The media hiatus in the fracking for shale gas frenzy - which graced the front pages for several weeks during the summer - has left room for some more reasoned debate and comment.
The RSPB, for instance, has waded into the issue by lodging objections to proposals to drill for shale gas and oil in Lancashire and West Sussex, citing that regulations are inadequate to ensure water, landscapes and wildlife are protected.
These are the first formal objections to fracking from the RSPB. The drilling proposal at Singleton, Lancashire, is less than a mile from an internationally important area for pink-footed geese and whooper swans.
The society is also protesting against drilling at Balcombe, West Sussex - the focus of large summer protests - on the grounds that no environmental impact assessment has been carried out.
In both written objections the charity also says that increasing oil and gas use will reduce the UK's chances of meeting climate change targets.
Harry Huyton, head of climate and energy policy at the RSPB, said: "Balcombe hit the headlines as the battleground in the debate over fracking. The public there are rightly concerned about the impact this will have on their countryside.
"We have looked closely at the rules in place to police drilling for shale gas, and they are simply not robust enough to ensure that our water, our landscapes and our wildlife are safe."
Huyton also said that Cuadrilla's proposed operations in Lancashire could damage populations of geese and swans. "This area is protected by European law because it is so valuable for wildlife and the company has done nothing to investigate what damage their activities could do to it," he claimed.
The RSPB says that Government figures show the potential for 5,000 sites and a total of up to 100,000 wells in the north of England.
"The idea that these will have a benign impact on the countryside is very difficult to believe," said Huyton.
"This is all in too much of a hurry – the regulations simply aren't in place," he added. "If Cuadrilla did their assessments and found there wasn't a serious concern, we'd accept that. But no assessments have been done."
The group's other main objection is that a push for shale gas will divert funds and attention from the UK's previously stated goal of having an electricity system almost completely powered by ‘clean' energy by 2030.
This piece was originally scheduled for publication on 20 September 2013 but the Lighthouse Keeper was unable to access his blog due to Chinese internet restrictions whilst on assignment in Beijing and so has been published retrospectively
20 September 2013
14 September 2013
Message in a bottle
Give or take a few miles, a 36-year-old unmanned spacecraft is now about 12 billion miles from the Sun, a pretty incomprehensible distance whichever way you look at it.
And this week NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially became the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space.
New data gathered during the summer indicate Voyager 1 has now been travelling for about one year through the plasma (ionized gas) of interstellar space, the space between stars.
Covering nearly a million miles a day, the nuclear-powered spacecraft, has well and truly crossed the boundary between the Sun's influence and interstellar space, sailing into the vast gulf between the stars to become humanity's first true starship.
The announcement was made this week by scientists at NASA’s JPL in California, including Voyager project scientist Ed Stone.
"In leaving the solar system and setting sail on the cosmic seas between the stars, Voyager has joined the other historic journeys of exploration such as the first circumnavigation of the Earth and the first footprint on the Moon," he said.
"This historic step is even more exciting because it marks the beginning of a new era of exploration for Voyager, the exploration of the space between the stars."
It may be a new era of exploration for humankind but in reality we’ll get only limited information from Voyager, partly because of the vast distances involved and also because its instruments are being to wear out.
The fact that some are working even now is testament to the robust design of a spacecraft that was only ever meant to gather data from a spectacular journey through the giant planets of our solar system.
Voyager 1 reached the boundary of the heliosphere in 2004, a milestone marked by readings showing the speed of the solar wind had dropped below that of sound. But it took another nine years to complete the crossing and move out into interstellar space.
The actual transition likely occurred in August last year but an instrument that would have confirmed that failed in 1980, forcing scientists to rely on less direct methods of observation.
As it turned out, the Sun cooperated, blasting huge clouds of charged particles and magnetic energy in Voyager 1's direction in March 2012. When the particles finally got there 13 months later, they created detectable vibrations in the electrically charged plasma surrounding the spacecraft.
After studying those waves, scientists concluded the density of the material was 40 times higher than it would be if Voyager 1 was still in the heliosphere.
The heliosphere is defined by the Sun's magnetic field and is filled with electrically charged particles blasted away from the Sun in all directions -- the solar wind.
Our Sun, its planets, moons, asteroids and comets are embedded in a vast, t teardrop-shaped region, or bubble, in space known as the heliosphere.
Voyager 2 was launched on 20 August 1977 and Voyager 1 lifted off on 5 September the same year. Both probes carry gold discs with recordings designed to portray the diversity of culture on Earth - just incase they are ever intercepted by distant intelligent life forms.
The probes were launched on different trajectories. Voyager 2′s so-called 'slow' trajectory enabled it to visit all four giant planets, while Voyager 1′s faster trajectory meant it would head into deep space after visiting Jupiter and Saturn.
