In the U.K. there is a big ridiculous row over this well concealed gas well in Balcombe, that the Balcombe Parish Council didn’t even object to when Cuadrilla’s application for planning permission to drill for shale gas went before them.
The noise being made by the anti-frackers in America is equally ridiculous, they can’t even protest the right well sites. “The protesters do not seem concerned with such details”
Josh writes:
Given the recent protests about Fracking, I thought some cartoons on the subject might be a good idea.
Suggestions for further Fract Sheets are very welcome!
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@John Mason. re ideology
John, I visited Sandwich in England a few months ago. A pleasant village in the south. Near the hotel was a bridge with a 100 year old council ordinance.
It was a list of tolls for crossing the little bridge
sixpence for a handcart
a shilling for a horse drawn cart, one and threepence for oxen and one and six for a team of oxen (I cant remember the exact detail, but you get the idea)
The world has changed so much since then that it is unrecognizable. Iphones, apps, sattelites, nuclear, cars. motorways, airports, tv, micro surgery, pharmecuticals
Your ideology is stuck in the past, unchangeable. I think the world of my great grand children will be unrecognisable
you want your great grandchildren to live in the 1980’s. and thank you for it
Balcombe is within easy reach of all the green loons who live in Brighton, a hotbead of green foolishness – Brighton even has the Greens in control of the city council and a right mess they are making of it.
Brighton also boasts the UKs only Green MP (voted for by the population of the ward “Brighton Pavilion”, (itself a ghetto of the “right on”, “sandal wearing”, “nanny state”, “big government” brigade), the dreadful and woefully ill informed Caroline Lucas who recently spends all her time all over our airwaves and elsewhere trying to get any tits removed from our newspapers because it is “demeaning to women” – i.e. talking about the stuff that really matters.
If Caudrilla go within a day’s tofu rations of Brighton they’ll find plenty of eco warriors on their doorstep before they return to their semi-detached with its fossil fueled central heating and electricity (with all mod cons of course) and their job-for-life public sector roles where they spend their days seeking ever new ways to empire build and screw ever more money out of the population of the city.
Josh,
How ’bout something along the lines of DRAGNET – Sgt. Joe Friday. “Just the fracks, ma’am.”?
Or a NIMBY angle,as Rocky Road (10:16am) suggested above, with the fractured rock 2 miles away from the complaining EcoTwit’s house because it is a vertical well 2 miles deep before horizontal fracking is induced.
MtK
taobabe;
Richard, there are such things as solar batteries for home, business, and utility use. You wouldn’t be left energy-less at night.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
1. There’s no such thing as a “solar battery”
2. If you mean you could use solar power to charge conventional re-chargeable batteries, sorry, but since there isn’t enough solar and/or wind power being fed into the grid to serve day time uses as it is, charging batteries for night time use as well would be impossible.
3. Richard was trying to make the point simple, but it isn’t just about lights. An electric stove for example would drain a whole raft of car batteries in minutes. Not to mention that wind and solar are at a minimum in winter, just try and run your forced air natural gas furnace with nothing to force the air….
4. If you meant getting your own solar panels and charging your own batteries, then I suggest you price out a system at any major hardware store and see what the cost is for enough solar cells and batteries to run your house for one night. It will be thousands of dollars, enough to pay your electric bill for many many MANY years.
5. Re your last sentence… yes you would.
Josh,
There used to be a show on TV called Fractured Flickers. Clips from disparate films were spliced together and a ridiculous whole new story line added with ‘voice overs’. Here’s an example:
http://youtu.be/QJ1LCrf4NYA
That’s kinda like what the anti-fracking folks do with all of the spurious claims of polluted groundwater, methane releases, ‘my water taps burn’, etc. anyway, sooooo why not just make it such a laughable spoof of all of their absurd claims that they would be too embarrassed to even mention them again.
Frackured Flickers – Just Joshin’ Around, Folks!
MtK
Anthony: Let me try and correct some information and posts here.
As others have pointed out, this is not a gas well, but is an oil exploration well. There are no current plans to fracture the target zone. The well is beside one drilled in 1986, which was vertical. This well will go horizontal.
A monitoring well was the first thing drilled, to ensure that there is no contamination of the shallow fresh water zones. Nearby water wells had samples taken before drilling the oil well, to get a baseline of the water composition. This is current practice in the US as well.
To reduce the impact on the locals, Cuadrilla has controlled everything from noise levels (42 dB at night), to when trucks can come and go (no travel on weekends or school hours) .
There are 3 steel casings cemented in the ground, as barriers between the oil zone and the surface. The upper section of the oil zone will also be cemented in, with another string of casing. Special care has been taken in designing the well barriers (cement and casing). This includes a cement that expands in the presence of hydrocarbons, and forms a hydraulic seal. (think self sealing fuel tanks).
Lastly, at the risk of being a Pirate of Pendant, the “correct” terms and spelling is the noun “frac” and its verb “fracing”. As another poster pointed out, an apostrophe may be used, which would indicate that syllables have been dropped from “fracturing”. But no rig hand would spell it that way. This is the oilfield vernacular. The “k” was added by an unknowing media, or possibly a fan of Battlestar Galatica.
