Of course Big Business is driven by greed; politicians are corruptible. Blair is the obvious example. But fracking is a growth industry.
Paul Homewood, a journalist has been over the ground and writes sensibly, mentioning Wytch Farm. See The climate scaremongers - Fact Checking Ed Miliband's Fracking Claims ex The Conservative Woman
Other sources are:-
Hydraulic Fracturing
ex Wiki
The first experimental use of hydraulic fracturing was in 1947, and the
first commercially successful applications were in 1949. As of 2010, it was
estimated that 60% of all new oil and gas wells worldwide were being
hydraulically fractured.[4]
As of 2012, 2.5 million hydraulic fracturing jobs have been performed on oil
and gas wells worldwide, more than one million of them in the United States.[5]
Uranium Energy Corporation is planning to use hydraulic fracturing to mine
uranium.
Fracking for uranium involves injecting oxygenated water (to increase
solubility) to dissolve the uranium, then pumping the solution back up to
the surface.[1]
Halliburton Frack Job in the
Bakken Formation,
North Dakota,
United States
From
US Now World's Top Energy Producer
US Now World's Top Energy Producer America produced an average of about 12.1 million barrels of crude oil,
natural gas liquids, and biofuels a day in 2013 — that’s 300,000 barrels a day
more than Saudi Arabia and 1.6 million more than Russia, the two previous
leaders. U.S. production of crude oil alone rose by a record 991,000 barrels a day
last year, according to the International Energy Agency. And oil imports
declined by 16 percent, from $310 billion to $268 billion. Fracking has enabled shale-gas production in North Dakota, Texas, and the
formation that crosses parts of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York
to account for 44 percent of total U.S. natural gas output. "The hydrocarbon boom in the United States is driven by fracking," according
to a report from the Hoover Institution headlined "Three Cheers for Fracking." In the 1970s, some experts predicted that America would run out of natural
gas, and between the early 1990s and 2008, U.S. oil production fell steadily.
World oil prices rose and American imports increased, especially from unstable,
often unfriendly nations.
"Fracking has upended all of this," declared Gary D. Libecap, a research
fellow at the Hoover Institution and an economics professor at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. Fracking and horizontal drilling enable drillers to extract hydrocarbon
deposits that would otherwise be inaccessible or too expensive to extract. As a consequence, fracking has:
Libya and Syria heighten risk of an oil supply shock
Estonia becomes self-sufficient on shale gas
Poland's shale drive will transform Europe, if it does not drop the ball
Solar power to trump shale, helped by US military
QUOTE
Hydraulic fracturing is the fracturing of rock by a pressurized
liquid. Some hydraulic fractures form naturally—certain
veins or
dikes are examples. Induced hydraulic fracturing or
hydrofracturing, commonly known as fracking, is a technique in
which typically water is mixed with sand and chemicals, and the mixture is
injected at high pressure into a
wellbore
to create small fractures (typically less than 1mm), along which fluids such
as gas,
petroleum,
uranium-bearing
solution,[1]
and brine water may migrate to the well. Hydraulic pressure is removed from
the well, then small grains of proppant (sand or aluminium oxide) hold these
fractures open once the rock achieves equilibrium. The technique is very
common in wells for
shale
gas,
tight gas,
tight
oil, and
coal seam gas[2][3]
and hard rock wells. This well stimulation is only conducted once in the
life of the well and greatly enhances fluid removal and well productivity. A
different technique where only acid is injected is referred to as
acidizing.
Proponents of hydraulic fracturing point to the economic benefits from
the vast amounts of formerly inaccessible
hydrocarbons the process can extract.[6]
Opponents point to potential
environmental impacts, including contamination of
ground water, depletion of
fresh water, risks to
air quality, noise pollution, the migration of gases and hydraulic
fracturing chemicals to the surface, surface contamination from spills and
flow-back, and the
health effects of these.[7]
For these reasons hydraulic fracturing has come under international
scrutiny, with some countries suspending or banning it.[8][9]
However, some of those countries, including most notably
the United Kingdom,[10]
have recently lifted their bans, choosing to focus on regulations instead of
outright prohibition. The 2013 draft EU-Canada trade treaty includes
language outlawing any "breach of legitimate expectations of investors"
which may occur if revoking drilling licences of Canada-registered companies
in the territory of the European Union after the treaty comes into force.[11]
UNQUOTE
The Wiki tells us some of the pros and lots of the cons. Read for yourself.
Think for yourself. Decide for yourself.
Thanks to fracking technology and horizontal drilling techniques, the United
States has gone from a large-scale energy importer to the world's top producer —
a development with far-reaching consequences.
Fracking and natural gas production, Libecap concludes, have been "good for the
economy, good for democracies worldwide, and good for the environment."
It could be even better. According to the Institute for Policy Innovation, the
federal government owns 28 percent of U.S. land, including 62 percent of Alaska
and 47 percent of 11 Western states. Companies would be willing to drill there,
but the Obama administration has delayed and denied drilling permits, and
production on federal lands has fallen 23 percent since 2007.
Sunak Attacks England By Halting Fracking [ 28 October 2022 ]
QUOTE
Rishi Sunak has restored a ban on fracking after it was briefly lifted during Liz Truss's premiership, Downing Street confirmed today.The new Prime Minister has returned to a Tory manifesto commitment - made ahead of the 2019 general election - to a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for the extraction of shale gas. Ms Truss had performed a U-turn on that pledge during her seven-week spell in No10. She had argued fracking would help boost Britain's energy security in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the move was met be fierce opposition - including among Tory MPs - and saw a chaotic House of Commons vote on the issue last week.
The shambolic scenes in Parliament proved to be a deciding factor in Ms Truss's downfall. Mr Sunak has now reversed Ms Truss's U-turn and re-committed to the 2019 promise.
UNQUOTE
Various ignoramii of the Hard Left will be pleased until the lights go out this winter or next. Fracking has been working well for years at Wytch Farm down in Dorset. Loud mouthed propagandists of the Lunatic Fringe are dangerous.