shale gas – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

What the frack! – A guide to fracking and its legal implications

Posted on May 12, 2014April 14, 2023 by janet.crompton

The recent UKELA South West region seminar hosted by the Cabot Institute provided an ideal opportunity for a rational discussion of both the technical aspects of fracking (courtesy of Professor Mike Kendall) and its legal implications in the UK (courtesy of James Taylor of Simmons and Simmons).

With CO2 emissions from gas combustion around 50% lower than that of coal the move to gas as a transition fuel evidently holds appeal. US shale gas production has been praised for its contribution to the fall in US CO2 levels which have reduced back to those seen in 1990. However as was highlighted during the talk, the current availability and low cost of coal presents a problem in incentivising this move. More importantly however, it presents a potentially significant problem for global emission levels. If the UK replaces its coal supply with gas and displaces this coal onto the global market, total emissions will increase with the existing coal and a new gas supply both being burnt.

The appeal of shale gas is not solely confined to its potential in reducing UK emissions however. Energy security is proving to be a driving factor with the Bowland shale basin alone (in Northern England) thought to contain at least 40-60 years worth of the UK’s gas supply. Although unlikely to lower gas prices in the UK, this could significantly reduce our dependency on foreign gas suppliers.

Gas well. Image credit: Jerry Dincher

When considering the technique of fracking itself Prof. Kendall emphasised the importance of well design and integrity in ensuring water contamination risks are reduced. With wells connecting the shale gas layer, found at depths of around 2500km, to the surface this casing and its integrity are crucial. In addition monitoring of fractures to date has shown that they remain at levels far below those of aquifers and as such are unlikely to prove a problem in relation to water contamination, particularly as the technology exists to monitor the height and direction of these fractures. The treatment and disposal of wastewater was however highlighted as an area which will need to see innovation and clearer regulation as to how such fluids can be disposed of or re-used if a shale gas industry is to develop here in the UK.

James Taylor confirmed that whilst regulations governing conventional oil and gas extraction (that do not use hydraulic fracturing) are applicable to shale gas and fracking there are a number of problems at present. The absence of a single point of control was emphasised, with Department of Energy and Climate Change, Environment Agency, Health and Safety Executive and Local Councils all playing a regulatory role. Other issues with the current system were highlighted through the absence of a compulsory Environmental Impact Assessment for shale gas operations (sites usually falling short of the 1 hectare threshold) and through the absence of a compulsory groundwater or flaring permit (both being assessed on a site by site basis.)

In addition the heavy influence of economic factors in both the planning guidance applicable to onshore oil and gas as well as within the National Planning Policy Framework were highlighted. The increased impact of such considerations should s58 of the Draft Deregulation Bill come into effect with its duty to promote economic growth when exercising regulatory functions was also raised. With local councils’ set to retain 100% of business rates from shale gas sites in their area the impact of economics on decisions was further brought into question.

Image credit: Libdemvoice

With shale gas promising a potentially valuable transition fuel it was clear from the talks that there is a need to ensure that the technique of fracking is carefully conducted in order to reduce the risk of damage and that this needs to be done under a robust and clear regulatory system. The need for transparent and upfront regulators who consider the arguments and concerns relating to both sides of the shale gas debate was also emphasised. This is of particular importance in light of the current shale gas promotion in the UK. Regulatory reforms such as the proposed removal of subsurface trespass (bypassing issues of obtaining landowner consent) in the next Infrastructure Bill evidences the presumption that at present shale gas is good for the UK and should be facilitated.

One of the key themes that emerged from both talks was that although the debate on fracking is often defined in technical terms the key factors proving influential at present are those of geopolitics and public perceptions. Emphasis was placed on the need for early public engagement and the need to tackle the continued polarization of what is an already controversial issue. It is clear that fracking and onshore oil and gas extraction is a complex topic, technically, politically and socially. Although complex, it is crucial that the issues associated with fracking are discussed. Talks such as this UKELA event are central to doing so and for allowing rational and informed debate on an important topic.

This blog post is by Joanne Hawkins.