Voyager 1 is now the furthest human-built object from Earth and the distance is so vast that it takes 17 hours now for a radio signal sent from Voyager to reach receivers on Earth.
It is expected that their plutonium power sources will stop supplying electricity in about 10 years, at which point their instruments and 20W transmitters will die. After that Voyager 1 will not approach another star for nearly 40,000 years.
When Voyager 1 blasted into space the world we live in was a very different place and much has changed in the intervening decades, both socially and from a technological perspective.
The Voyager spacecraft was designed to run most of its operations itself and computing power was impressive for its time.
Each probe has three interconnected computer systems: one to control the craft’s flight and altitude, another to control its instruments, and a third to manage the first two.
The computers can process about 8,000 instructions per second - a fraction of the capability of a modern smartphone, which handles upwards of 14 billion each second. With memory measured in kilobytes, the Voyager computers can hold only hold a few thousand words worth of text.
Probably the most intriguing piece of technology onboard Voyager is the legendary ‘Golden Record’ - a phonograph record packaged with a cartridge and needle, operating instructions and loaded with information about Earth.
It contains 115 images of humans, animals and airports, spoken greetings in languages from Akkadian to Chinese, a message from US President Carter and an eclectic 90 minute selection of music.
Carrying such a disc as it travels in silence though the depths of space, Voyager 1 is effectively humanity’s interstellar ‘message in a bottle’ - speeding ever outwards through the ocean of interstellar space towards the edge of forever.
And this week NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially became the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space.
New data gathered during the summer indicate Voyager 1 has now been travelling for about one year through the plasma (ionized gas) of interstellar space, the space between stars.
Covering nearly a million miles a day, the nuclear-powered spacecraft, has well and truly crossed the boundary between the Sun's influence and interstellar space, sailing into the vast gulf between the stars to become humanity's first true starship.
The announcement was made this week by scientists at NASA’s JPL in California, including Voyager project scientist Ed Stone.
"In leaving the solar system and setting sail on the cosmic seas between the stars, Voyager has joined the other historic journeys of exploration such as the first circumnavigation of the Earth and the first footprint on the Moon," he said.
"This historic step is even more exciting because it marks the beginning of a new era of exploration for Voyager, the exploration of the space between the stars."
It may be a new era of exploration for humankind but in reality we’ll get only limited information from Voyager, partly because of the vast distances involved and also because its instruments are being to wear out.
The fact that some are working even now is testament to the robust design of a spacecraft that was only ever meant to gather data from a spectacular journey through the giant planets of our solar system.
Voyager 1 reached the boundary of the heliosphere in 2004, a milestone marked by readings showing the speed of the solar wind had dropped below that of sound. But it took another nine years to complete the crossing and move out into interstellar space.
The actual transition likely occurred in August last year but an instrument that would have confirmed that failed in 1980, forcing scientists to rely on less direct methods of observation.
As it turned out, the Sun cooperated, blasting huge clouds of charged particles and magnetic energy in Voyager 1's direction in March 2012. When the particles finally got there 13 months later, they created detectable vibrations in the electrically charged plasma surrounding the spacecraft.
After studying those waves, scientists concluded the density of the material was 40 times higher than it would be if Voyager 1 was still in the heliosphere.
The heliosphere is defined by the Sun's magnetic field and is filled with electrically charged particles blasted away from the Sun in all directions -- the solar wind.
Our Sun, its planets, moons, asteroids and comets are embedded in a vast, t teardrop-shaped region, or bubble, in space known as the heliosphere.
Voyager 2 was launched on 20 August 1977 and Voyager 1 lifted off on 5 September the same year. Both probes carry gold discs with recordings designed to portray the diversity of culture on Earth - just incase they are ever intercepted by distant intelligent life forms.
The probes were launched on different trajectories. Voyager 2′s so-called 'slow' trajectory enabled it to visit all four giant planets, while Voyager 1′s faster trajectory meant it would head into deep space after visiting Jupiter and Saturn.
Voyager 1 is now the furthest human-built object from Earth and the distance is so vast that it takes 17 hours now for a radio signal sent from Voyager to reach receivers on Earth.
It is expected that their plutonium power sources will stop supplying electricity in about 10 years, at which point their instruments and 20W transmitters will die. After that Voyager 1 will not approach another star for nearly 40,000 years.
When Voyager 1 blasted into space the world we live in was a very different place and much has changed in the intervening decades, both socially and from a technological perspective.
The Voyager spacecraft was designed to run most of its operations itself and computing power was impressive for its time.
Each probe has three interconnected computer systems: one to control the craft’s flight and altitude, another to control its instruments, and a third to manage the first two.
