represent value for money”.[15]
Many people have never considered Drax to be green or sustainable. Including me.
Opposing fossil fuels and fracking is a separate issue.
But if you want to complain about subsidies, how many billions of subsidy has the fossil fuel industry received from the tax payer? Even today, a mature, profitable industry making billions of profit each year is still receiving £billions of subsidies. The UK subsidies fossil fuels more than any other country in Europe. And at a time when even the head of Shell is saying our government should tax the fossil fuel industry more to help the poorest in society!
Kat
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/23/uk-has-biggest-fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-the-eu-finds-commission#:~:text=The%20UK%20leads%20the%20European,bn%20spent%20on%20renewable%20energy.
Is it this study as reported?
Whilst we are on the subject of Coal , Coal fired power stations, DRAX and environmental issues.
Take a look at this on , BBC PANORAMA last night ….. It exposes another costly environmental disaster, that’s conning the British Tax Payer to the tune of £6 BILLION , destroying pristine forests , greatly increases CO2 emissions , with huge environmental costs processing and shipping the product thousands of miles to the UK .
What is it you ask , it’s the great , environmentally GREEN , wood pellet burning scam .
Check out the guy trying to defend Drax , what a joke . He’s like a child that’s just been caught red handed stealing sweets in a sweet shop ….. Pockets full of sweets , trying to convince the shop owner he bought them the other day.
https://youtu.be/qadWRkPkKus
So, convert Drax to gas! I believe that past suggestion was burned on the bonfire of “renewable energy.”
Should be some not too far away. Better get fracking.
NO MARTIN ,
It’s no use swapping one environmental disaster for another.
This reads like standard Tory vilification, – attribute to an opponent an opinion they have not expressed and then condemn him or her for it as though it were fact.
“What sort of brain have these…very vocal (sic) minority? “ Brain enough to distinguish between a minority and a majority: brain enough to avoid false attribution of opinions. Brain enough to avoid denigration – “unwashed” – of those they do not agree with, as though the unverifiable and spurious slur on toilet habits was somehow relevant.
“Walking blindly into an energy nightmare” started long before great brain Blair, long before great brain McDonagh.
That’ll do for a start.
No, it will not pass. What a glib statement. Something has to be done to get past it. And more of doing what created the mess whilst hoping it will pass, is no answer.
You may suspect? So, you missed the bit about £160B to pay for new nuclear to get past-eventually. Or the two new ships to protect those previously stated secure interconnectors and pipelines. Is that £160B to be “borrowed”? Don’t think so, the energy consumer will pay it-and, if you have your way without help from a windfall tax.
The cozy scientific and political consensus has not worked. I suspect there will be many a politician who loses their job as a result. The scientists will not. And greed is alive and well within “green” energy. Remember Cash for Ash? Forgotten those kids in the DRC already? Sacrificed Greenland to greed? Sacrificed the oceans to ocean mining greed? And much more. Don’t attempt that nonsense. I know landowners who were bribed with a guaranteed profit of £125K/wind turbine to get them to sign up, and that was not dependent upon the electricity actually being required. They were not embracing green energy, they were pocketing £125k. Yet there are still politicians who want on shore turbines, when offshore have all the advantages, including scale. Perhaps when someone has difficulty managing a bacon sandwich the warning should be heeded?
Keep those manure fires burning jono, have you applied for planning for your mud hut when the lights go out?
Or transition more quickly away from expensive gas, stop the geopolitical baggage and have an inhabitable planet. There is a choice. This situation will not last forever and the more green energy we develop the quicker we are freed from the toxic stranglehold of fossil fuels.
In fact, I think the bigger knock on effect of all this will be to hasten the transition.
What is the point of having an inhabitable planet if you have died to keep it that way?
If that is the best humanity can do, they do not deserve to survive,
And in Australia Glencore undertaking trials to pipe emissions from a coal fired power station to CCS!
So, if that is successful, what will all the anti coal lot do?
