Tag Archives: fracking

Nobody doubts that the cost of US fracking has fallen since oil prices collapsed in June 2014.  However, there is considerable disagreement over the causes.  While critics point out that since 2014 wages and service costs have fallen dramatically, the fracking companies have been keen to claim that technological improvements …

The government has come in for criticism over fracking from an unexpected quarter this week.  The Country Landowners Association (CLA) – a membership organisation for owners of land, property and businesses in rural England and Wales – has written to Energy Minister Richard Harrington MP, raising concerns about the lack …

Hidden in amongst the Tory ‘power grab’ that is the EU Withdrawal Bill is a clause that allows English ministers to take full control over fracking licenses and decisions in Scotland and Wales.  The change is just one of a raft of clauses that seek to neuter the devolved Scottish …

We have become accustomed to the claims and counter-claims about the damage hydraulic fracturing (fracking) may or may not do to the environment.  Earthquakes, polluted water and methane gas emissions are the most obvious.  However, concerns have also been raised about birth defects, cancers and declining bird species in areas …

The supposed silver lining in the large storm cloud that is global ice melt, was that in the absence of the Arctic ice cap, oil companies would be free to drill into virgin seabed. Nowhere was this more so than the Barents Sea above Norway’s North Cape, which was promoted …

  Nicole Foss famously compared the oil industry to a late night drinking binge.  The early oil found in pressurised deposits just 70 feet beneath the ground was the best booze.  The North Sea was the cheap stuff.  Hydraulically fractured shale oil and tar sands, though, are the last-ditch equivalent …

The UK government review of energy costs is unlikely to result in pleasant reading for anyone.  This is because the chosen reviewer, Oxford University professor Dieter Helm, has a long track record of telling unpleasant energy truths about the cost of renewable electricity while overlooking the equivalent problems with gas. …