Frack me! UK shale gas bonanza 'bigger than North Sea oil'
The government has given the go-ahead for further exploration of the UK's shale gas reserves. Independent surveys suggest these reserves may yield more energy for the nation than North Sea oil. The shale gas will be collected using induced hydraulic fracturing, known as "fracking", which splits rocks thousands of feet below …
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Re: A sudden outbreak of common sense?
__I dunno who it is or how far along their work is but given that someone is now purchasing thorium I'd assume that someone is indeed looking at those reactors.__
China is expecting to have a LFTR test reactor running sometime in 2013.
Re: A sudden outbreak of common sense?
It's used for lots of things...alloying with magnesium, an addition to tungsten welding electodes etc..
I am glad...
...This has got the go ahead. We need power to allow us to develop cleaner power. Yes this will even help the more green inclined (I like the idea of the green solution but the cost is too high) by reducing the cost of researching and developing the green methods of energy production.
With gas being less polluting than coal this is a step in the right direction, nuclear is also I think at this time the right direction. Everybody seems to think we are going to get this panacea situation if we go all green but the tech is not efficient enough yet for large scale and at the moment costs too much.
Having this gas also has an upside of reducing our bills at home helping millions that are struggling with the recession today.
Re: I am glad...
Having this gas also has an upside of reducing our bills at home helping millions that are struggling with the recession today
Have you been paying attention? DECC have already been spouting that new CCGT will cause bills to go up because of the "carbon taxes" that they've got coming in.
Not only does the UK have to contend with a depreciating currency that makes wholesale energy prices rise (because government won't balance their books, our currency is worth less, and wholesale energy costs are set by global demand), year on year the government diktat elements of your energy bill have doubled, and will continue to increase - "social" obligations, renewables subsidies, carbon taxes etc.
I think you are looking at double digit price increases for electricity for the next five to ten years, and the only possible and very remote hope for lower prices is for China to go into recession, causing energy and commodity prices to collapse. That might have some downsides.
Re: I am glad...
And why are we paying this silly tax? Because of the EU.
The EU is good in some ways and totally silly in others. Pull out and manage our tax ourselves and stop crippling the country with wholly unnecessary taxes.
If wind etc. is viable then someone will be making money off it and eventually fossil will become to expensive. Doing this artificially early is not needed and is just the cutting the nose off to spite the face.
I am fed up with being taxed to the hilt so rich people make themselves richer and getting nothing back. Where are my affordable panels for the roof? No where to be seen, but the rich have them to make them richer. Perhaps I can go geothermal, nope only the rich can afford that, perhaps wind? Nope does not blow when needed / storage problems. Normal everyday people need energy affordable today not just affordable (and getting them money back / saving them money) for the rich.
In my opinion the green options have had there chance, we have been subsidising them for years yet there are still no viable options. All it is doing is making my tax bill go up and up and my quality of life go down and down.
I want my children to live in a world that is cleaner than today but I believe we will get there via other technologies and the wind, geo, wave, whatever will play a role but cannot fill the void.
Sorry rant over.
Re: I am glad...
Your affordable panels are on sale right now.
Solar panels cost, right now, 0,99€ /W.
Re: I am glad...
Okay, you get someone to come and fit them for me, at an affordable price, for me and that I benefit from them for a long time to come.
I bet you can't.
And mentioning the cost per W does not mean I can afford the installation needed and infrastructure. Cost per W only relates to the manufacturing costs (you have no sources so I assume manufacturing) and not the extra costs from the channel or the final retail and fitting.
When Journalist become flamers...
I found this article rather disappointing. It seems angled to just in flame the "debate" and drive more traffic El Reg.
Let's deconstruct this piece of prose shall we. Let's start with "powerful renewables lobby". Mmm, you mean the mean the Oil/Gas are powerful lobby? They certainly seem to have more resources than the enviro-mentals...
"more energy for the nation than North Sea oil." Sadly, when North-sea oil was discovered the UK's manufactuering/enginnering industry was on its last legs. The lions share of the contracts were signed over to more experience US companies. Whilst the Norweigens explioted the oil reservers in a controlled way (largely isolating them from the fluctuations in the market, and making them energy self-sufficent) ours went the way of servicing our national debt. I imagine the same situation will repeat itself with this fracking exercise.