The computers can process about 8,000 instructions per second - a fraction of the capability of a modern smartphone, which handles upwards of 14 billion each second. With memory measured in kilobytes, the Voyager computers can hold only hold a few thousand words worth of text.
Probably the most intriguing piece of technology onboard Voyager is the legendary ‘Golden Record’ - a phonograph record packaged with a cartridge and needle, operating instructions and loaded with information about Earth.
It contains 115 images of humans, animals and airports, spoken greetings in languages from Akkadian to Chinese, a message from US President Carter and an eclectic 90 minute selection of music.
Carrying such a disc as it travels in silence though the depths of space, Voyager 1 is effectively humanity’s interstellar ‘message in a bottle’ - speeding ever outwards through the ocean of interstellar space towards the edge of forever.
04 September 2013
Running on empty
It probably slipped past without so much as a blip on the Richter scale of life. Our busy, consumer-led lives likely won’t have notched up that a couple of weeks ago (20 August 2013) was the date humanity exhausted nature’s annual budget for our planet.
As a result we are now operating in overdraft mode and, for the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Just as a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, the Global Footprint Network measures humanity’s demand for and supply of natural resources and ecological services. The data is somewhat sobering.
Global Footprint Network estimates that it now takes only approximately eight months for the world’s population as a whole to demand more renewable resources and carbon dioxide sequestration than Earth can provide for an entire year.
Earth Overshoot Day, a concept originally developed by Global Footprint Network partner and UK think tank the New Economics Foundation, is the annual marker of when we begin living beyond our means in a given year.
While only a rough estimate of time and resource trends, it is as close as we can get to measuring the gap between our demand for ecological resources and services, and how much the planet can provide.
Just over a decade ago Earth Overshoot Day fell on 21 October. Given current trends in consumption, one thing is clear - it is relentlessly creeping forward and arriving earlier each year.
Throughout most of history, humanity has used nature’s resources to build homes, towns, cities and roads, to provide food and create products, and to absorb our carbon dioxide at a rate that was well within Earth’s budget. But, in the mid-1970s, we crossed a critical threshold when human consumption began outstripping what the planet could reproduce.
The fact that we are now using, or ‘spending’, our natural capital much faster than it can be replenished is similar to having expenditures that continuously exceed income, a financial deficit.
In planetary terms, the costs of our ecological overspending are becoming more evident by the day. Climate change - a result of greenhouse gases being emitted faster than they can be absorbed by forests and oceans - is one of the most obvious and arguably pressing result.
But there are others - shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse, higher commodity prices, civil unrest and water shortages, to name a few. The environmental and economic crises we are beginning to experience more frequently are symptoms of looming catastrophe.
While the global financial recession that began in October 2008 slowed humanity’s demand for resources somewhat, our overall consumption continues to rise.
To stand any chance of avoiding much more than economic hardship for the planet’s seven billion and growing population, resource limits must be at the core of future decision-making.
Today, more than 80 percent of the world’s population live in nations that use more than their own ecosystems can renew. These ‘ecological debtor’ countries either deplete their own ecological resources or get them from elsewhere.
Ecological debtors are using more than they have within their own borders. Japan’s residents consume the ecological resources of 7.1 Japans. It would take four Italys to support Italy, and 3.5 UK’s - all just at current rates of consumption.
Not every country demands more than their ecosystems can provide, but even the reserves of such ‘ecological creditors’ like Brazil, Indonesia, and Sweden are shrinking over time.
Just as in the financial crisis of 2008, we can no longer sustain a widening gap between what nature is able to provide and how much our infrastructure, economies and lifestyles require.
As Earth Overshoot Day continues its inexorable and quickening march closer to the start of each year we have no real idea of the consequences our living in this way will ultimately have. One thing is for sure, though. We all have some tough choices - both individually and as nations - coming up.
As a result we are now operating in overdraft mode and, for the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Just as a bank statement tracks income against expenditures, the Global Footprint Network measures humanity’s demand for and supply of natural resources and ecological services. The data is somewhat sobering.
Global Footprint Network estimates that it now takes only approximately eight months for the world’s population as a whole to demand more renewable resources and carbon dioxide sequestration than Earth can provide for an entire year.
Earth Overshoot Day, a concept originally developed by Global Footprint Network partner and UK think tank the New Economics Foundation, is the annual marker of when we begin living beyond our means in a given year.
While only a rough estimate of time and resource trends, it is as close as we can get to measuring the gap between our demand for ecological resources and services, and how much the planet can provide.
Just over a decade ago Earth Overshoot Day fell on 21 October. Given current trends in consumption, one thing is clear - it is relentlessly creeping forward and arriving earlier each year.