Meanwhile I watched a lady yesterday explain very well-she just happened to be an expert on energy-how the rush to Net Zero has created the current issue. Obvious to most, but she was still brave to expose the Emperor’s New Clothes and risk the backlash from the Group Think generated by all the vested interests. Basically, re-enforcing what was in the Times on August 18th. The late Prof. Sir David McKay warned about the issue in 2016, and he had been the Governments Chief Scientific Adviser. The politicians will rightly get the blame but those who have been driving them in this direction should also be held culpable. They have driven recklessly urged on by the passengers in the back seat and should have slowed down. There is no merit hitting the wall before the other cars. Not seeing the wall around the bend is no excuse. Some of the journalist passengers already seem to have jumped out and started to claim, it was not me guv.
And the reaction? Try and muddy the waters about fracking, even when it is not being proposed, and other than that do an impression of the three wise monkeys-I can’t see it, I can’t hear it so I will not speak it. Well, it is here now, so try ignoring it, but it will not be that convincing. Isn’t that what the Luddites did?
Martin
The anti coal lot will move to the environmental impact of its extraction, allied to the CO2 footprint of its transport and so on. Maybe a bit about subsidence, reduction in house prices, stress for those living nearby, loss of sylvian settings, disruption of aquifers, methane emissions (which you get from deeper mines), water treatment and long term problems with orphan shaftsand so forth along with issues around regulation. Just a guess.
Martin, we are in this situation because we have been too slow to progress to renewables/green technology and upgrade the grid etc, not because we have gone too fast.
We have barely any capacity to emit more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere if we are to limit dangerous global temperature increases.
It will be those that denied and delayed action that will be viewed negatively by future generations. They are the ones that will be on the wrong side of history.
A recent independent study looked at CCS – it found a number of failings and worrying concerns. The consensus of scientists and experts is that we cannot rely solely on CCS to see us through this problem, we have to cut emissions. CCS is increasingly seen as being used more to support energy intensive industry rather than some panacea.
It is alarming that people that recognise the dire situation we are in ie the climate and eco system of the world is at serious risk of failing, are derided by some as being anti progress, when the complete opposite is true. Because those that oppose fracking and fossil fuels are the ones aligned with the scientific consensus and embrace the change to new energy technologies.
If we want to pass on a sustainable planet to our grandchildren then green energy is our future. And we now have very few years left in which to achieve this change.
Over 90% of the world is committed to achieving net zero and some countries will achieve it before the UK.
Luddites are associated with those that want to stick with the status quo and oppose new technologies, so how can that be levelled at those wanting the advancement of new energy technologies.?
And finally scientists and energy experts also state the change to green energy is completely achievable with investment and commitment. The cost of not achieving net zero will be far greater than achieving net zero.
Happy to reference all the points I have made.
What a cliche filled muddle, KatT. Achieving Net Zero has not been questioned by me. But your way to achieve it has resulted in where UK is now. And your answer? Oh, it should have been much more. Heaven forbid. There is no point to much more until current energy supplies are secure. They are not. The UK has been sold a pup with vested interests repeating that nonsense for decades. You sound just like one of those WW1 generals! “Over the top lads. Try to avoid stepping on the bodies on your way. Sorry, no tanks as they pollute the environment!”
Other countries achieving net zero before UK? I should hope so. I can think of a number of countries that have the resource to do that, whether it be sun, wind or hydro, and a population small enough to not consume too much energy. Good luck to them, but they are not the UK. A bit more insulation in UK will not change that. Anti progress? No, this current situation represents progress just for the anti, it is not progress when power might need to be switched off. I think that is called the Dark Ages.
And for all the muddle, you cannot pretend there is any plan to frack at Balcombe. Muddle does not cover up an attempt to muddy the waters.
As far as Repower is concerned, it has never been a case of either/or. Quite possible to do both.
Excellent piece Helen, thank you. Ignore the sneers, what you have achieved in Balcombe is a great example of community power that has created a viable energy system and a better environment.
And incidentally there are plenty of people in the US unhappy about fracking and suffering the impacts associated with fracking and petrochemicals. It has taken some time to beat the powerful fossil fuel industry but now there have been very serious charges brought against fracking companies and successful prosecutions. Including on behalf of the community of Dimock, a community that was vilified by industry and fracking supporters. There are ongoing detailed health impact studies being undertaken because of raised childhood cancer rates in Ohio and Pennsylvania, pregnancy complications in the US and Canada and premature deaths in the over 65s all related to proximity to fracking sites or being downwind from sites. And there is of course sadly the infamous “Cancer Alley”in Louisiana. Where there is fracking and a vast petrochemical industry.