"estimated the UK has enough gas to make it self-sufficient for 15 years at current consumption rates - but this may be underestimated by a factor of four." - let hedge our betters there shall we. Incidentally, 15 years does not equal energy security give the time it take to build say a nuclear reactor and make it operational...
I'd probably more supporting of fracking if I felt our govt was doing more to create a wholistic energy policy - one that recognised the need for range of technologies to meet our energy needs. Like successive administrations since the 1940's they keep on looking for silver bullet that will solve all the problems.
Incidentally. I'm not a hippy. Don't have beard - only wear sandals in summer (sans socks.).
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
So you're not really disputing anything of substance, you just want "a more "wholistic energy policy".
I'm not sure what your idea of "a range of technologies" means, but whatever is in that range has to be cost effective. Presumably it doesn't include hamsters on treadmills.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
You're new here, aren't you?
GJC
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
To supplement this: whilst the article mentions the 15 years (which I think is about 60 trillion cubic feet), the BGS estimate 4.7 trillion feet. The number of years you get from this is based on 100% extraction too, which is highly unrealistic. Good balanced writing here, as ever.
Don't have beard, but I do wear socks with sandals.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
> Let's start with "powerful renewables lobby".
WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam* are multinational charities each of whose incomes is in the 100s of millions and all spend a significant amount of that income on lobbying government. Unlike oil/gas, they are regularly present at the House of Commons influencing the politicians.
Aside from that you have the big fish like Lord Deben, the Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change whose links with many renewable industries has been widely documented all the way down to the little fish like Bernie Bulkin, Chair of the Office for Renewable Energy Deployment at DECC who is a director of a "green" investment company.
If there was even a hint of oil/gas having this much influence the hue and cry raised by the green lobby would be deafening.
*I know Oxfam is supposed to be a relief organisation but since the government relaxed restrictions on charities using their funds to lobby government they have spent increasing amount lobbying the government.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
"Incidentally, 15 years does not equal energy security give the time it take to build say a nuclear reactor and make it operational..."
You're assuming the only gas we have will come from fracking. I can assure you there is more than 15 years worth of gas in the North Sea gas basin. Most of it is even in large fields which are easy to exploit.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
"Incidentally, 15 years does not equal energy security give the time it take to build say a nuclear reactor and make it operational..."
And it doesn't take 15 years to put up a reactor if your really want one. It could be done, start to finish in about five years if you stop all the planning bollocks and endless legal appeals by hippies and nimbies. Westinghouse reckon that from first concrete pouring to loading the fuel rods could be done in three years, but I've allowed a couple of extra years for site clearance and preparation, and completion works.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
"WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam* are multinational charities each of whose incomes is in the 100s of millions and all spend a significant amount of that income on lobbying government."
Oooh, that's a lot of money, until you compare it to the income of oil companies.
Incidentally, I'm OK with fracking, as long as the gas used goes to replace coal-fired generation. I'd lump the fracking nimbys in with the wind turbine ones.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
its more diversity for diversities sake..
read, and weep..
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
> Oooh, that's a lot of money, until you compare it to the income of oil companies.
But we are not talking about income, we are talking about available cash. For WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth nearly all of their income is available for them to spend on lobbying. For any oil company, nearly all of their income is spent on extracting the oil, exploration and research. There is very little left (less than your average multinational charity) to spend on lobbying. It is still in the millions, but it is nothing compared to what WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth etc have to spend.
Re: When Journalist become flamers...
Greenpeace international :
60 million euros spent on campaigns in 2011
(http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/how-is-greenpeace-structured/reports/#a0)
Total :
12 billion euros profit in 2011
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_S.A.)
=> Total gets in raw cash 200 times the money spent by Greenpeace...
Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
The biggest problem for fracking in the UK is not the pollution, environment, etc - it is the building style driven by what building societies and banks agree to give a mortgage for. If anyone wanted to make a building deliberately earhquake unsafe they would have found no better way to do so than taking the UK standard building practices.
An average UK building built after the 1960-es has two sets of walls with _NO_ vertical structural elements, no horizontal structural elements held together by 2mm metal wires. Its stability to any earth movement is zero. Zilch. Nil. Even the gentlest shake and the wires will get ripped leading to outer or inner wall collapsing on the heads of the occupants.