A PhD Researcher looking at the challenge of hydraulic fracturing: energy resilience, the environment and effective regulation at the University of Bristol Law School.

Joanne Hawkins,

University of Bristol

Crisis in Ukraine: The energy implications

Posted on March 21, 2014April 19, 2023 by janet.crompton

Energy security- a primarily theoretical concept in recent years that has been made startlingly real by the recent developments in Ukraine. But what could the possible repercussions of this crisis be on European energy policies and our fuel bills?

I had a chance to ask this question during a recent event at the House of Commons, hosted by the APPCCG and Sandbag. The answer surprised me.

According to Baroness Worthington, director of Sandbag and member of the House of Lords, two outcomes are broadly possible.

Figure 1: Map of Ukraine

The first scenario is of a stabilisation of the diplomatic situation and the emergence of a westward-leaning Ukraine. In this situation, it is likely that Ukraine might choose to exploit its own natural gas reserves, estimated to be in the region of 1.1 trillion cubic metres. Ukraine possesses the 26^th largest natural gas reserve in the world, which is estimated to be more than half the size of the combined reserves of the EU.

If Ukraine `turns on the taps’, this would solve their immediate energy dependence on Russia and produce a revenue stream to support their economy. However, exploiting natural resources on the scale required would require significant investment, and Ukrainians would have to accept the change in land use and economic transformations that come with becoming a major energy exporter.

This optimistic outcome seems open to several criticisms. It’s unclear at this moment where investment would come from, and whether Russia would oppose competition in the European energy market. Moreover, can Ukraine ever completely replace Russia as an energy supplier? For instance, Russia’s natural gas reserves are around 40 times the size of Ukraine’s.

The second scenario is of a destabilised Ukraine, whose policies are influenced to a significant degree by Moscow. In this situation, European nations would need to purchase natural gas in the short-to-medium term from Russia and Ukraine, and tamely accept price rises and the uncertainty and energy insecurity that comes with dependence on a foreign nation for energy supplies.

This second possibility may also be criticised; Russia may not have further demands after the annexation of Crimea is completed. It may be the case that Russia wish to return to business as usual as quickly as possible, and may choose to offer energy supplies on favourable terms to Europe in order to encourage the resumption of trade and renewed trust.

In my view, both scenarios will result in one predominant outcome: the loss of trust. It seems unlikely that Russia can regain the trust of the West quickly; by it’s very nature, trust takes years to accrue and moments to lose. Energy security will become a much larger talking point in the next few years if relations with Russia continue to remain cool. Nations that previously were willing to base their energy supply on foreign gas purchases will choose instead to pay a price or environmental premium to source those supplies from more trusted sources.

The nations most likely to make changes to their energy mix as a result of this crisis are Germany and Poland. Germany’s choice to abandon nuclear fission after the Fukushima crisis leaves them slightly more vulnerable to a loss of fuel supplies from abroad, and they may choose to shift further towards renewables, or attempt the politically difficult U-turn of returning to nuclear power. Poland uses natural gas and coal to power much of its economy, a significant portion of which is purchased from Russia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Poland has been consistently suspicious of Russia, and may decide that now is the time to reduce or remove their dependence on Russian supplies.

Figure 2: DECC figure for natural gas supplies by source, 2010-2013

As for the fuel bills of UK consumers, it’s unlikely that we will see any immediate effects. If sanctions on Russia are imposed, this may raise gas prices worldwide, but the UK does not directly obtain its supplies from Russia. The most likely change to the UK’s energy mix will be one that was on the cards already- an expansion in the exploitation of shale gas. Using energy security as a primary argument, supporters of shale gas may now find it easier to convince others that fracking and onshore gas exploitation should continue or be accelerated.

Perhaps the Ukraine crisis will be the public relations coup the shale gas industry has been looking for.

This blog is written by Neeraj Oak, Cabot Institute.

Neeraj Oak

How the UK government is tackling climate change – a good plan or on course for disaster?