Throughout most of history, humanity has used nature’s resources to build homes, towns, cities and roads, to provide food and create products, and to absorb our carbon dioxide at a rate that was well within Earth’s budget. But, in the mid-1970s, we crossed a critical threshold when human consumption began outstripping what the planet could reproduce.
The fact that we are now using, or ‘spending’, our natural capital much faster than it can be replenished is similar to having expenditures that continuously exceed income, a financial deficit.
In planetary terms, the costs of our ecological overspending are becoming more evident by the day. Climate change - a result of greenhouse gases being emitted faster than they can be absorbed by forests and oceans - is one of the most obvious and arguably pressing result.
But there are others - shrinking forests, species loss, fisheries collapse, higher commodity prices, civil unrest and water shortages, to name a few. The environmental and economic crises we are beginning to experience more frequently are symptoms of looming catastrophe.
While the global financial recession that began in October 2008 slowed humanity’s demand for resources somewhat, our overall consumption continues to rise.
To stand any chance of avoiding much more than economic hardship for the planet’s seven billion and growing population, resource limits must be at the core of future decision-making.
Today, more than 80 percent of the world’s population live in nations that use more than their own ecosystems can renew. These ‘ecological debtor’ countries either deplete their own ecological resources or get them from elsewhere.
Ecological debtors are using more than they have within their own borders. Japan’s residents consume the ecological resources of 7.1 Japans. It would take four Italys to support Italy, and 3.5 UK’s - all just at current rates of consumption.
Not every country demands more than their ecosystems can provide, but even the reserves of such ‘ecological creditors’ like Brazil, Indonesia, and Sweden are shrinking over time.
Just as in the financial crisis of 2008, we can no longer sustain a widening gap between what nature is able to provide and how much our infrastructure, economies and lifestyles require.
As Earth Overshoot Day continues its inexorable and quickening march closer to the start of each year we have no real idea of the consequences our living in this way will ultimately have. One thing is for sure, though. We all have some tough choices - both individually and as nations - coming up.
30 August 2013
Beauty of the night
DUSK is about to wrap itself around the penultimate day of August - a balmy evening following a warm and sunny day on the prairies of South Lincolnshire.
As the evening quietens there is the distant drone of combine harvesters, working flat out just as they have been all day long in fields of wheat and barley, creating a dusty plume and the sweet, husky smell of freshly mown sheafs.
It’s barely 8.30 pm, twilight is fading fast and the local birds embark on a last cacophony of celebratory singing and chirruping before acquiescing to the night.
By now, the garden is alive with insects of the dark, a myriad moths flitting amongst the fading lavender heads and the bright open yellow blooms of evening primrose.
Apart from this transitional time of the year when we might still find occasion to wander through our garden or local park as dusk falls, we tend to largely ignore these night-time creatures - perhaps we fear them, or just prefer to squish them without so much as a second thought.
No one knows exactly but there could be 250,000 different species of moth worldwide, so no matter where we live they inevitably share our space.
Their existence, a somewhat peculiar affair when compared to higher forms, is nevertheless an integral and important part of our natural eco system.
A moth emerges from its cocoon in leaf litter, then mates and lays eggs within the first 48 hours of life. With no more eating or drinking for the rest of its life, existence takes on a self-less and higher calling - pollinating flowers and crops, and maybe becoming a tasty snack for those further up the food chain.
Though an individual may live just a week or two - and the loss of a tiny percentage may have serious implications for some forms of agriculture - collectively they pollinate some 80 percent of the world’s flora.
Its largely nocturnal habit, however, means they are largely un-noticed by ourselves, except perhaps because of their fatal attraction to our ever-spreading arrays of artificial lights in backyards, streets and driveways.
Blinded by that same light, we all too often miss the delicate beauty of these nocturnal butterflies. Like bees, the humble moth does much to keep our world alive.
20 August 2013
Premiership monopoly
We are mid-way through August and the first long weekend of the new Premier League football season is now done and dusted.
In the final game of the ‘weekend’ Man City trounced Newcastle by four goals to nil. A decent thrashing in anyone’s books for an opening game.
But the numbers are not just big on the goal scoring side - City have also been big spenders during the close season, investing a mind-boggling £87 million on just four new players.
Meanwhile, André Villas-Boas is raising the stakes and is poised to break the Tottenham Hotspur transfer record for the third time this summer with the £30 million capture of the Brazilian forward Willian. The deal would push Spurs' summer spending to almost £90 million.
So, as the season gets underway and we hurtle towards the World Cup in Brazil, there are crucial questions to be resolved, as much off the field as on it because we live in a land that is now the home of global football and where transfer fees, wages and television rights dwarf conventional accounting.