As a matter of fact we got lucky so far - the Quadrilla quakes were in areas which have seen little recent development so the buildings hit were pre-1950es solid double-brick wall tied by a garden or flemish bond. That style can take a local 3-4 richter scale tremor without any problems. In fact the older ones have taken them on a regular basis during the times when such tremors were induced by mining on a near-daily basis. With these -at the very worst you will get a damaged chimney somewhere. Even those will happen only because the genius who did them initially laid them with non-fireproof mortar out of non-fireproof brick. So they are a hazard anyway and should have been redone long ago.
The yanks do not have that problem - their buildings are built out of wooden panels bolted to a frame so they flex a bit, shake a bit and still stand. The rest of Europe does not have that problem either because they do not have a band of idiots in banks and building societies which have declared reinforced concrete an "item preventing the issuing of a mortgage". Their building code specifies and mandates that the inner construction has reinforced concrete pillars in key places. So their buildings may get a few fractures in the outer wall here and there. The wall is not structural (the pillars are) and, you slap a few trhowels of fresh mortar and plaster on it, it still stands, move along. And most importantly - they have proper foundations - the foundation are poured as a solid plate so the whole building moves instead of being put only under the walls (and crack).
So in the long term if UK is to frak (or mine again) it needs the banking and building societies to understand the difference between a fully encased concrete pillar which is inside the house (and will not rust) and badly done "pre-baked" happy-soc concrete panels reinforced with easily rusting high carbon steel (which did rust all over the UK). These are not the same things. The builders will also need to learn a practice which European builders are well familiar with - retrofitting structural columns into an existing building. The same style as in the UK was quite common around south-eastern europe in the 50-es and outfitting it with columns before overbuilding additional floors on top is by now a standard well developed procedure. It is not that expensive either. Granted - it never gives the same stability as a proper new building but should be enough all the way to 4-5 local quake.
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
"An average UK building built after the 1960-es has two sets of walls with _NO_ vertical structural elements, no horizontal structural elements held together by 2mm metal wires. Its stability to any earth movement is zero. Zilch. Nil. "
I guess that's because we don't live in an earthquake zone, and the cost of the earthquake-proofing would far, far outweigh insurance payments in the event of one. Frankly, as someone who can't afford even a so called 'crap' house as you claim: I don't want to pay for earthquake-proofing either.
...Because I don't live anywhere where there are earthquakes.
Or didn't yesterday, anyway.
Amusingly - if fracking really does cause an increase in quakes liable to do any damage - this does strikes me as a wholly new and original way to get F'ed in the A some more by the the oil companies: If it does increase quakes, then they get their cheap gas, while we have to buy more expensive houses!
Re: Solid foundations
This: "And most importantly - they have proper foundations"
FFS houses in Holland have stronger foundations. Before building a block they spend months* driving piles through the soggy marshland they call home till they hit solid rock. Then they lay foundation on the piles. Some of the older houses (built on wooden piles) are a bit crooked to be honest, but that mostly adds to the charm :)
*I've had the headaches form a nearby construction site to prove it
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
Quote: "while we have to buy more expensive houses!"
Not really. There is very little cost difference between laying down foundations in a ring for walls only and just pouring a nice earthquake-resistant plate at once. In fact the latter is probably cheaper. The cost of putting columns at regular intervals at the outline of the current inner wall may actually lower the overall cost of the house, not increase it because you no longer have to stick the odd concrete brick here and there and can do the whole internal wall out of foam in an afternoon. Concrete is _CHEAP_. Cheaper than brick + bricklayer labor.
Same for going American and building out of prefabricated wooden panels. That is cheap too. As a matter of fact, besides being total sh*t on earthquake resistance the current UK building style is also perversely expensive. If you use the continental methods you can build a house on the same footprint, same insulation levels, better earthquake and subsistence resistance etc for ~ 60% of the price. I looked at that having my house extension 4 years ago prefab-ed in Eu and shipped and built on site and nearly did it. End of the day I decided that wasting two years of my life to fight planning (the useless external decorative brick) and building control is not worth it and got it done according to custom. It cost me 50% more. By the way, this is not just my observation - there was an episode of grand ideas where they built a house "the German way" and it cost them half of what the local builder quoted. They had to spend half a year fighting building control too.