Posted on February 8, 2014April 19, 2023 by janet.crompton

Steve Smith, a researcher working for the government’s independent advisors, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), came to visit the Cabot Institute on 7 February 2014. His talk was about whether the UK is on course for tackling climate change, or rather, the UK is on course for meeting its 2050 target of 80% reduction in carbon emissions. It was a real eye opener. Here I summarise the talk and the main points made by Steve. All figures taken from Steve’s talk.

Background

The CCC consists of several high profile board members, including Lord Deben, Sir Brian Hoskins, and Lord Krebs amongst others. As a group, their role on the mitigation side is to independently advise the government on UK emission targets. The UK is legally bound to meet the 2050 target of 80% reduction of CO2 emissions below 1990 levels. Being legally bound to this commitment means the government has to meet this target. Steve wasn’t quite sure what the implications would be if the UK government broke the law by not meeting the emissions target by 2050. [Update: the EU has now agreed to a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030].

Extreme weather events will become
more common

The current risk of impacts from climate change are set out in the latest IPCC reports. It is agreed that 2 degrees of warming will exacerbate current climate-related impacts such as increased risk of floods, drought, food insecurity, human displacement, plant and animal disease, etc but that technological advances and human resilience should be able to live with this. Beyond 4 degrees rise many systems will just not be able to adapt – a blunt warning if there ever was one.

The current 2050 target of 80% reduction of emissions keeps it in line with a 2 degree warming scenario. This equates to approximately 20 – 24 GT CO2 Kyoto emissions by 2050, which itself implies that each person living on the planet in 2050 will only contribute 2 tonnes of CO2 per year. This is a similar figure to 6000 miles in your car (an easy annual commuting amount). Steve pointed out that the total emissions from electricity in 2010 were almost the same amount as total emissions that will be allowed in 2050. This is not a joke, we will have to meet these targets and we will have to severely cut our carbon emissions. So what I want to know is what’s the plan?

What is the government doing?

It seems the government does have a plan and it has had a plan for a few years now. A long and winding road sort of plan (it stretches 40 years and Steve also admitted that the plan is likely to change over that time period), but it’s a plan nonetheless with a hopeful outcome. Currently the government looks at reducing CO2 emissions by implementing cost effective measures across the economy. Examples include increased implementation of electrification and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) within industry, and district heating and air source heat pumps for buildings.

Nuclear power could
help decarbonise the UK

Looking at one of these key measures in more detail, electrification, it is vitally important to not only increase reliance on electricity as a power source (rather than gas or oil) but also to decarbonise electricity production, producing a win-win situation. The government aims to do this in steps. The first step is the decarbonisation of base load electricity production into the 2020s. Base load electricity is the minimum amount of power made to meet minimum demands from users. Increasing nuclear power could play a big part in this transition. From the 2020s onwards, the government will aim to decarbonise peak electricity, the stuff that’s needed on-demand like when we switch on our kettles during an ad-break. The timescales do seem quite long but it takes around 9 years to build a nuclear power station, so put it in perspective the timings aren’t actually that long. However it is questionable whether we can actually wait until 2050 to become decarbonised for fear of hitting that 4 degree global temperature rise in the meantime.

Decarbonising electricity is one of the most useful things the government can do especially as most fossil fuel driven machines can be electrified – including our cars. Steve admitted there was one area that was proving difficult to decarbonise – the aviation and shipping sector. The CCC are still working out how to make this area more efficient as it is a really difficult sector to change.

What are the costs to the UK economy?

The CCC estimates that the resource cost of reducing CO2 from all sectors would amount to 0.5% GDP. If there was a scenario in the future of high fuel prices, this cost would drop to 0.1% GDP, but if fuel prices came down we would pay more – around 0.8% GDP. Rather interestingly, 0.6% of costs of reducing CO2 fall in the power sector. So should the government put up the cost of fuel to reduce the resource cost to the UK as a whole? It’s not as clear cut as that. Fuel poverty and economic competitiveness are huge issues which need to be carefully considered before any price hikes.

