SA proposes rules for fracking shale gas

This is going to get very ugly due to mismanagement and bad policing. Bribes will be paid for looking the other way and we sll will once again bear the brunt.
 
Anti-fracker here - the primary reason fracking is being mooted is that it is yet another way that the hydrocarbons industry can keep consumers paying through the nose for power. This country - this continent - has enough dependable renewable energy resources (solar, wind, wave, tidal, etc) to be able to supply all energy requirements several times over - then there is also hydro-electric power. Granted, the larger hydro-electric schemes are often extremely controversial and environmentally damaging, but smaller ones retrofitted to existing dams can be completely sustainable. Witness Cape Town's peak hour hydro-electric scheme as just one example. The sooner this country invests in renewable energy resources the better.

Fracking just delays the inevitable (we are fast running out of hydrocarbons) and potentially might ruin at least part of the Karoo's scarcest resource - water. Applying the Precautionary Principle (National Environmental Management Act) - as well as the Polluter Pays principle is not necessarily good enough. Particularly in a region (the Karoo) that is largely dependent on groundwater resources. Big business pays the media don't forget - it also pays many scientists - and the hydrocarbon industry is MEGA-business.

Some Scientific American articles:
Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

The Truth about Fracking - read the comments - the article is useless

Are Fracking Wastewater Wells Poisoning the Ground beneath Our Feet?: "several key experts acknowledged that the idea that injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality, and on oversight that doesn't always work."
 
Indigogirl said:
Anti-fracker here - the primary reason fracking is being mooted is that it is yet another way that the hydrocarbons industry can keep consumers paying through the nose for power. This country - this continent - has enough dependable renewable energy resources (solar, wind, wave, tidal, etc) to be able to supply all energy requirements several times over - then there is also hydro-electric power. Granted, the larger hydro-electric schemes are often extremely controversial and environmentally damaging, but smaller ones retrofitted to existing dams can be completely sustainable. Witness Cape Town's peak hour hydro-electric scheme as just one example. The sooner this country invests in renewable energy resources the better.

Fracking just delays the inevitable (we are fast running out of hydrocarbons) and potentially might ruin at least part of the Karoo's scarcest resource - water. Applying the Precautionary Principle (National Environmental Management Act) - as well as the Polluter Pays principle is not necessarily good enough. Particularly in a region (the Karoo) that is largely dependent on groundwater resources. Big business pays the media don't forget - it also pays many scientists - and the hydrocarbon industry is MEGA-business.

Some Scientific American articles:
Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

The Truth about Fracking - read the comments - the article is useless

Are Fracking Wastewater Wells Poisoning the Ground beneath Our Feet?: "several key experts acknowledged that the idea that injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality, and on oversight that doesn't always work."
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Until we can find a safe reliable way of beaming energy from orbital Solar panels, we should be building nukes.
 
Two questions I have though.

1. Why cant we do this ourselves via Sasol for example? Why must Shell come and get benefit out of it? Are they the only ones that knows how to do this?
2. Why is this gas so much better than coal? It too is a fossil fuel and also releases CO2. Is it just a question of it burns a little cleaner than coal?
 
DJ... said:
But I'm off to watch some tele and try to digitally catch Red John.

I enjoy these debates - they're always challenging, but really, no evidence exists that fracking is going to destroy the Karoo. And no geology reports of the area and analysis has made it to the public domain. So we have a choice - we can debate this using existing facts, or we can debate this from a "what if the moon crashes into a fracking station" perspective. I prefer the former...
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(Un)Fortunately, depending on which side you come from, environmental consequences occur slowly and take a long time to manifest, are difficult to predict with scientific fact. Also, mining companies have a long legacy of hiding information because environmental liabilities could be huge and mitigation funds must be guaranteed upfront. Often, its up to the government to prove these which is hard. e.g. case of acid mine drainage in the 1940's.
 
Ockie said:
Two questions I have though.

1. Why cant we do this ourselves via Sasol for example? Why must Shell come and get benefit out of it? Are they the only ones that knows how to do this?
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Sasol got fed up with the red tape and lack of policy from the SA government. IIRC Shell also had a head start on prospecting rights.

Sasol are currently planning on making huge investments in Louisiana. First a $7 billion ethylene cracker and then a $14 billion GTL plant. The feedstock would be shale gas.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...-billion-dixie-dream-south-africa-credit.html

2. Why is this gas so much better than coal? It too is a fossil fuel and also releases CO2. Is it just a question of it burns a little cleaner than coal?
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Natural gas produces about 45% less CO2 than coal when burning.
 
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DJ... said:
I have. For a long time now. Search the forum for mine and jstrikes defence of fracking. Simply telling someone to google something is not nearly as illuminating as you clearly think it is. There are a ton of myths relating to fracking. A lot if science on the other hand. The science shows it to be perfectly safe on condition that it is implemented correctly. As with any other industry...
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And truly we can see how all industries abide by the rules and that's why our planet is so sparkly clean green today, isn't it wonderful? :sick:
 
Move with the times people. Not only is it great for the economy etc. but it will keep NGO's and other green orgs going for another couple of years!

As with any technology there will by mishaps and misfires, eventually it will get sorted and everyone will be benefit.
 
Move with the times people. Not only is it great for the economy etc. but it will keep NGO's and other green orgs going for another couple of years!