In this respect, the new kid on the Premiership block this season is telecoms giant BT, spending £736 million for TV rights over three years for the privilege of screening 38 live games against Sky's 116?
Should Murdoch have bid more than £2.3 billion? How does BT's £200 million deal with Virgin Media alter the equation? And what about the BBC's £180 million on Match of the Day, with its familiar and comforting theme tune that harks back to an altogether different footballing age.
Each major televised match through the coming months will rake in £6.6 million and the past season has seen the money rolling into Britain's top soccer teams rise by 71 percent. And what if Real Madrid pay £100 million for Gareth Bale?
Whichever way you look at the numbers they are all very (massively) big – and all this is before you even get to watch a game of football.
The question is, are we realistically likely to see an end to this madness driven by the egos of global entrepreneurs who demand success at virtually any price?
There is some vague notion about clubs having to balance their budgets due to stricter disciplines imposed by Europe’s governing authorities – but money seems to talk louder than words in the Premiership.
This manic, out-of-control inflation - where currency, wages and transfer fees leave ordinary life and common sense trailing far behind - doesn't translate to excellence on the pitch.
Witness the fact that ‘our Engerland’ are still to qualify for the next year’s World Cup - and even after that our chances of ‘progressing’ to the quarter finals, let alone lifting the coveted trophy itself, look as inflated as salaries and egos in our bgreat game.
Southampton’s Rickie Lambert, who scored for the England national team last Wednesday on his debut and with his first touch of the ball, illustrates the point nicely. At the age of 31 he was really only there because our cupboard of home-grown talent is bare.
And you only have to look at this year's opening weekend of fixtures that marked an all-time low in terms of the number of Englishmen beginning games at the start of a season.
A survey published by the Guardian newspaper shows two-thirds of those on view in the first round of fixtures were foreign nationals, highlighting the falling number of homegrown players in the top flight.
Back in August 1992, 73 percent of players featuring in first-day first XIs held English nationality but this year that figure fell to 34 percent. Not like in Germany and Spain.
The Premiership is a rule unto itself, an out-of-control sporting juggernaut where a win-at-all-costs logic doesn’t see any need to nurture grass roots talent when you can pay outrageous sums to bag inflated stars that pass in the night.
It's a toxic brew that defies normal morality and even make the banking crisis of recent years look a little tame. Wages are set at levels that would make former Knight of the Realm Fred Goodwin weak at the knees - and long-term strategy hardly seems to stretch beyond the next transfer window.
The once beautiful game of legend, gentlemen and lingering belief has become increasingly ugly, a commercial means to some wider end.
The justice of life in the real world would argue for a time of reckoning that somehow redresses the balance and brings all to account.
But it will soon be a full half century since England last triumphed in a World Cup competition and, with the Premiership in full flight once again, it really doesn’t look as though football is coming home anytime soon. Sir Alf Ramsey might just be turning in his grave.
In the final game of the ‘weekend’ Man City trounced Newcastle by four goals to nil. A decent thrashing in anyone’s books for an opening game.
But the numbers are not just big on the goal scoring side - City have also been big spenders during the close season, investing a mind-boggling £87 million on just four new players.
Meanwhile, André Villas-Boas is raising the stakes and is poised to break the Tottenham Hotspur transfer record for the third time this summer with the £30 million capture of the Brazilian forward Willian. The deal would push Spurs' summer spending to almost £90 million.
So, as the season gets underway and we hurtle towards the World Cup in Brazil, there are crucial questions to be resolved, as much off the field as on it because we live in a land that is now the home of global football and where transfer fees, wages and television rights dwarf conventional accounting.
In this respect, the new kid on the Premiership block this season is telecoms giant BT, spending £736 million for TV rights over three years for the privilege of screening 38 live games against Sky's 116?
Should Murdoch have bid more than £2.3 billion? How does BT's £200 million deal with Virgin Media alter the equation? And what about the BBC's £180 million on Match of the Day, with its familiar and comforting theme tune that harks back to an altogether different footballing age.
Each major televised match through the coming months will rake in £6.6 million and the past season has seen the money rolling into Britain's top soccer teams rise by 71 percent. And what if Real Madrid pay £100 million for Gareth Bale?
Whichever way you look at the numbers they are all very (massively) big – and all this is before you even get to watch a game of football.
The question is, are we realistically likely to see an end to this madness driven by the egos of global entrepreneurs who demand success at virtually any price?
There is some vague notion about clubs having to balance their budgets due to stricter disciplines imposed by Europe’s governing authorities – but money seems to talk louder than words in the Premiership.
This manic, out-of-control inflation - where currency, wages and transfer fees leave ordinary life and common sense trailing far behind - doesn't translate to excellence on the pitch.
