The Department of Energy (DECC) have recommended that an environmental risk assessment (ERA) should accompany planning applications for all shale gas operations. DECC state that an essential part of any ERA is community engagement. These linked documents highlight the fact that Cranfield University, employed to offer best practice on ERA, have failed to meet their main objectives of ensuring that the local community fully understands all aspects of the ERA process, are aware of key technical issues, and can provide input that will inform decisions on shale gas exploration. Read more...

For the past three years, the boom in the US shale oil industry has outstripped all expectations. Production surged far faster than any forecasts; drillers raced to secure space in new pipelines to get their crude to market. Now, at the periphery, that may be changing - at least for a while. Read more...

Back in July Cuadrilla Resources published a “Community Newsletter” in which they made a number of claims about fracking, and most notably about its safety. This “newsletter” was referred to the Advertising Standards Authority by Refracktion. The ASA ruling, released on Wednesday 24th April 2013, identifies 21 ways in which the 8 page leaflet breaches the ASA’s advertising code on grounds including being misleading, misleading by omitting material information, making subjective claims, making claims without adequate substantiation, and exaggeration. Read more...

Dr James Hansen, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and currently Adjunct Professor of Earth Sciences at Columbia University's Earth Institute, stated during his lecture at the LSE on Thursday May 16th, that we must leave unconventional fuels in the ground. Read more...

Britain said this week it has issued more than 300 licenses for onshore oil and natural gas exploration since a ban on shale gas hydraulic fracturing was lifted. British Energy Minister Michael Fallon, speaking in the House of Commons Wednesday before a newly formed parliamentary group on unconventional oil and gas, said the government has been busily promoting shale development since a moratorium on “fracking” was removed in December. “There are already over 300 licenses for onshore exploration and development, conventional and unconventional, a fifth of which are substantial,” Fallon said. Read more...

Camp Frack 2 was a very successful event for the many residents groups that have formed throughout the UK in response to the use of the environmentally damaging process known as fracking and the current push by the Government towards an expensive and unwanted gas based energy policy. Read more...

"The shale gas revolution is not feasible," headlines Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, following the March 27 meeting of European Union environment and climate ministers. According to the newspaper, EU Commissioner for Climate, Connie Hedegaard, and the Commissioner for Energy, Günther Oettinger, sought to dampen the enthusiasm of some member states that aim to exploit shale gas reserves, which are thought to be considerable in Europe. Read more...

Whilst a 20 percent growth in Gas production over a dozen years may be considered a “boom” by some, almost ignored in the national dialogue has been the recent growth of renewable energy. In 2012, renewable energy accounted for 55 percent of all the new domestic energy created in the U.S. For the first time in history, renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) has become the dominant electrical energy of choice within this nation. Read more...

On April 8, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) won a legal challenge against proposed fracking operations in California. A federal judge ruled that federal authorities broke the law when they leased 2,700 acres of BLM land in Monterey and Fresno counties to oil and gas drillers without considering the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Read more....

The UKOOG Guidelines are just the industry claiming it can regulate itself. Few profit incentivised industries are capable of doing that effectively. Look at the situation with horse burgers recently. Its notable also they have a PR Executive heading up their work. And this is prior to the Environment Agency and Helath & Safety Executive releasing their guidelines in April.

Where are the legal requirements for compliance? Where are the independent well inspectors? Where is the monitoring? And the more critical issue of how flowback is processed? It's all about presentation over objective substance. This will do little to appease the public nor convince them that the process can be made safe.

What a grubby little energy market we have constructed in Britain. As Alistair Buchanan, the head of Ofgem, warns of looming gas and electricity price rises, it is worth a brief look at the politics behind what is going on. It boils down to energy companies "gaming" the energy market and government incompetence hanging the public out to dry. Read more...