Fracking - for or against?

Hopefully we will get a reply after his latest survilance mission is over on the antics of Gym Instructors! 

(Hinch wrote) One thing I am convinced of and that is to be deeply suspicious of the energy lobby who care only about profits and sod the consequences.

Which is most certainly true regarding wind farms and the hundreds of 'solitary' turbines that are going up all over the place. It's 'BIG' money for the land owner - very BIG. We know - we have the bloody things. 

Well it was recently reported that there was an idea mooted about a co-op wind turbine.

Lets have a co-op Fracking Well.

Why? Are they giving a divi?  

The French are arranging to invest in fracking the UK. Fracking is not allowed in France, the French prefer to keep the landmass of France intact, as they intend to live there.

It might be worth moving Blackpool inland a bit to account for the land collapsing into the sea. On the other hand, could just leave it where it is, with the tower sticking out of the waves.

Most of the gas from fracking will probably go to France anyway, or some part of Europe, as we won't be able to afford it.

It's a grave mistake to 'quote' the French in any context whereby you are referring to logic or rational and/or diplomacy. Their business men are quite astute. They have had to be given the socialistic tendencies in their own country. When you have some 'real' scientific proof regarding the dangers of 'fracking' and not the rampant garbage of the loony tree huggers or nimby's - then - and only then will I enter into a 'logical' discussion on the subject. Meanwhile - you are entitled to your opinion which I respect (for you may be right), emotional that it is. 

You have probably seen the horrific pictures of water and gas catching fire from the taps in fracked backwoods USA.

Cast your mind back about 25 years and there was a massive methane explosion at Abbeystead, in a pumping station joining the Lune and the Wyre.

There are many ways to get methane into the water system - geologically, fracking isn't even a good one.

There is much more of an issue with deep mining as an environmental issue than there ever will be with fracking.

johnb wrote:
There is much more of an issue with deep mining as an environmental issue than there ever will be with fracking.  

  A voice of reason but, do some people "want" to know ?  

So far, safety breaches seem to be the exception: a comprehensive report from MIT found that only a handful of some of the earlier 20,000 wells drilled in the previous decade had caused contamination, mostly from surface spills of fluids.

Careful regulation can reduce risks by ensuring that well-shafts are leak-proof and that regurgitated gunk is safely collected.

It's early days to see what the long term results of fracking might be. If deep strata are broken up (fractured) will they then compact under pressure, become less permeable to water and change the way the land drains, or doesn't?

The scale of fracking proposed in the UK seems a lot compared to the land mass, rather different in scale than in the USA.