Witness the fact that ‘our Engerland’ are still to qualify for the next year’s World Cup - and even after that our chances of ‘progressing’ to the quarter finals, let alone lifting the coveted trophy itself, look as inflated as salaries and egos in our bgreat game.
Southampton’s Rickie Lambert, who scored for the England national team last Wednesday on his debut and with his first touch of the ball, illustrates the point nicely. At the age of 31 he was really only there because our cupboard of home-grown talent is bare.
And you only have to look at this year's opening weekend of fixtures that marked an all-time low in terms of the number of Englishmen beginning games at the start of a season.
A survey published by the Guardian newspaper shows two-thirds of those on view in the first round of fixtures were foreign nationals, highlighting the falling number of homegrown players in the top flight.
Back in August 1992, 73 percent of players featuring in first-day first XIs held English nationality but this year that figure fell to 34 percent. Not like in Germany and Spain.
The Premiership is a rule unto itself, an out-of-control sporting juggernaut where a win-at-all-costs logic doesn’t see any need to nurture grass roots talent when you can pay outrageous sums to bag inflated stars that pass in the night.
It's a toxic brew that defies normal morality and even make the banking crisis of recent years look a little tame. Wages are set at levels that would make former Knight of the Realm Fred Goodwin weak at the knees - and long-term strategy hardly seems to stretch beyond the next transfer window.
The once beautiful game of legend, gentlemen and lingering belief has become increasingly ugly, a commercial means to some wider end.
The justice of life in the real world would argue for a time of reckoning that somehow redresses the balance and brings all to account.
But it will soon be a full half century since England last triumphed in a World Cup competition and, with the Premiership in full flight once again, it really doesn’t look as though football is coming home anytime soon. Sir Alf Ramsey might just be turning in his grave.
15 August 2013
Cameron talks up fracking
This week the Prime Minister David Cameron suggested in a national newspaper article that local communities will become richer and we will all see reduced energy bills if the UK embraces a shale gas revolution.
There was no discussion of other issues (such as reducing our dependence on energy) and only a cursory dismissal of some of the very real concerns that fracking for shale gas might cause – irreparable damage to our countryside, pollution in the ground and atmosphere, and severe water shortages.
But different stories are beginning to emerge from the lands of eastern Europe and even America (more of which later) where the mining of shale gas has been seriously on the agenda for a while longer.
Take Poland for instance. The Prague Post – the Czech Republic’s English-language newspaper - reported back in June that the Polish government had announced plans to improve regulation and postpone tax collection on shale gas production in the hopes of encouraging investors to continue their explorations for the fuel.
A somewhat strange move if things were going so well – but then something had to be done following the unexpected withdrawal of three North American companies from explorations in the country.
Doubts over the estimated scale of Poland's shale gas reserves began surfacing more than a year ago after ExxonMobil announced plans to cease exploration in the country, citing disappointing test drilling results.
The withdrawal last month of two more multi-nationals - Talisman Energy of Canada and US oil giant Marathon - has now cast more uncertainty over the commercial viability of shale gas in Poland.
Marathon stated this summer that it had decided to end its Polish operations after ‘unsuccessful attempts to find commercial levels of hydrocarbons’.
Talisman, meanwhile, announced the sale of its Polish operations to the Irish-based San Leon Energy group, which is presumably going to tackle things in a different way - or perhaps with the ‘luck of the Irish’ where the talisman failed.
Exploration company executives had complained that complicated environmental regulations in Poland, along with a lack of legislation on shale gas, has also caused difficulties. Some foreign firms also found the legal framework for shale gas investment in the country to be less straightforward than expected.
Shale gas mania was triggered in Poland when a report by the United States Energy Information Agency estimated the country to have untapped reserves of some 5.3 trillion cubic meters - enough to meet domestic demand for 300 years.
Polish leaders – quick to jump on the fast moving shale gas gravy train (and which government wouldn’t?) soon made shale gas exploration a priority, voicing ambitions that the country could surpass its own domestic requirements and even become a gas exporter.
The country's policy-makers had high hopes that shale gas would provide Poland with a boost to its slowing economy and help reduce its high unemployment rate of around 14 percent.
The strategy was also touted as an energy diversification tool that would lower dependence on Russia's Gazprom, which currently supplies around two-thirds of Poland's gas at some of the highest prices in Europe.
While the initial excitement and unrealistic optimism over a possible shale gas bonanza is fading, some companies remain hopeful. Lower shale gas projections arrived at by the government more recently might still be enough to meet Polish domestic demand for some 70 years and Chevron continues its explorations in Poland, currently drilling a fourth well with two more planned later this year.