Plus burning fossil fuels causes air pollution and we know that this also causes ill health and premature death.
Fracking is banned in some states.
It can only be ignorance or bigotry for anyone to mock legitimate concern.
Friends of the Earth message –
* Stop the government’s attack on nature protections *
This is insane. As if fracking isn’t mad enough. *This government is planning a reckless bonfire of the laws that protect our health and environment – putting people and nature in grave danger.
If its new plan goes ahead, hundreds of environmental laws could be ripped up next year.
From the rules that stop river pollution to those that protect us from toxic pesticides.
The government also wants to scrap environmental protection and planning laws in its new “investment zones” – which could even be allowed in England’s national parks.
This would make them a free-for-all, allowing big developers to bulldoze community rights and trash precious green space.
Liz Truss is going all-out for dangerous deregulation at a scale never seen before. Our response needs to be even bigger. – https://action.friendsoftheearth.uk/petition/stop-governments-attack-nature-protections?user=*%7CURN_HASH%7C *
Please sign this petition to stop this deregulation move to remove all protections from you and the environment if you and your family and friends want to live in a protected environment.
The Government also wants us to Stop breathing misinformation!!
The slogan symptomatic Eli-Goth misinforms while shouting misinformation. Which is self-defeating. However, as an example of uninformed cognitive dissonance, it achieves its unintentional purpose.
*Brexit bonfire of environment regulations will kill otters, dolphins and birds, warn conservationists
Government’s plan to ‘streamline’ environmental regulations could put dormice, porpoises and bats under threat* – https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit-bonfire-environment-regulations-otters-dolphins-birds-conservationists-1875799?ito=social_itw_theipaper – By Madeleine Cuff Environment Correspondent
September 23, 2022 4:59 pm(Updated 9:26 pm)
*Planning Bill could bulldoze Environment Bill, warns CPRE
https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/planning-bill-could-bulldoze-environment-bill-warns-cpre/
The current proposed legislation threatens to create a low-regulation planning regime, and is virtually incompatible with the government’s targets for moving to a greener and healthier economy and country, as spelled out in their Environment Bill.* – https://yarevalleysociety.org.uk/cpre-says-dont-let-the-government-deregulate-planning/
Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor
Tuesday October 04 2022, 12.01am, The Times
*A leaked email from the private office of Jacob Rees-Mogg has revealed that they are exploring ways to roll out fracking and other fossil fuel projects without public scrutiny.
The leaked emails, seen first by the Guardian, indicate that Rees-Mogg wants to “maximise the approach to deregulation” and is pushing for parliamentary debate to act as a proxy for public consent. Rees-Mogg is quoted as saying the focus should be on speed, not scrutiny. Tory plans to relax laws protecting wildlife condemned by nature groups * – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1a2156a6-4345-11ed-8885-043c27446b97?shareToken=a38a18d72eba5bf28ecbe6ff2fe1b70f
*Ministers are being urged to rethink reforms to the planning system that would allow developers in effect to ignore regulations protecting nature.*
Eli Goth can deny the facts if he pleases, however, debunked slogan symptomatic ridden nonsense will not convince anyone, not even their fellows.
Strange, KatT.
Yet kids mining for cobalt by hand for a known carcinogen, to enable cheap sources of the material to be used for EVs can be ignored. And Neo Performance Minerals just about to trash parts of Greenland to extract rare earth minerals for what? “Green” technology.
It can only be ignorance or bigotry for anyone to think others are so unaware. And hypocrisy to try and fool by typing away on plastic.
I recall a letter printed in the Times, from top scientists at Cambridge and Oxford, suggesting the solution was to deal with the carbon in fossil fuel, not to throw the baby out. Now, I suspect such scientists will be dismissed, although their colleagues seemed pretty good re. Covid vaccines. I also expect they will be proven correct. Looking at the current situation others have now been shown to be wrong, so a new direction is needed.
It is a funny world when Biden attends COP26, joins in with the Group Think attacking fossil fuel producers, flies back to USA and is rapidly threatening fossil fuel companies to get drilling, which they did. And then feigning outrage when OPEC+ won’t play ball and drill to reduce prices! No wonder the American economy is tanking, in spite of their cheap energy prices.
