Fracking and renewable energy

A guest post by Peter Gardiner

Fracking  is in the news, and has been proposed for areas very near Ringmer.

I see fracking as an option we should not be exploring, and I outline here some of the reasons why.

My first objection is the obvious one - that it is more CO2 going into the atmosphere.  We've managed to stop using coal - we have plenty of that left- and while gas is not so dirty it is still producing  CO2. Scrubbing exhaust gases is very, very expensive, and there does not seem to be a ready solution in the offing that avoids use of large amounts of energy in the scrubbing process. So CO2 gas from these stations will be put into the atmosphere. 

My second is that it puts off the hard choice - we have to move to renewables sooner or later, as even fracked gas is finite - certainly in the UK.  It's hard enough now to get people to think renewably, but it will be even harder if people (especially the Government) think we don't have to look beyond gas.

Third,  fracking means impetus for gas-fired power stations which are continuing to be built, in part with fracking in mind, but also using imported gas. This is at a time when we should be looking to be self-sufficient.

Fourth, it's the economics of gas power stations once built. Once constructed as a primary base load source they will have a presumptive use, because to build anything to replace them will be seen as an added cost. I see the reverse of this as being what we have to do -  gas fired stations should from this day on be regarded as standby/peak load generating capacity, not base load, and we have to build enough renewables to cover the base load.

Finally, as a still wealthy nation we should be setting an example. Why should anyone else bother with climate change if rich nations are not doing their bit?

To explore the whole issue of renewable energy, a good start is Sustainable Energy – without the hot air, a book by Professor David MacKay. Professor MacKay  is a generous man, as you can read, browse or download the whole book or parts of it for free. It is by far the easiest text on the subject of renewable energy, as he has separated the general from the scientific so the scientific detail doesn't get in the way, and he then gives good explanation of the science later, which you will appreciate.

Offshore wind is one solution, but only part of it.  We probably have to grow miscanthus as a crop to fire CHP plants, and we have to look at wave and tide energy as well as using sunlight - both UK sunlight and from what I am calling the sunshine states of subsahara.

It is entirely possible to build a Severn Barrage which accommodates the birdlife by providing mudflats for as long as the current exposures provide.   The Barrage could produce a fifth of our electrical needs ( a bit less if you look after the birds). It will produce over considerable periods of the day, and so will largely support base load. It can be built within ten years if we approve it now (and possibly quicker, given the mobilisation rates that were used for the Olympic Park).

Finally a cheerful note from the US of A. I see that The Republican Governor of Virginia has given Fugro a contract to explore offshore wind power for the state. And I thought all republicans were rednecks!

This is a guest post by Peter Gardiner, Lewes District Councillor for Ringmer and shadow lead councillor for planning matters. In a former life, Peter was was Head of the School of Environment at Brighton University. The School has a considerable reputation from a wide range of work including structural use of timber as a green material, containment of radioactive deposits in soils, investigating harmful microbiological distributions in rivers, air pollution and a series of habitat studies including South Downs grasslands using GIS methods. Peter was also a Director of the Brighton Environmental Body, a company set up to carry out green research on pyrolysis, recycling cars and waste.