The government is now working on a raft of new regulations that it hopes will prevent further departures of these firms, whose expertise and prior experience in North America is thought to be vital.
New regulations will also give North American companies the same rights as EU companies in in the belief their expertise will allow Poland to replicate the recent US ‘energy revolution’ brought about by (racking (hydraulic fracturing ).
The word ‘desperation’ comes to mind and some experts believe that attracting US companies may not be the answer because their techniques may not be as transferrable as they hoped.
So far, Poland has granted more than 111 permits to at least 30 investors, many of them from the United States and Canada, to explore what its government has touted as Europe's richest shale gas deposits.
Thirty-nine wells were planned for 2013, but according to Environment Ministry data only two had been drilled by May this year. Some 300 wells are thought to be needed to determine whether Poland could realistically be self-sufficient.
Back in the UK, in a week when the big six energy companies touted likely increases in the price of energy for the autumn, David Cameron chimed in with a lightweight piece suggesting the UK public should accept fracking and claiming the controversial method of extracting gas will attract ‘real public support’ once the benefits are explained.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister said the process would not damage the countryside and would cause only ‘very minor change to the landscape’.
His whimsical PR pros, penned in a let’s ‘dispel the myths’ style, added no depth to the case for fracking and only served to highlight once again the UK government’s inexcusable lack of a long term energy policy and failure to manage properly some of the big issues that really matter.
In demanding that shale gas drilling take place across the country, Cameron is playing a high-stakes political game based more on wishful thinking rather than hard economic analysis.
The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information
There was no discussion of other issues (such as reducing our dependence on energy) and only a cursory dismissal of some of the very real concerns that fracking for shale gas might cause – irreparable damage to our countryside, pollution in the ground and atmosphere, and severe water shortages.
But different stories are beginning to emerge from the lands of eastern Europe and even America (more of which later) where the mining of shale gas has been seriously on the agenda for a while longer.
Take Poland for instance. The Prague Post – the Czech Republic’s English-language newspaper - reported back in June that the Polish government had announced plans to improve regulation and postpone tax collection on shale gas production in the hopes of encouraging investors to continue their explorations for the fuel.
A somewhat strange move if things were going so well – but then something had to be done following the unexpected withdrawal of three North American companies from explorations in the country.
Doubts over the estimated scale of Poland's shale gas reserves began surfacing more than a year ago after ExxonMobil announced plans to cease exploration in the country, citing disappointing test drilling results.
The withdrawal last month of two more multi-nationals - Talisman Energy of Canada and US oil giant Marathon - has now cast more uncertainty over the commercial viability of shale gas in Poland.
Marathon stated this summer that it had decided to end its Polish operations after ‘unsuccessful attempts to find commercial levels of hydrocarbons’.
Talisman, meanwhile, announced the sale of its Polish operations to the Irish-based San Leon Energy group, which is presumably going to tackle things in a different way - or perhaps with the ‘luck of the Irish’ where the talisman failed.
Exploration company executives had complained that complicated environmental regulations in Poland, along with a lack of legislation on shale gas, has also caused difficulties. Some foreign firms also found the legal framework for shale gas investment in the country to be less straightforward than expected.
Shale gas mania was triggered in Poland when a report by the United States Energy Information Agency estimated the country to have untapped reserves of some 5.3 trillion cubic meters - enough to meet domestic demand for 300 years.
Polish leaders – quick to jump on the fast moving shale gas gravy train (and which government wouldn’t?) soon made shale gas exploration a priority, voicing ambitions that the country could surpass its own domestic requirements and even become a gas exporter.
The country's policy-makers had high hopes that shale gas would provide Poland with a boost to its slowing economy and help reduce its high unemployment rate of around 14 percent.
The strategy was also touted as an energy diversification tool that would lower dependence on Russia's Gazprom, which currently supplies around two-thirds of Poland's gas at some of the highest prices in Europe.
While the initial excitement and unrealistic optimism over a possible shale gas bonanza is fading, some companies remain hopeful. Lower shale gas projections arrived at by the government more recently might still be enough to meet Polish domestic demand for some 70 years and Chevron continues its explorations in Poland, currently drilling a fourth well with two more planned later this year.
The government is now working on a raft of new regulations that it hopes will prevent further departures of these firms, whose expertise and prior experience in North America is thought to be vital.
New regulations will also give North American companies the same rights as EU companies in in the belief their expertise will allow Poland to replicate the recent US ‘energy revolution’ brought about by (racking (hydraulic fracturing ).
The word ‘desperation’ comes to mind and some experts believe that attracting US companies may not be the answer because their techniques may not be as transferrable as they hoped.