We can pick fault with many things Martin, including kids mining coal in Columbia or kids working at sewing on sequins in slums for cheap European fashion chains, or drilling for oil in Alaska.
But what I say is correct and is the scientific consensus.
Net zero is our global future.
This crisis will pass and I suspect it will help to increase and accelerate the development of green energy. Free from the nasty geopolitical baggage and greed but most importantly preserving a sustainable planet.
Stick with it,KatT, but don’t expect success with you-know—who, impervious as he is to reason, willing as he clearly is to vilify, claiming positions together with his ilk which have never been espoused by his interlocutor, ignorant or incapable of understanding the mass of evidence he chooses in ignorance to reject. This dogmatic approach is eerily akin to that of recent and actual autocrats who have suborned the democratic system. The lack of integrity leaps out at one.
Keep plugging away: he wants you to throw up your hands and lie down before him to be walked over.
You’ll have noticed that whenever at a loss because the counter-evidence is so strong, he will seize upon an irrelevance or upon one minor point of your argument. It is so tempting to throw in the towel when faced with these tactics.
The standard of argument in D’or D has suffered because of them
Indeed, MFC et al, employs Gish Gallop, look it up if you don’t already know ; )
Blind greed and ignorance. Advocates for more fossil fuel exploration clearly don’t understand or seriously believe it will render this planet uninhabitable for humans. If they understood the climate science they would be treating it like the emergency it is.
[Comment removed by moderator]
So incapable of arguing logically then the three declare they are the wise ones. Except if one reads what they post they are not.
For those who understand the climate science, still no explanation as to why UK is warning of energy supply removal. Just the nonsense that more of what produced this situation is the solution. That shows a total lack of knowledge about climate science, balanced with energy provision. When it isn’t balanced then blackouts happen.
No, the standard of argument has suffered as those who don’t understand what a fact is, and state as much, feel they can impose their nonsense, and try and make out it is factual.
.
And Malcolm, really! If you think one form of energy precludes others, and then it is wrapped up in nonsense about fracking for a site that has no application for fracking, well sorry but facts are important. The Appeal will look at facts.
Just look on myself and others as those who are there to prevent the waters being muddied. The EA of DoD. [Edited by moderator]
Onshore fracking is actually an irrelevance and a “distraction” now that Truss’s government has issued so many permits in the North Sea that the country will not be able to keep within its climate goals. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63163824
The worded definition of the North Sea Transition organisation is thus: (this aim was included in the Infrastructure Act passed by Cameron’s government in 2012)
“”The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), known as the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) until March 2022, is a private company limited by shares wholly owned by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It is responsible for maximising the economic recovery of oil from the North Sea”.
So, this is why people like Mogg, Mackinlay and Baker talk about the desirability of getting the “last drop” of oil and gas out of hte ground. They are not, and never will be on board with trying to save the planet for the future of our children. They have pound signs in their eyes. (or dollar signs). What they dont see is that nenewable energy in business terms is growing exponentially in spite or rather than because of any help given to it, whereas onshore and offshore oil and gas are always protected by tax payer subsidy. We are paying to keep going an industry that keeps customers helpless against the high prices we are now seeing. Of course it would also help if government could actually get down to backing and supporitng other technologies as well that would contribute to a seamless, storable and reliable supply across the energy spectrum. But not at the cost of peoples health, mental well being, and house insurance situations.
You mean like new nuclear to compensate for the failings of the renewables? Well, the Government is backing that, but the cost will appear on our energy bills. £160B of it, except it will be more as no new nuclear build keeps to budget. That looks like a pretty hefty subsidy to me.
“Yet kids mining for cobalt by hand for a known carcinogen, to enable cheap sources of the material to be used for EVs can be ignored. And Neo Performance Minerals just about to trash parts of Greenland to extract rare earth minerals for what? “Green” technology.
It can only be ignorance or bigotry for anyone to think others are so unaware. And hypocrisy to try and fool by typing away on plastic.”
Out of the mouths of (intellectual) babes!
And what ,one wonders, does the EA of DoD make of the fact that 700 hospitals on the NE United States seaboard have been deemed at risk because of hurricanes, the intensity of which has been increased by fossil fuel induced climate change.
If the EA of DoD can’t vibrate them to rubble, he’ll drown them or blow them over.
This EA of DoD’s position gets more risibly untenable by the day.