Shale Gas

[Malcolm Robinson]

If shale gas is so much in abundance hereabouts should we allow this region to once again be the provider of cheap energy for the rest of the country (AKA coal mining) or should we try and learn lessons from the past and this time keep some of the riches here?

At least to provide the modern infrastructure and educational attainments we so desperately need to compete with the best of the rest.

The amount of windmills proliferating our county has to be seen to be believed compared with other counties in the country and is a classic example of exploitation and NIMBY'ism. (If they worked that is!)

[Symptoms]

Keeping the riches from shale gas in the North is a pipe-dream (sorry about that one) because all the funding for exploration, and then development, will come from abroad. The Yankees, the Frogs, and Fritz own just about all the 'British' energy companies; I also believe that the transmission infrastructure might have been sold off as well. So any future rich pickings will go overseas.

I've post here before about the sense of fully exploiting the 300 years worth of coal sitting below Blighty; ditto shale gas. Build more coal-fired stations I say ... remember the Chinese and the Indians are building five new ones each week (or it might be per month). If there's a will by Government to do this I'm sure that all the so-called difficulties in industrialising clean coal technology would be quickly solved.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Symptoms

[Maggie/915]

Back to arrogance ignorance and greed.

[Symptoms]

???

[Maggie/915]

Listen to Show of Hands?

They have a cd of that title but the words of this particular song are very apt!

[Adam Hogg]

Bring back the years of the NCB then you don't have to worry about the lights going out for over 300 years minimum and they knew all about clean coal so you could burn it without all the "Greenhouse Gases."

[threegee]

"Clean coal" has nothing to do with reducing "greenhouse gasses" Adam. If you burn X Kg of carbon, you get Y calories of heat, and generate Z m³ of CO² - the numbers are the numbers, and there's no getting away from them. CO² is the "greenhouse gas". Whatever you burn, if you want to reduce CO² you have to extract it expensively, and with near exactly the same process as for any other organic fuel. Only nuclear is clean.

As for the economics of coal just at the moment... well... just turn your radio on.

Back to those "riches" everyone is so concerned about. Actually, having looked at this for a while, and very practised at losing large chunks of money on dusty holes in Bongo-Bongoland, I really don't think that there are any riches! Yep, I think a great deal of the shale gas/oil thing is a way of parting unwary investors from their money.

Take a glance here: http://energypolicyf...-not-in-shales/ There's a lot more of that - all very technical, but what it boils down to is that no one is making any wonga. Or rather no one who doesn't sell out rather sharpish after the first gas starts flowing is making any. To quote that article "It is a failed business model of epic proportion."

The economics of the oil business depend an awful lot on back of envelope calculations (dressed up to look authoritative) - projected reserves are often alarming wide of the mark. Energy extraction from shale seems to be taking this guesswork to a whole new level. It's looking increasing like a lot of shale projects are simply incredibly long tubes in the ground to stuff ten pound notes into!

[Malcolm Robinson]

Kind of agree GGG and having looked at gasification I can see the Northumberland and Durham coalfields uncontrollably alight pretty soon. Fracking is a pollution nightmare too.

[Symptoms]

It's all dirty! So the question for policy makers is which group of lobbyists bribes they'll trouser before making their decisions.

It's immediately obvious that coal is dirty ... you can see belching smoke stacks but it inspires great art

It's immediately obvious that shale is dirty ... our version of Krakatoa East of Jarva* is the result mixed with flames from the cold tap

It's immediately obvious that oil is dirty ... just follow Wonk's old Land Rover

It's immediately obvious that windpower is dirty ... just ask that rare dick that got shredded up in Jockoland last week

It's immediately obvious that biofuel is dirty ... just look at the vast acreage of willow stalks taking away fields from food production

It's immediately obvious that wavepower is dirty ... just look at all the headaches Moby Dick suffers from

It's NOT immediately obvious that nuclear is dirty ... but let's ask our Grandchildren¹⁰ that question

The real answer lies in using less juice or find a new clean fuel source ... perhaps we could round-up all the fat folk and melt them down for fuel. GGG knows deep in his soul that if The Wicked Witch** hadn't closed all the pits there would have been an 'industrial sized' clean coal and carbon capture systems put in place years ago at our power stations ... there would have been an economic justification for its development.

Mal - you're right about that gasification method - I've posted here before about that pit-heap at Seaton Deleval burning uncontrollably for decades so it would be barmy to set light to all that stuff below.

*I know Krakatoa was a volcano and not an earthquake but KEofJ 'scans' better above.

** This term is shorthand for all the influences that caused the demise of our coal to power generation axis.

Edited June 30, 2013 by Symptoms

[Adam Hogg]

Best way to make coal a cleaner fuel is to mine it then send it to a coke works, in Newcastle at the Ottovale coke works they had the best system there, the coal was mined from local pits then it was sent into the coke works which turned out coke, heat and oil. The heat was used in a power station to generate electricity, the oil was sent to a refinery to be made into petrol, diesel and creosote and the coke was sent to steel works. That is the best system keeps hundreds/thousands of people in work, solves the energy problems in the county and helps other industry produce products.

[Symptoms]

I remember back in the early 60s going with my Dad to the coke works (some called it the gas works) in Blyth - at the back of the Roxy(or Wallaw) picture house behind the bus station. He used to buy 100wt sacks of coke to take home and mix 50:50 with coal to 'spin-out' the coal for the fires; the coke was much, much cheaper than coal and the mix burned well. I can clearly remember the rows of coking ovens and these enormous scales they used to weigh the stuff for the punters.

Did Bedders have its own coke/gas works or was the town gas pumped from Blyth (or elsewhere) as I can't recall any gasometers in Bedders?

[Symptoms]

Gideon have just given the prospectors a big tax-break to look for and develop the stuff

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23368505

[mercuryg]

Krakatoa East of Jarva*

Off topic, I know, but that film title is one of the biggest faux-pas in cinematic: Krakatoa is actually to the WEST of Java. So there.

[Malcolm Robinson]

I watch QI too Merc!