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
Seems that you do live in an earthquake zone after all - http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/earthquakes/UKseismic.html
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
"Same for going American and building out of prefabricated wooden panels. That is cheap too."
And...sh1t, to my mind. I've never been impressed with US houses. Seems odd to build wood-framed houses that aren't going to last more than a hundred years in areas plagued by yearly tornadoes. I'm not really convinced that a couple of layers of wood and insulation holds heat better than a couple of layers of brick and insulation, either.
Re: Solid foundations
In a fit of irony, it may actually be the newest houses that survive, then. Mine was built in 2006 near an area prone to flooding that contains sufficiently loud nimbys to insist on expensive works to mitigate the downstream risk of flooding. Part of that mitigation included raising the development by 1m and installing piles under each house (which the neighbours then regretted insisting on as they initially used drivers rather than augurs to install them). The upshot is, I wouldn't be surprised if all the building on floodplains has a reasonably high percentage of houses on piles, rather than free floating.
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
There's nothing building societies and banks love more than properties in areas which suffer from recurring 'natural' problems such as flooding. That is why these properties are so easy to insure. Ask the people were daft enough to buy houses built on flood plains. Now add to the equation the possibility of regular earth tremors/earthquakes and, irrespective of how they are constructed, the lenders and insurers will just say no.
So it doesnt really matter how cheap the alternative methods are, unless you can buy the house outright and live with no insurance, you won't get a house.
If people can't buy, then people can't sell so the values will be reduced.
Also, fracking is short term - an area is ripped up for 3-4 years and then they move on leaving the place looking like the Somme - somewhat similar to open cast mining. The Pennines (an area rich in shale gas) will be a good place to start. Who needs it? Tourists can go somewhere else and the locals can move to Manchester.
Never mind any potential water pollution or other disputed problems, once house prices start getting affected, there will be a backlash..
The brave souls with a nice pot of spare cash can make a killing and the Daily Mail will suddenly change its tune from 'let's copy the Yanks and frack the hell out the country' to 'ban this awful fracking which is lowering house prices'
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
Building an earthquake proof building does not cause any major increase in cost. It just means you need to build it differently. Wood and/or steel framing with a non structural brick cladding works very nicely.
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
brick houses won't necessarily survive a tornado, particularly when there are trees falling. So better to build with a material that's cheaper and quicker to repair.
Re: Who cares about f*** gaya, it is the building style which is the problem
amen!
I've long wondered why the UK has such antiquated, expensive and time-consuming house-building practices.
I think the only argument in favour of brick is that you can quickly make and/or block up holes in it.
Re: Solid foundations
At least you're able to get to bedrock. I know a major construction project that found they couldn't do that...because they were building on top of sand not hundreds but THOUSANDS of feet deep. They had to go as deep as they could into the sand and hope for the best.
If we're going to frack can we at least follow Norway's lead and think about the future rather than immediate gains?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19871411
I'd rather have lots of little earthquakes than one big one.
Same shit, different decade
Governments have been betting on Fusion working by now and not investing in the power generation infras
No Fission plants were built because of this and the focus returns to (accountant) cheap gas plants.
You can only hope Fusion will be working before then, but expect further ridiculous energy price rises to come!
'Renewables' other than maybe the tidal barrage in the Severn are not cost effective (imo) and only serve to exacerbate the situation!
The only guarantee in this is that us plebs at the bottom will end up paying for the eventual and total fuck up, by any Government in charge of this nation.
Re: Same shit, different decade
"Governments have been betting on Fusion working by now and not investing in the power generation infras"
No they haven't. If they wanted fusion to work, they'd have piled more money into researching it a bit better.
Truth is, it's a problem that everyone just hopes will go away and that we'll magically discover a cheap way out, or we'll keep finding more fossil fuels, so can continue to utterly rely on them.
Any problem more than one election away isn't worth taking too seriously to governments.
Re: Same shit, different decade
Actually, this ius rubbish. it isn't a 'money-needed-from-goverment' problem - it is a huge, and possibly insurmountable Physics problem. Stephen Hawking described fusion power (in 1997) as being "the fuel of the future - and it probably always will be".