The CCC is confident that all government projections will be wrong by 2050. To counter this the CCC have come up with some bottom up scenarios – Max (decarbonise everything), Stretch (optimistic carbon reduction but not ideal), Barrier (the most likely scenario but the worst for CO2 savings). By mixing and matching these scenarios across all sectors as appropriate, multiple scenarios have been created and it is from these multiple scenarios that the CCC can keep resource cost below 1% GDP for the UK.

How are we doing so far?

We’re doing well to decarbonise our cars.
Image by Danrok, Wikimedia Commons

From the first period 2008 – 2012, the first carbon budget was met. Greenhouse gas emissions were reduced. However, the main cause of this has been attributed to the recession and only 1% of emission reduction was from low carbon energy measures.

The good news is that the UK is ahead of schedule on the decarbonisation of cars. However we are falling behind on non-traded emissions such as cavity insulation. We are looking like we will be on target for the second budget (2013 – 2017) but not budgets 3 (2018 – 2022) or 4 (2023 – 2027). If the UK is to meet these targets then the government needs to improve future policies and speed up the rate of change to a decarbonised society.

Shale gas – a game changer?

The USA has kicked heavy emission coal off the system by investing heavily in shale gas (aka fracking) and in doing so has radically (and unwittingly) changed its climate policy. Steve questioned whether shale gas could be a game changer in the UK. Rather interestingly, it seems that not much extra gas will be produced in the UK by 2035 if shale gas was put into the mix. UK gas demand turns out to be significantly higher than what the UK can actually produce (including that from shale). Questions then arise, for example, if you are offsetting imports of gas where are those imports coming from? How are they being transported? What amount of CO2 is being released in the process of transportation?

Methane leakage from shale gas is also a problem. The CCC have found that methane leakage from shale gas would be more beneficial to decarbonisation due to the overall emissions from shale gas being less than the amount of emissions from current transportation of Liquified Natural Gas (which has a much smaller amount of methane leakage and larger amount of emissions overall). Any reduction is better than no reduction and the government thinks that a well regulated shale gas industry could help the UK reach those decarbonisation targets.

A healthy low carbon diet

Image by Richard Croft, Wikimedia Commons

Decarbonising the UK is going to be tough but there are net benefits from doing so. One of these net benefits is health. Although it is difficult to quantify the health impact of all CO2 emission reducing methods, we can quantify those such as reducing congestion, improving air quality, and getting people on their bikes doing more exercise.

A question was asked of Steve at the end of the talk…why are we not efficient in all of these sectors already? Steve responded that people don’t act entirely rationally, that decarbonisation takes time to filter into people’s mindsets and that subsidies for the wrong sorts of fuels does not help.

So should the government do more to embed a low carbon mindset into its people and industry? Or should we be educating ourselves and personally reducing our own carbon emissions (the non-traded emissions)? Should we just demand more of our government, put the pressure on the policy makers and inspire current and future generations to do more and be more in a low carbon world? The CCC and the government doesn’t have all the answers. It’s up to research institutions, like the Cabot Institute, to put their collective heads together to develop solutions to help decarbonise society and to engineer new low carbon technologies, with support from government and industry.

The UK has become a lot more efficient since the 2050 targets were introduced, the government is legally bound to meet these targets so it is serious about the job in hand, and as a result its policies have been changing to reduce emissions. The government just has to ensure it continues to act on the CCC’s recommendations.

View the slides from Steve’s talk.

This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute Administrator, University of Bristol.

Follow @Enviro_Mand

Amanda Woodman-Hardy

The nature of the beast – an APPCCG event on fracking and climate change

Posted on April 24, 2013April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

The term ‘fracking’ has a tendency to evoke strong feelings in many and the speakers at the APPCCG event were no different. As explained by the panel’s chair (Caroline Lucas the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion) the high level of enthusiasm for the exploration of shale gas across party lines in Westminster has led to concern. This concern is amongst not only those that question the safety of the technique itself but those who consider unconventional gas exploration/production to be counter intuitive to the UK’s attempts to reach its emission targets. Support for an early day moratorium on fracking (introduced by Caroline Lucas) has so far received support from a mere 25 MPs.

