IT is the current scientific consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to global climate change, with negative effects on the planet.
Unless that consensus is overthrown, it is an obligation upon politicians and citizens alike to try and mitigate and counteract these effects. Right, we've all got that.
However, until, if ever, all the energy uses of the planet can be met from renewable resources such as solar, wind and wave power (none of which are inherently risk-free, though all are preferable) the world will have to continue to rely, one trusts diminishingly, on fossil fuels. A conversion, if possible, to renewable energy production and utilisation worldwide will take many decades of research and investment.
Oil will be one of the central of those fuels that we will need to continue to use. Indeed, the industrial production of wind farms, solar panels and similar technologies will continue to be dependent on the utilisation of non-renewable power sources for many years. I often wonder what the eco-warriors at their various demonstrations imagine their VW camper vans run on. Sunbeams? And even getting on your bike involves using a technology that has (currently) taken non-renewable energy sources to produce. And the batteries for those electric cars? One could continue.
Which brings us to fracking. Amongst the many SNP nostrums which I have tried in vain to comprehend is the Newspeak mantra, North Sea Oil Good, Fracked Oil Bad. It is a long time since I sat my Higher Chemistry but I do recall they are both CO2-producing hydrocarbons. It would seem to me that, until resources are in place to phase out the use of oil as a fuel, it is better to have it fracked on land than drilled for offshore. There are several reasons. Nothing in life is risk-free, but dealing with a major incident onshore would be easier than one offshore, cue Piper Alpha. Onshore drilling removes the need to transport oil from offshore to onshore by tanker, cue the Braer disaster or Exxon Valdez.
Grangemouth refinery at the moment produces much if not most of the petrol used in this country. At present the oil is fracked in Far West Texas under appalling lack of environmental controls – take my word. I have witnessed it, first hand. It is further then transported by sea on tankers with the risk of another Exxon Valdez disaster.
It would be so much better and more rational were that oil, if available, to be fracked in locations nearer the refinery, under strict conditions of environmental regulation – which will never be imposed in free-market Texas.
People are, as the scientists tell us, already dying from the effects of climate change. But many many many more people are dying because they do not have clean water or human waste disposal services, and to provide these they need power, and at the moment much of that power has to come from fossil fuels.
The Russians have a proverb, "don't demolish your house till you have built a new one". We are a long way from having built that new energy house, and until it is habitable, we have to choose the least bad options available – and necessary.
Ian R Mitchell,
21 Woodside Terrace, Glasgow.
THERE are two things that we should learn from the interruption of test fracking in Lancashire on account of a 0.8 magnitude earthquake ("Earth tremor brings drilling at gas-fracking site to a halt", The Herald, October 27):
First, the deep scientific ignorance of the people who make policy. An earthquake of magnitude 0.8 is so small that it is almost certain that only seismographic sensors could detect it. In fact, it is so small that it really doesn’t merit being called an earthquake at all.
The size of earthquakes is measured according to what scientists call a logarithmic scale, thus a 2.0 has more than 30 times the energy of a 1.0, which itself has about twice the energy of 0.8.
Furthermore, earthquakes in the range 2.0 to 2.9, which are respectively between 60 and more than 2,000 times as powerful as the Lancashire "earthquake", would only be felt slightly by people and would not damage buildings.
Secondly, the fact that in Britain fracking can be interrupted on account of an "earthquake" (vibration might be a better word) of magnitude 0.5 is testament to the pernicious influence of the Green movement.
The Greens have fought tooth and nail to stop fracking, which would fight fuel poverty, lead to energy security for Britain and allow us to loosen our ties with Saudi Arabia. It is high time that Green superstition was no longer able to stand in the way of the future.
Otto Inglis,
6 Inveralmond Grove, Edinburgh.
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