We all know E=mc^2 tells us that matter is stored energy (and in HUGE amounts) but it isn't easy to find a way to harness this energy. It is NOT politics, or enviromentalism, or Greens, or petro-chemical lobbies that is preventing fusion from working in power stations - it is Physics and technology requirements that possibly can't ever be met at a reasonable cost.
Re: Same shit, different decade
"Actually, this ius rubbish. it isn't a 'money-needed-from-goverment' problem - it is a huge, and possibly insurmountable Physics problem."
No, it's not.
We have fusion research going on, but it's not going on particularly quickly. Throw ten or a hundred times more money at it (say the amount spent in [insert pointless war here] this year and it'll happen faster assuming it's not impossible (and if we assume that then what's the point in trying!).
Fusion is a side-project to humanity, where as cheap limitless energy should really be in out top 5 of stuff to do (right below feeding everyone and above getting rid of Simon Cowell). Less is probably spent on it than an average oil company spends on R&D and exploration in a year.
Re: Same shit, different decade
Money isn't the problem, it's the path they've taken.
They are spending Billions on ITER!
Tokamak's inability to produce a net fusion gain has been proven with JET, not to mention once it does produce a net fusion gain, there will still need to be a 5x energy gain to make the plant financially viable.
The money needs to be put into other areas of fusion research and so as the analogy goes "Don't put all your eggs in one basket!"
Ludicrously low safety threshold
0.5 is equivalent to the energy released by a large hand grenade
If the 0.5 rule were to be applied to the mining industry per se there would be no more blasting and therefore not a lot of mining going on.
Re: Ludicrously low safety threshold
It does seem low but if you go to the industry and ask them what to expect and they say it won't be as much as 0.5 then setting the safety limit there is a logical move - if the industry comes back and says, "Hang on, that will cause us unnecessary problems" then you have to wonder if they were being entirely accurate with their initial estimates.
The idea that shale gas adoption is a CO2 emission reduction strategy is fantastical folly.
As a species are still on course to burn through the finite supplies of recoverable coal and oil in the world. The only difference now is that we are planning to burn through all the shale gas as well. It doesn't take a genius to realize that this represents a substantial increase in total longterm CO2 emissions, not a decrease.
Shale gas adoption will certainly reduce the CO2 emissions of the countries who adopt it for at least a short-while. But that "unused" coal and oil is just going to be taken up by another country. Under the current global energy "strategy" all the recoverable hydrocarbons are scheduled to be burnt into the atmosphere.
The resort to frakking is actually a sign at how desperate the world is to widen the supply. We see oil companies moving into the Arctic and I expect in time Antarctic Treaties banning mineral exploitation will be overturned to allow mining companies in.
China is just the beginning of developing country industrialization. Once China becomes developed and emissions stabilize manufacturing will just shift to other countries like Vietnam who then in turn sharply ramp up their fossil fuel emissions. There is no end in sight for demand. Increasing the supply of hydrocarbons only results in a higher eventual peak CO2 level in the atmosphere.
There is no end in sight for demand. Increasing the supply of hydrocarbons only results in a higher eventual peak CO2 level in the atmosphere.
I think you fail to realize, the paradigm shift that is happening. The general public and belatedly their elected governments no longer see CO2 as a big problem. IIRC, before the recent US election, climate change was way down the list of most people's issues.
The entire ACC (anthro climate change) movement reached it's peak in the absurd Copenhagen Conference. Since then it has been slowly becoming less important. For instance, the massive Solar projects bubble that swept parts of the EU and America is now popping. Subsidies are drying up (whether this is to do with the economic crisis is irrelevant, the money isn't there). Same with wind, or at least it will be soon.
Three or four years ago I met a few people who wre involved in the CC movement, and others who liked to blabber about it at work/parties/pub. These days I just don't think the interest is there. The recent Dubai conference didn't even register on the front pages of most newspapers (Guardian aside).
Fracking will not solve our energy problems, but it will help to once the absurdities of putting our hopes on wind power have been revealed. I'm all for it. And yes, that includes fracking near my hometown. Probably boost the economy, which is sorely needed.
