It’s understandable why
the people of Balcombe are unhappy. Not to mention the people of the “desolate”
North West
and North East. I don’t think I would want a fracking operation on my doorstep
either.
Now please don’t
misunderstand me. I am as much in favour of using sustainable energy sources as
the next twenty one year old, not least because, very soon, we are going to be
faced with a situation where a group of miners are going to emerge from the coal
face, shake their heads grimly and report that there ain’t no more down there.
As a world and a civilisation we desperately need to move away from fossil
fuels.
And on many levels I
can understand the appeal of fracking. There are enough untapped pockets of
natural gas to last us for a decade or more, it creates jobs – very important
right now – and it isn’t too complicated. Essentially, you insert water and
extract gas. The pluses are there for all to see.
But unfortunately so
are the minuses. Fracking involves shooting a mixture of pressurised water and
sand down a well shaft at very high speeds and essentially “fracturing” the
rock underneath (hence fracking’s full name of “hydraulic fracturing”) thus
releasing the gas. Unfortunately, doing this comes with all sorts of side
effects that no community would want to deal with. For one thing, natural gas
isn’t the only thing released during the fracking process and the various
harmful chemicals that are also released tend to find their way into the local water
table. There are also concerns about the side effects of the chemicals used
during fracking process itself, including such things as benzene, uranium and
hydrochloric acid. All this before we get into what repeated fracking does to
the geological stability of the local area.
I am all in favour of
the government looking into alternative energy resources, but at the moment it
seems as if they are looking for the quick solution, the quick fix. That’s not
what the energy crisis needs. We don’t need to put something in place that will
fix problems now only to create bigger ones in future. We still have time to
invest in ways that we know work, such as wind power, and work out all the
kinks involved with them. After all, for all its flaws, at least a wind turbine
doesn’t dump radium into the local drinking water.
As I have said, on the
surface fracking seems like the perfect solution. But once you dig a bit deeper
you discover that this is just another example of the Coalition looking for the
easiest and flashiest solution so that they can claim they have done something
without actually having to put in any of the hard work involved in coming up
with a properly thought out answer to the problems we are facing.
The government needs to
listen to the people of Balcombe and look at the data again. If after that,
fracking is still the best solution, then they can go right ahead and start,
with my blessing. But until then, can they please just frack right off.
I remember a visit to my old home town and an old neighbor was telling us how the people of township were upset (and not being listened to by the town officials if I recall correctly.) for the reason you stated "and the various harmful chemicals that are also released tend to find their way into the local water table." as most of them have wells and get their water from the water (reservoir? aquafer?) table underground. Thanks for writing this interesting, informative article.
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