Fracking is a method used to release and extract unconventional gas. It involves injecting wells at high pressure with water, proppants, tracers and chemical additives to fracture the formation in which the gas is trapped. The technique is the subject of much controversy and it should be understood that the panel was structured in such a way that the speakers focussed on concerns surrounding fracking and consequently none were proponents of the technique.

The environmental concerns that accompany drilling and fracking for unconventional gas were impressed upon the panel with Dr Mariann Lloyd Smith (Of the National Toxics Network in Australia) emphasising that due to the ‘nature of the beast’ a safe industry was an idealists dream. The best that could be hoped for was a regulatory system that ensured a safer industry developed. Such feeling is echoed in the UNEP global environmental alert of 2012 which stated that not all fracking safety/environmental concerns could be removed through regulation. Some examples of the prominent concerns are the contents of not only fracking fluids but also drilling fluids. The chemical content of these fluids were described as a mixture of chemicals some of which have failed to be assessed in terms of their use in the fracking process. Even with the level of these chemicals composing a very low percentage of the fluids themselves, the level of chemicals (in kg) that remain in the ground can reach high levels. (For further details and figures from the Australian experience see http://www.ntn.org.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/NTN-Toxics-in-UG-Activities-Briefing.pdf). In addition to such chemicals the naturally occurring contaminants that can be released during the process are a cause for concern particularly as exposure pathways mean that such materials have the potential to cause damage to land, people and livestock.

It was not just health and environmental risks that were raised as prominent issues. The social costs of fracking and unconventional gas extraction were a key concern for many of the speakers. Eve McNamara (from the Ribble Estuary Against Fracking) emphasised that the community in West Lancashire have received no input from regulators and the authorities leaving them in a position where their only information resource is the actual company exploring for shale gas in the area, Cuadrilla. The lack of communication and consultation has meant that the only engagement the community has had with regulators has arisen from the proactive behaviour of REAF itself. The issue has sadly led to division in the community particularly in relation to the leasing of agricultural land where neighbouring farmers oppose the exploration for gas.

The protection of the public interest is not just a concern for the communities affected by fracking. Tony Bosworth (Friends of the Earth) emphasised that the upcoming planning guidance and Environment Agency guidance as well as the regulations on fracking need to be based on the precautionary principle and full public consultation with a full EIA conducted for every application. So far, the provision of information, consultation and explanation of how the public interest is being protected is considered by FOE to be a failure.

The question of whether the exploration and production of unconventional gas should be pursued in the UK is not only a question of environmental safety. Its implications for climate change and the UK’s emission targets are significant. Dr John Broderick (from the Tyndall Centre) emphasised that in seeking to reach our targets it is the cumulative emissions over a period of time that cause the degree of climate change we will experience. It would seem that our probability of avoiding a greater than 2^oC rise in temperature is already history. As such the use of unconventional gas as a ‘transition’ would mean that the continued consumption of fossil fuels would require a drastically higher annual reduction in emissions in the future to compensate, leaving little room for any future emissions from fossil fuels. Whilst the US experience has arguable shown that US coal emissions have decreased since the production of US shale gas, the US’s coal production has remained constant simply resulting in the export of coal. Unless shale gas can prove to be a true substitute leaving the coal in the ground, the argument for shale as a replacement loses its force. Overall, Dr Broderick’s central point was that we need to focus on leaving more fossil fuel in the ground if we are to meet emission targets and as such shale gas is incompatible with this aim. It is clear that he is not alone in this consideration with FOE clearly taking the stance that fracking and unconventional gas are simply a risk we should not take.

So what does the future hold for fracking? Will communities receive greater information and support? Will a safer industry be enough to quell concerns and will our desire for domestic gas trump our desire to reach our emission targets?

This blog post is by Joanne Hawkins.
A PhD Researcher looking at the challenge of hydraulic fracturing: energy resilience, the environment and effective regulation at the University of Bristol Law School.

Joanne Hawkins, University of Bristol