makingit_12_pp6-13_globalforum_print 12/11/2012 08:39 Page 10
GLOBAL FORUM
HOT TOPIC
Fracking – yes or no? Hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, has provoked debate around the world. While opponents have expressed concern over its potential environmental impacts, supporters claim it could be the answer to the world’s energy crisis. Dr Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist and policy advisor, and Nick Grealy, director of No Hot Air energy consultancy, take on this issue’s hot topic.
Doug Parr Firstly, there are concerns about the impact of fracking on local groundwater. There is a lot of concern about the impact of methane in the water, about exploding taps and contaminated groundwater, but the existing cases are not clear-cut in relation to causation by shale gas development. On the other hand, if you are in a place where groundwater is important to your local environment, if you use it for drinking and washing, then any contamination is a big deal. These concerns are understandable, given what that would do to health, wealth, property prices, etc. It could disrupt peoples’ lives. However, clear evidence is missing, mainly because there were no base-level comparisons of levels of methane in
10 MakingIt
“The main point is that shale gas is just making more fossil fuel than we should burn. As the International Energy Agency wrote, replacing coal with shale gas still triggers catastrophic climate change.” Doug Parr
groundwater made before fracking went ahead. The issue is not whether local issues can be managed, but whether they will be in the real world. While it may be technically feasible to address concerns about fracking, in reality it is doubtful that regulators will be sufficiently resourced. The impact over the life-cycle (of shale gas development) and the impact of leakage are not clear. This needs to be established before largescale development goes ahead, and in this context we believe that a moratorium is justified. Then, there is concern about the greenhouse gas impact of shale gas. Here it is mostly a question of leakage. In one of the only available pieces of research on this, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a US federal agency) and the University of Colorado in Boulder estimate that natural gas producers are losing about 4% of their gas into the atmosphere. As they conclude, “because methane is some 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, releases of that magnitude could effectively offset the environmental edge that natural gas is said to enjoy over other fossil fuels.” If you just feed gas into a power station, then clearly there is a benefit in using gas over coal, but the point is leakage. What is the overall impact on greenhouse gases? The argument that gas is better than coal is not very convincing. But the main point is that exploiting shale gas is just making more fossil fuel available, more than we should burn. As the International Energy Agency wrote in its recent report, Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas, replacing coal with shale gas still triggers catastrophic climate change. As another report concluded, “Conservation, wind, solar, nuclear power, and possibly carbon capture and storage appear to be able to achieve substantial