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X doesn’t Mark The Spot. The Search for a Better UK Shale Treasure Map
- Published on 30 April 2013
- Written by Nick Grealy
Guest post time again, from James Elston of Palladian Energy:
The UK shale debate has been using the wrong map. I will highlight a better treasure map below.
As a concerned observer and regular participant in the great shale gas debate I am interested in fostering sensible debate on all the issues. I should declare an Interest, I was founding CEO of the one shale gas explorer to be sold to date in Europe (Realm Energy C$140m sold to San Leon Energy) , I intend to explore in the UK through future vehicles and have looked at UK shale geology in depth. I wrote a guest post on Poland last Autumn and would hope to update that soon. I am of course a strong supporter of shale exploration as an environmentally benign and potentially bountiful opportunity for the UK for the reasons frequently expertly articulated by Nick Grealy who runs NoHotAir.
In a time when it is possible to be angry amount so many things it is important not to be pointlessly angry. There would appear to be concerned residents of many parts of the UK forming groups to oppose shale gas exploration in places where there will simply never be any shale exploration. If you live in Kent or the Bath/Somerset area I am particularly thinking of you.
Poland, All about Delivery?
- Published on 16 May 2013
- Written by James Elston
There's not been much news from Poland lately and people are mistaking silence with bad news. As this guest post from James Elston shows, there's been a lot of positive activity:
As I suggested in my October 2012 article on this forum, 2013 is the make or break year for the Eastern Poland Shale Plays whilst activity is growing in the Permian Basin Carboniferous plays to the southwest. Sentiment towards nascent Polish shale gas exploration has worsened with Exxon partially withdrawing and Marathon and Talisman pulling out, all more for portfolio reasons than anything else.
Europe's Forced Reappraisal Of Shale Gas
- Published on 13 May 2013
- Written by Andrew McKillop
Another guest post, this time from Andrew McKillop . He has green energy and sustainable development experience dating back to the '70s and has long experience at DG Energy at the European Commission. His words, originally published at Market Oracle, prvides a reality check for left and right together:
EYES SET WEST European policymakers at Commission level, in European Council of ministers meetings, and in national governments now curtly say that the shale gas issue is "very political", because the subject will not go away. Allowing shale gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing to move ahead is already politically correct - in some countries such as Poland - and may soon also become correct in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The logjam is breaking.
Actual CO2 reductions. Not Hot Air.
- Published on 07 December 2012
- Written by Nick Grealy
I should be the last one to tell the WWF UK, Friends of the Earth -UK and Greenpeace UK, but they need not only to stop fighting gas but to start thinking globally. The Doha Climate round is ending this week and what has it accomplished? As little as the rest of the Kyoto Process. Insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result, just as they have in the last 18 conferences.
Increasingly the main objection the UK arms of the Green NGO's can muster against shale gas is that we won't meet the Committee on Climate Change targets for either percentage of electricity from renewable sources or a longer term 80% decarbonisation of the electricity and heat sectors by 2050.The GNGO's need to ask themselves what is truly important ? Climate Change or the Committee on Climate Change? They are losing sight of the results gas can achieve in cutting huge swathes of carbon on a global basis From that we no longer need such high targets in the UK. It doesn't mean John Gummer is a bad person. It just simply means that reality has changed. Sadly, the obsession with local targets to solve a global problem solves nothing.
Nothing illustrates this more than a chart published this week from the US Energy Information Administration. The US didn't sign the Kyoto Accords Yet, thanks primarily to natural gas but also due to significant efficiency improvements in transport, the US is exceeding the targets it would have been given:
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