Fracking. The extraction of shale gas from dense geological strata. This has at last reared it's ugly head in the UK. A company called Cuadrilla are at present trying to open numerous wells to get to potentially valuable pockets of shale gas. Previously, they drilled two test wells on the Fylde peninsula near Blackpool in the north west of England. Both test drills caused minor earthquakes. The first was only about 1.5 on the Richter scale, the other was about 2.4 and it caused minor structural damage. Needless to say, the public started to take notice of this practise and uncovered some rather negative points about the whole business of farcking. The first was that the procedure uses millions of tons of fresh water and once the water has been used, it is contaminated to such an extent that it cannot be used for human consumption. Also, it was discovered that the process releases methane gas into the atmosphere. The fact that it is colourless and odourless means that the general public cannot tell when they are breathing it in. It causes serious neurological problems for anyone exposed to it. The soil around the drill sites is also contaminated to the point of being useless for growing anything. People in Queensland Australia have found out to their cost what fracking brings to their communities. The loss of all fresh water and severe illness being just two of the negatives. Plummeting property prices being another. Would you want to live near a fracking site? The only benefit I can see are the huge profits for the various companies involved. They come, drill and then leave a virtually uninhabitable wasteland.
The company involved in the UK, Cuadrilla has a managing director called Lord John Browne. Tony Blair made him a lord when he worked for BP. He is now an adviser on business ethics for David Cameron and he has a seat in the cabinet. He is completely unelected and yet he sits at the highest table of government. It's the ethics part of his remit that bothers me. First of all, when was there ever any ethics in business? The other thing about him is that when he took charge of BP, he had a mantra that he spouted at every opportunity, it was "profit above ALL else." As soon as he took over the reins of BP, standards started to slip. Maintenance budgets were drastically cut and accidents started happening. Accidents like spillages and machinery breakdowns, however, profits rocketed and that made it all right. I highlighted his past to emphasise the point that surely his sitting in the Tory cabinet is a conflict of interest with his main job with Cuadrilla? This corruption at the highest level.
There is a little town in Sussex England called Balcome that is the first battle being fought to rid the country of this disgusting practise. There are hundreds of demonstrators, many of them camping out at the entrance to the proposed fracking site. The local police have arrested numerous demonstrators for so called minor offences and they are using strong arm tactics to do it. I think that the government and Cuadrilla realise that if they lose this battle, they will lose the war, and it is a war. Public opinion is 80% plus against fracking and growing. This story will run for a good while yet and I will post any updates.
Till next time.