@NomNomNom
Yep, that's right. Ideally, the situation would be that the energy now being generated from coal will be substituted by energy generated from gas, resulting in less CO2 emmitted. This is how the whoel thing is being marketed / presented.
In practice, energy now being generated from coal will be supplemented by energy generated from gas, resulting in more CO2 emmitted.
Ideally short-term use of more gas and less coal will at least slow down the acceleration of CO2 emmissions and that the revenue from the gas will be used to fund nuclear and renewables, allowing us to increase energy production while leaving coal in the ground. But experience tells me this isn't much more than a hope.
"I think you fail to realize, the paradigm shift that is happening. The general public and belatedly their elected governments no longer see CO2 as a big problem."
They don't see it because they are short-sighted. Maybe they'll be lucky. If not, their attention will re-emerge suddenly at some point and then the "why didn't anyone warn us" fingerpointing will begin. It'll be like how the general public in the US didn't see terrorism as a big problem prior to 9/11.
Re: @NomNomNom
In practice, energy now being generated from coal will be replaced by energy generated from gas, resulting in less CO2 emitted, which has already happened in the US.
Fixed for you..... did you read the article?
Re: @NomNomNom
Renewables are only apolitical solutin to a political problem.
No study has ever been done to actually demonstrate they have a negative impact on overall electricity-derived CO2 emissions at all.
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/Renewable%20Energy%20Limitations.pdf
Kids and sweetie jars
It's like a group of kids and a big jar of sweeties. Day one, there are 20 kids. The greediest ones shove some of the others out of their way, trying to grab half a dozen or more sweets each. Teacher applies ruler to knuckles. Complaints. Greedy kids get own way, some kids get none.
Day two, there are 21 kids. The greedy ones again try to get the lion's share of the sweets; the teacher with the ruler holds off. Everyone else lucky to get at most one sweet.
Day three, 22 kids. Similar pattern repeats every day. Sooner or later, the number of sweeties in the jar drops below halfway.
The greediest kids begin bullying the most timid, in order to steal their sweeties. Teacher tries to intervene, but is told to butt out.
Eventually, there are not even enough sweeties left even for just the greediest kids to have one each.
Teacher: "Well, that's that, then. The jar is finally empty. Looks like there will be no more sweeties for anyone, now, and because a few greedy kids took more than their fair share!"
Greediest kid of them all: "But Miss, why didn't you do something earlier?"
@ James Smith 3
In practice, energy now being generated from coal will be replaced by energy generated from gas, resulting in exactly the same amount of CO2 emitted.
Fixed that for you.
One mole of C combining with one mole of O2 to give one mole of CO2 always liberates the same amount of energy every time, whether the carbon is obtained from coal or gas. Unless the efficiency of the process for converting heat to KE has improved dramatically in recent years (KE to electricity hit maximum efficiency long ago) then the amount of CO2 produced per kWh will not change simply by using a different fuel.
Re: @ James Smith 3
However, the real world involves burning the fuel in a power plant, and gas fired power plants have been shown to produce half of the CO2 of their coal fired counterparts.
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/gas-vs-coal.html
"The CO2 emissions from Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) plants are reduced relative to those produced by burning coal given the same power output because of the higher heat content of natural gas, the lower carbon intensity of gas relative to coal, and the higher overall efficiency of the NGCC plant relative to a coal-fired plant.(1)"
“The average emissions rates in the United States from natural gas-fired generation are: 1135 lbs/MWh (Mega Watt hours) of carbon dioxide, 0.1 lbs/MWh of sulfur dioxide, and 1.7 lbs/MWh of nitrogen oxides. Compared to the average air emissions from coal-fired generation, natural gas produces half as much carbon dioxide, less than a third as much nitrogen oxides, and one percent as much sulphur oxides at the power plant.(2)"
Is it just me...
"more energy for the nation than North Sea oil"
I took this to be a surreptitious nod to Scotland that we weren't worried about their potential independance. Although, I could just be growing overly cynical.
Re: Is it just me...
Scotland has a large chunk of the shale gas talked about. Currently the UK goverment is trying to sell it all to foreign investors before Independence like they already did with most of the North Sea.
This topic is closed for new posts.