Kit Carruthers: your
You don’t simply put a hole in the ground and voila! gas comes out of the tap you fit at the top?
In actual fact, that is exactly what is intended. A well will [be] designed to minimize workover. Any well that is continouslly worked over, will likely be abandoned, as workovers are expensive, and there is no production during the workover. I have known wells that produce 10, 20 or more years, without the need for a workover.
As a resident of Aberdeen, I find it ludicrous that solar power is so popular in Scotland. In Edinburgh, you will average less than 2 hours of sunlight in the winter, and and only 6 in June. The yearly average is only 3:47 per day. I would wager that subsidies only make it worthwhile for you.
If by solar gain, you mean letting the sunshine in the windows, that means you are getting near to zero heat in the winter when you need it, and only get heat in the summer, when you don’t need it.
“Images from the Dakotas’ fracking fields should be evidence enough to show that wells are not hidden behind trees and the surface water sources close to fracking areas are far from pristine.” [Least Most Wanted 8/9/13 at 10:59]
LMW, ahem. Many of the North Dakota frac’ing operations are CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION, hence, the mess. The fouled small surface ponds or large puddles are no one’s source of potable water. That is merely a temporary eyesore.
Your argument is unpersuasive unless you produce current photos of long-established, working, natural gas extraction operations that are an ugly blight on the landscape. I doubt you could find many (in the U.S. or Canada, anyway). Whether there are trees or elaborate landscaping around them is irrelevant to this particular question — the issue is whether they blend in or stand out like, oooh, I dunno, like windmills, perhaps.
Evidence Wanted (if you please).
“We call our liquid fuel petrol, they call the same thing gas even though its not – go figure. ;-)”
I’d guess petrol is short for petroleum, which it isn’t.
Gas (liquid fuel in the U.S.) is short for gasoline, which it is.
Gaseous gas is called natural gas (or NG).
Mac! THANKS FOR SHARING THAT FUNNY VIDEO! LOL.
Like watching data while the Fantasy Club Scientists narrate per their script (generated by their models).
#[:)]
That’s all well and good (and accurate), Tom, But, lol, ya’ll KNOW you Texans call it o’.
That’s why so many of the accounting textbooks use “Big O” for one of the companies in their exercises. #[:)]
Janice: I like Kirsie Alley’s defintion of “Big O”…
Panel 1: A wellhead, with the sign something like: “UN Laboratories approved holding tank for unwanted CO2,. Guaranteed leak-proof for thousands of years. Now with improved capacity through modern hydraulic engineering.”
Panel 2: The identical wellhead. “Danger! This risky hold in the ground could possibly leak methane bubbles into your water supply! Just like every other hole in the ground.”
Make that “Hole in the rock,” twice
Well, well, two holes in the rock. #[:)]
Witty idea for cartoon, Roberto.
Tom in Texas says:
August 9, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Perhaps it’s short for “petroleum derivitive.” Or maybe “refined petroleum derivitive.”
Calling a liquid fuel gas seems way stupid to me. At least we spell color right. 🙂
Hey, I just came upon something that MIGHT explain the stubborn tendency of many of us to call “frac’ing” (per industry experts), “fracking.”
[Source: http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gasoline.htm%5D
(I was TRYING to find out how the term “gasoline” came to be — I’m giving up; it’s nearly 10pm and I’m tired.)
@ur momisugly Eternal Optimist:
“you want your great grandchildren to live in the 1980′s. and thank you for it”
Good Lord no! – the music was utterly crap!
This is what a gas-fired power plant looks like in real life, no visible emissions, quiet, clean and unobtrusive: http://pindanpost.com/2013/08/10/frakked/
Western Australia’s solar subsidies slashed, causing an outbreak of severe language from someone here in Broome who spent $32,000 on solar panels for his house. http://pindanpost.com/2013/08/09/solars-boondoggle-slashed/
Pictured are a solar system and batteries for a remote resort, the perfect use for such a system.
pyeatte says:
August 9, 2013 at 7:52 am
Perfect example where a cartoon reflects reality. The left is trying to turn our energy supply system into the world’s biggest “Rube-Goldberg” machine – it costs a fortune, is incredibly complex and accomplishes nothing useful. Of course it does accomplish what the left wants – poverty, misery and loss of freedom.
————–
Very true and what make good left wing voters ? yep – those in poverty, misery and those that have no freedom.
… continued …
But of course they wouldn’t write ‘Vote for us and get poverty, misery and lose your freedom.’ in their manifestos or hustings placards would they!
Tom in Texas says:
August 9, 2013 at 7:13 pm
“We call our liquid fuel petrol, they call the same thing gas even though its not – go figure. ;-)”
I’d guess petrol is short for petroleum, which it isn’t.
Gas (liquid fuel in the U.S.) is short for gasoline, which it is.
Gaseous gas is called natural gas (or NG).
=========================================================
Hmm. A case of “”two nations divided by a common language” methinks.
Ric Werme (” At least we spell color right”) – I nearly rose to the bait but managed to sppress the rge 😉
From Janice Moore on August 9, 2013 at 10:01 pm:
*ahem*
Wikipedia, Gasoline: Etymology and Terminology.
Just a small point the well they are drilling is looking for oil.