As with any technology there will by mishaps and misfires, eventually it will get sorted and everyone will be benefit.
 
dlk001 said:
(Un)Fortunately, depending on which side you come from, environmental consequences occur slowly and take a long time to manifest, are difficult to predict with scientific fact. Also, mining companies have a long legacy of hiding information because environmental liabilities could be huge and mitigation funds must be guaranteed upfront. Often, its up to the government to prove these which is hard. e.g. case of acid mine drainage in the 1940's.
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Yes indeed - spot on! The acid mine drainage (AMD) issue is a very good example indeed. The mining industry is remarkably slow (and reluctant) to address and redress issues of environmental degradation. A great deal of the work / environmental rehabilitation that is being done is done as window-dressing - with very little long-term monitoring underpinned by well-formulated baseline studies and data.

AlphaBravo said:
Move with the times people. Not only is it great for the economy etc. but it will keep NGO's and other green orgs going for another couple of years!

As with any technology there will by mishaps and misfires, eventually it will get sorted and everyone will be benefit.
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Move with the times? Moving with the times does not mean one continues to roll-out technology that has potentially high risks (with high economic returns only to big business) in preference to renewable energy installations (wind, solar, etc.). Moving with the times means looking at appropriate large-scale roll-outs of renewable energy projects and programmes - at regional, national and local scales. Solar geysers, solar/wind hybrid installations - reducing dependence on the power-grid. That is "moving with the times".

A critical issue is that of passing impacts from present day choices to future generations. What we do now is going to impact on our children and their descendants. A legacy of poisoned water and soil is not one I choose to leave.

Acid mine drainage:
Conclusions
South Africa is well endowed with vast mineral resources
and the wealth created through mining, particularly gold
mining, has funded the development of the country.
However, as the gold mining industry enters its twilight
years we are now beginning to grasp the environmental
damage that this industry has caused and will continue to
cause in the decades to come. We have also seen the impact
that coal mining has had, particularly on water quality in
the Olifants River system. The longer-term impacts of these
industries, and especially the coal mining industry, are likely
to be far more severe in South Africa than in other countries
because of our unique combination of geography, climate,
population distribution and the scale of the deposits.

...Our forebears deferred the environmental costs associated
with mining, and we now have to pay those costs. Are we
going to do the same to future generations? If we do, their
problems are likely to be far more severe than ours because
the effects are cumulative and in the future, once mining is
on the wane, the funds to address the problem might not be
readily available.
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spiff said:
so with all this gas we have - we should see a significant drop in gas prices - right?
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I would not bet on it. Like Oil...I suppose it goes according to the world market prices. Even our petrol which majority comes from coal is linked to the world oil price. :-(
 
Ockie said:
I would not bet on it. Like Oil...I suppose it goes according to the world market prices. Even our petrol which majority comes from coal is linked to the world oil price. :-(
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Which is lucky for us as it is much more expensive to synthesize oil from coal than just pumping it out of the ground.
 
oh boy, a discussing/ debate/ argument that I am so passionate about I think I should change my name to Ivo Vegter.

So lets get this out of the way... Have you watched Gasland? Have you watched Frack Nation? If you answered no to one of these then you need to watch them both and get an idea of arguments for both sides of the subject. While neither film is completely faultless they both present the major arguments. And let me get this out the way... Josh Fox is a liar and a made a very good piece of propaganda that inflames the spirits of every greenie under the sun.

Now before you all continue I would suggest reading Ivo Vegter's pieces on the subject over at Dailymaverick.co.za, I read his pieces every week because he has some very interesting discussions on the topic.

Lets address some of the issues that some of you have brought up:
1. Water pollution - my new friend DJ (frackers must stick together) pointed out that water pollution is both rare and very unlikely. The fracking takes place 2+km below the surface while the water table sits at around 100m below the surface.

2.Water usage - While Shell and the other petrochemical companies (yes, there are others who will be fracking the Karoo) can use this water (and by the way the drinkable water in SA is limited but there is a lot of brackish water that can be used for fracking) they are currently looking at using seawater because there happens to be a lot of it on the West Coast. And on top of this... FRACKING FLUID IS SAFE TO DRINK because it is a mixture of water and... wait for it... plant materials. Well that was anti-climactic.

3. What will it really do to our economy - The US has an expected 19 trillion cubic feet of shale gas under its soil which can be used to produce oil products such as petrol. In fact the US produces 30% of its petrol/diesel through shale gas. That's a country of 313.9 million (census 2012). Now SA has an estimated 11 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, but we only have a population of 51.19 million (2012)... so we have half of their gas reserves and 1/6th their population... now if my maths is correct we could possibly become self-sufficient in terms of our petrol needs. So OPEC gets the finger and we enjoy fuel prices that the likes of only Saudi Arabia gets to have.

I will add to this when I get home, and I will supply links to articles that debunk so many of the myths around fracking. But let me leave you with this...

If you want SA to be self-sufficient on renewable resources then you need to start picking the poor Chinese workers you want to kill because the rare earth magnets required in wind turbines and the materials used in solar panels mostly come from China and the amount of pollutants that are made during the production for both these "renewable resources" adds to the pollution in the air above China which KILLS people. Over their life time wind turbines kill more people and animals than nuclear power plants.
 
Gas Land and Frack Nation are two of the worst possible pieces of fiction to reference. Gasland for one is a complete fabrication and lie-fest, like where they light the water. That water well had nothing to do with fracking at all, but rather natural gas extraction. And they were made fully aware of this but chose not to disclose as such. Gasland has been thoroughly debunked.

But a decent post, that aside...
 
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