I was born and raised in Yorkshire and the majority of my family live just over the Pennines in Lancashire. Like many other people from the North East, I was shocked to hear our home described as 'desolate' by Lord Howell, Tory Peer and former Conservative Energy adviser to William Hague. Below is the clip itself, so you can draw your own opinions. I think this raises important issues about the future of fracking in the North of England under a Conservative Government, and further highlights the ever growing divide between the North and South.
"Would the minister accept that it could be a mistake to think of and discuss fracking in terms of the whole of the United Kingdom in one go? I mean there obviously are, in beautiful natural areas, worries about not just the drilling and the fracking, which I think are exaggerated, but about the trucks, and the delivery, and the roads, and the disturbance." But there are large and uninhabited and desolate areas. Certainly in part of the north-east where there's plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody's residence where we could conduct without any kind of threat to the rural environment."
Obviously, following these comments- which sparked a media furore and inspired gasps of shock in the House of Commons- there was the obligatory back-pedalling in true Conservative style. In which, Lord Howell bribed the public with promises of tax breaks and 1% of profits, if gas is recovered, for communities in the vicinity of fracking operations.
Eric Ollerenshaw, Conserative MP for Fleetwood and Lancaster, added fuel to the fire by stating:
"It does look as if the rest of the country wants to use Lancashire as its energy base.. but long term what is going to be the benefit to the area where this is going to happen?" Ollerenshaw continued by commenting on the unacceptability of a situation in which "the North gets the dirty end and the south sucks up all the energy."
In the murky world of politics I'm not sure how much trust can be placed on the comments of Tory MP's. In order to get some actual scientific information, I've come to a government commissioned report for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), entitled: The Unconventional Hydrocarbon Resources of Britains Onshore Basins- Shale Gas, is available here: (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/66172/uk-onshore-shalegas.pdf).
Below is a map of the potential sites for shale-gas exploration in the UK. At first glance this may seem like a pretty even distribution in the UK; but as is explained in the above report, it's not just about where the shale is, it is also about the accessibility of the shale gas. The accessibility of shale gas is largely dependant on risk-assessment. (Sorry about the poor resolution of the image, follow the link to see the image in all its glory.
Image URL:
http://millicentmedia.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/sg_fig_4_hydrocarbon_provinces_2010.jpg?w=223&h=300
As is discussed in the report, the best shale gas prospects are those which have already been explored for conventional hydrocarbons. Furthermore, the yield of shale-gas is greatly increased when there is an inclusion of quartz or calcite in the formation; this increases the chances of fracture propagation as these minerals make the shale more brittle. The prime target areas are:
- Upper Bowland Shale of Pennine Basin. For the full report on the Bowland Shale, follow this link: (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/226874/BGS_DECC_BowlandShaleGasReport_MAIN_REPORT.pdf)
- Kimmeridge Clay of Weald Basin
- Lias of the Weald Basin
- Potentially the deeper Dinatian shales of Pennine basin
- Potentially the Oil-Shale group of the Midland Valley, Scotland
Unlike the US, which have intra-cratonic basins forming in geologically stable regions, the UK shale basins have undergone intense deformation and faulting in the geological past, due to past close-proximities to plate boundaries. The result is shale plays that are highly deformed, offset by faults and can contain igneous intrusions. Dr Nick Riley, the Leader for Unconventional Gas at the BGS had this to say:
“There’s a lot of single depositional tectonics going on, so not only do you have over-printing of faults between the
late-Carboniferous and post-Carboniferous periods, you've got active
faulting during the Carboniferous period and that is controlling a lot
of the quality of the shale, the thickness of the shale. Plus at certain
times of the Carboniferous period the sea level goes up and down as
polar ice caps waxed and waned, which changes the organic nature of the
shale.”
However, the shale deposits have a much greater thickness than those in the US and thus have the potential to contain much larger reserves of shale gas. On the other side of the coin, the thickness and depth of shale deposits could cause problems during extraction and could also lead to viable shale-gas deposits being more widely dispersed within the shale unit. One certainty is that shale-gas exploration is by no means simple, and there will be large variability in both the quantity and quality of shale gas at both intra- and inter- site levels.
Below is a table that shows the thickness and depth of shale plays in the UK, taken from 'Shale Gas Extraction in the UK- a review of Hydraulic Fracturing', published in the Royal Society of Engineering:
So, although fracking exploration has been announced to be taking place in every county except from Devon, there does seem to be a concentration of hydraulic fracturing in the North and Middle of England. This will be predominantly felt in Lancashire, where Caudrilla Resources are expecting to conduct extensive fracking and enter full-blown production by the end of 2014. Cuadrilla aim to develop around 1,500 wells over a 50 square mile area between the North of Blackpool and Preston. It is important to state that Cuadrilla is not the only company investing in the hydraulic fracturing industry; in 2014 expect to hear more from energy companies ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, IGas Eneregy, Dart Energy and Eden Energy.
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