The only information that I have seen has been produced by one or the other sides of the argument - much like the current In/Out campaigns. The facts are obscured by opinions.

It appears to be a fight with global petrochem giants and other interested parties against local interests and professional protesters.

So far as direct safety & health threats to workers and locals are concerned there should be a large body of expertise available to do the work safely and healthily.

The wider future environmental issues are a mystery to me.

I suspect I would be a NIMBY if it came to it.

Ray..
Fracking (hydraulic fracturing) has been used since 1949 (ish), and since 1970 in limited situations in the North Sea. It has been used on inland sites in the UK since 1980. Ditto for the USA. If that isn't long enough, how long is?
The Macondo disaster was not to do with fracking, but ignition of methane gas flowing with the extracted oil...under high pressure.
Of course, everyone is talking about methane coming out of taps.....except in the UK, where we almost exclusively use piped water, it just won't happen (and there is serious doubt that it happens in the US either, at least as a result of fracking)
I suppose we could ignore the possible 10 billion barrels under Gatwick......
Look on the bright side....fuel prices are low....
And look again, on another bright side, using modern tech many boreholes can be sunk from the same wellsite....lower footprint.

Having read and seen articles and TV programmes about fracking, especially one by Professor Iain Stewart of Plymouth University a year or so ago, I'm reasonably convinced that fracking, if done properly, poses no significant risk to people or the environment. I understand (and am happy to be corrected if necessary) that a crucial element of doing fracking properly consists of having a suitable lining for each vertical bore hole so as to contain all the fluids (liquids and gases) which pass down or up the hole under high pressure and could otherwise invade ground water formations. Furthermore, as johnmurray points out, fracking is not new technology, just one which has only really come to public attention in recent years.

One thing about fracking which is annoying is that every time it is featured on TV news, the usual accompanying cross-section diagram is NOT to scale. Therefore, it tends to give most viewers an incorrect impression that hydraulic fracturing takes place only several hundred feet below ground level. Though the actual depths are several thousands of feet below ground level, it seems that journalists and others either don't understand scale diagrams or don't wish to show them! [My wife will confirm that when such diagrams are broadcast I tend to shout at the TV! nobody seems to respond to my concern, so perhaps I should either shout more loudly or consider taking different action!! :-( ]

As an aside, shale rock didn't seem very exciting when I was a geology student in the early 1970s. Among other aspects, it generally lacked visible fossils and didn't seem to be of much use except as impermeable layers which could help with aquifers, i.e. underground water-bearing formations. I don't recall anyone mentioning that some shale rocks contain economic quantities of oil and gas. Also, at the risk of courting controversy, I wish there was some frackable shale rock deep below my small back yard alias garden. The income derived from a fracking company would help subsidise my modest pension and also I would be spared the chore of mowing the back lawn! Alas, there's apparently no shale rock, just a massive depth of Permo-Triassic sandstone garnished on top mainly with Pleistocene deposits of boulder clay!! :-(

Graham B

Contrary to my earlier assertion in #6 about the futility of shouting at one's TV, I can report an instance where it evidently worked: Some of you may recall the media coverage given late last December to Abergeldie Castle in Aberdeenshire which faced imminent collapse after the nearby River Dee, greatly swollen by heavy rain, had washed away a significant amount of ground between the castle and the former line of the river bank. Seeing footage of the castle teetering on the brink of a high bank of sediment above the river prompted me to shout "get some ballast" (or similar) at the TV. Within a day or two, the media coverage went quiet and there were no reports of the castle having collapsed into the river as anticipated. Therefore, several weeks later I did some internet delving and was delighted to discover from several sources, notably the "Press & Journal" at https://www.pressandjour...bergeldie-castle-floods/
that the castle had been saved by an emergency project in which prodigious amounts of rock were tipped into the river to form a substantial protective/supportive bank. For some months the quoted webpage included an interesting time-lapse video of the project which continued day and night for some five days. Sadly this video has disappeared, but the scale of i) the erosion which endangered the castle and ii) the new rock bank still remain evident from the photos which accompany the article.

Several months later while in Scotland I had an impromptu conversation about historic buildings with a building company director. It transpired that he had also shouted at his TV when he saw the media coverage about Abergeldie Castle last December. Therefore, it seems that if two or more people shout at their TVs about the same topic, they might well have some effect!!! :-)

Graham B

p.s. This posting probably includes the very first mention on this forum of the illustrious "Press & Journal", commonly known as the 'pee and jay', a long-established daily newspaper covering Northern Scotland! :-)

p.p.s. Out of sheer curiosity, did anyone else happen to see the initial media coverage about Abergeldie Castle and also shout at their TV ?!!

I despair at the comment posted above, on a "professional" forum. It states "So far as direct safety & health threats to workers and locals are concerned there should be a large body of expertise available to do the work safely and healthily.

The wider future environmental issues are a mystery to me.

I suspect I would be a NIMBY if it came to it."

Mmm, well John, I do worry about it. Unlike you I tend to trust the experts in this field, as I hope that people trust my expertise in H&S. I also see evidence of global warming every time I go for a walk. Comma butterflies are now found as far north as the Scottish borders. This morning I saw a Hobby over my home town; my friend is bird-ringing in Lapland and he's seen a Great Egret up there.

And the thing is, this sort of change in distribution of taxae (movement of temperate species towards the poles) is happening worldwide. The birds & butterfiles believe it if some of us don't.

So I worry. I kind of hope the jeremiah bullfrogs of this world are right, but I really doubt it,

John

Speaking as someone who has been an environment manager, and now teaches environmental courses, it astounds me how many supposedly intelligent people express strident views on env issues whilst having no knowledge of the basic concepts. If I, for instance, was asked my opinion on (say) an electrical engineering issue, I would decline to give an opinion, since I have no knowledge. With Global climate change, people happily wade in with firm beliefs based on......................... what? For instance, in my experience, few people can give the correct answers to these simple questions. "IS THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT A GOOD OR A BAD THING?" and "HOW DOES IT WORK?"

Yes. But hydrogen use for transportation means you either store it as a high-pressure gas, or cryogenically at lower pressure. Neither is ideal, and its use as a fuel suffers from poor calorific efficiency. Its one good point is its cleanliness within a town/city.

As for CO2... opting for a neutral viewpoint: https://granthaminstitut...the-right-and-the-wrong/

AS I pointed-out, we ARE currently in an ice age...the effects of increasing temperatures are highly uncertain, the science is frequently being corrected, BUT the effects of lower temperatures are not uncertain. With the current population, a decrease of temperature would be quite dramatic.

Food for thought: http://icp.giss.nasa.gov...methane/intro/cycle.html

We have only been here a short period of time. We have been measuring temperature for a small section of that time.
I have watched those recorded temperatures be massaged, at length, until they meet the need of the climate-change community. The so-called medieval warm period has been massaged, eradicated, re-emerged and disappeared more times than I can remember. Tree rings confirmed warming, then didn't, then some did, others didn't and on and on.
Satellite temperatures seem to be the most accurate, until they started to be massaged (or just ignored).
So many climate scientists seem to think the laws of thermodynamics don't exist, and to them they probably do not.
I've listened to eminent say yes/no/maybe/possibly/
Meanwhile, the world population grows and food production grows with it.
Maybe a few degrees makes a difference to areas where crops grow now, it certainly makes a difference to areas a but too cold.
I'll say this again: if the ice age we are currently in the warm period of becomes a cold period, it will be an extinction level event.
6 billion plus will not be fed off the warm strip around the middle(ish) of the globe.