So far, Poland has granted more than 111 permits to at least 30 investors, many of them from the United States and Canada, to explore what its government has touted as Europe's richest shale gas deposits.
Thirty-nine wells were planned for 2013, but according to Environment Ministry data only two had been drilled by May this year. Some 300 wells are thought to be needed to determine whether Poland could realistically be self-sufficient.
Back in the UK, in a week when the big six energy companies touted likely increases in the price of energy for the autumn, David Cameron chimed in with a lightweight piece suggesting the UK public should accept fracking and claiming the controversial method of extracting gas will attract ‘real public support’ once the benefits are explained.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister said the process would not damage the countryside and would cause only ‘very minor change to the landscape’.
His whimsical PR pros, penned in a let’s ‘dispel the myths’ style, added no depth to the case for fracking and only served to highlight once again the UK government’s inexcusable lack of a long term energy policy and failure to manage properly some of the big issues that really matter.
In demanding that shale gas drilling take place across the country, Cameron is playing a high-stakes political game based more on wishful thinking rather than hard economic analysis.
The Lighthouse Keeper is written by Clive Simpson - for more information, commission enquiries or to re-publish any of his articles click here for contact information
29 July 2013
Curiosity on Mars!
An image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released last week shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and the wheel tracks from its landing site to the Glenelg area where the rover worked for the first half of 2013.
The orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured the scene on 27 June 2013, with the orbiter rolled for an eastward-looking angle rather than straight downward. The afternoon sun illuminated the scene from the western sky, so the lighting was nearly behind the camera. This geometry hides shadows and reveals subtle colour variations.
Curiosity that day was examining an outcrop called Shaler, the rover mission's final science target in the Glenelg area before commencing a many-month trek southwestward to an entry point for the lower layers of Mount Sharp. The rover appears as a bright blue spot in the enhanced colouring of the image.
The image also shows two scour marks at the Bradbury landing site where the Mars Science Laboratory mission's skycrane landing system placed Curiosity onto the ground just about one year ago on 6 August 2012.
The scour marks are where the landing system's rockets cleared away reddish surface dust. Visible tracks commencing at the landing site show the path the rover travelled eastward to Glenelg.
Curiosity may be 140 million miles away on a hostile planet but that’s no excuse for not sending home a self-portrait.
This incredible shot shows Curiosity on the surface back in February - it comprises dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day (or sol) of Curiosity's work on Mars plus three exposures taken during Sol 270 (10 May 2013) to update the appearance of part of the ground beside the rover.
The updated area, which is in the lower left quadrant of the image, shows grey-powder and two holes where Curiosity used its drill on the rock target ‘John Klein’.
The portion has been spliced into a self-portrait that was originally prepared and released in February before the use of the drill. The result shows what the site where the self-portrait was taken looked like by the time the rover was ready to drive away in May 2013.
MAHLI, which took the component images for the mosaic, is mounted on a turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm and was able to capture the component images with wrist motions and turret rotations. The arm itself was positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, used in the mosaic.
Thanks to the guys at NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS for some great photography work!
The orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured the scene on 27 June 2013, with the orbiter rolled for an eastward-looking angle rather than straight downward. The afternoon sun illuminated the scene from the western sky, so the lighting was nearly behind the camera. This geometry hides shadows and reveals subtle colour variations.
Curiosity that day was examining an outcrop called Shaler, the rover mission's final science target in the Glenelg area before commencing a many-month trek southwestward to an entry point for the lower layers of Mount Sharp. The rover appears as a bright blue spot in the enhanced colouring of the image.
The image also shows two scour marks at the Bradbury landing site where the Mars Science Laboratory mission's skycrane landing system placed Curiosity onto the ground just about one year ago on 6 August 2012.
The scour marks are where the landing system's rockets cleared away reddish surface dust. Visible tracks commencing at the landing site show the path the rover travelled eastward to Glenelg.
Curiosity may be 140 million miles away on a hostile planet but that’s no excuse for not sending home a self-portrait.
This incredible shot shows Curiosity on the surface back in February - it comprises dozens of exposures taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 177th Martian day (or sol) of Curiosity's work on Mars plus three exposures taken during Sol 270 (10 May 2013) to update the appearance of part of the ground beside the rover.
The portion has been spliced into a self-portrait that was originally prepared and released in February before the use of the drill. The result shows what the site where the self-portrait was taken looked like by the time the rover was ready to drive away in May 2013.
MAHLI, which took the component images for the mosaic, is mounted on a turret at the end of the rover’s robotic arm and was able to capture the component images with wrist motions and turret rotations. The arm itself was positioned out of the shot in the images, or portions of images, used in the mosaic.
Thanks to the guys at NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS for some great photography work!
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