Fracking UK: Britain’s plans for shale gas

The Parliamentary Information Office of the Parliamentary Yearbook examines the recent publication of two government reports which outline the future of shale gas production and fracking in the UK. 

The government has recently published two reports relating to the future of shale gas production and fracking in the UK:  the ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment’ report and the ‘Regulatory Roadmap’.

Strategic Environmental Assessment became a statutory requirement following the adoption of European Union Directive 2001/42/EC.  Under this legislation, an assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment is required.  The objective is to provide “a high level of protection of the environment and to contribute to the integration of environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of plans and programmes with a view to contributing to sustainable development”.

A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) report has recently been produced by the engineering giant AMEC on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) with respect to the UK’s plans for further onshore oil and gas licensing.  Work on the SEA was suspended following two seismic events in Lancashire in 2011 caused by hydraulic fracturing for shale gas at Preese Hall near Blackpool, pending an investigation.  As part of the announcement by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change ending the suspension, it was confirmed that work on the SEA would recommence.

The finished report, intended for consultation, outlines the “potential economic and environmental effects of further oil and gas activity in Great Britain, including shale oil and gas production, comparing a ‘low activity’ and ‘high activity’ scenario”. The assessment has been conducted in preparation for the next round of licenses being made available for onshore oil and gas exploration and production.

The report highlights implications of the likely effects of shale and oil gas extraction across several different areas.  These include, for example: employment, gas production, climate change, wastewater treatment and economic benefits for local communities. Some of the main effects described in the report are listed below:

Employment:  under a high activity scenario the UK oil and gas industry could create 16,000-32,000 new full time equivalent positions.

Hydrocarbon reserves:  under the high activity scenario a total of 0.12 to 0.24 trillion cubic metres of gas could be generated per annum; more than twice the gas consumed in the UK per annum.

Climate change:  under the high activity scenario greenhouse gas emissions during exploration could be up to 0.96 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (M tC0₂eq) per annum and between 0.71 - 1.42 M tC0₂eq per annum.  This is the equivalent of around 15% of the total 9.3 M tC0₂eq emissions from the exploration, production and transport of oil and gas in the UK during 2011.

Wastewater: ‘flowback’ - the fluid injected into shale rock during fracking which returns to the surface and requires treatment - could range from 3,000 m³ to 18,750 m³ per well. Up to 108 million m³ of wastewater would require treatment under a high activity scenario.

Community economic contributions (benefit schemes): shale gas exploration could provide a contribution of £100,000 per hydraulically fractured site as an initial benefit to the local community.  This is in accordance with commitments from the United Kingdom Onshore Operators’ Group (2013) Community Engagement Charter. During the production phase further payments of £2.4 to £4.8 million per site could be generated, reflecting a 1% contribution from revenue over the lifetime of each well.

Vehicle movements: an estimated 14-51 vehicle movements to a site per day are predicted during exploration and site preparation, over a 32-145 week period.  This is likely to have adverse implications for traffic congestion, noise or air quality depending on pre-existing conditions. During exploration and site preparation a “more sustained and locally significant effect” may be expected on communities adjacent to development sites and the routes to sites.

In conjunction with the SEA report the government also published the “Regulatory Roadmap” for shale gas.  This describes “the series of permits and permissions developers need to obtain prior to drilling for onshore oil and gas”, with a view to make the permitting process more transparent both for potential investors and local communities.

A consultation period to consider the findings of the SEA and its implications for shale and gas production in the UK runs until March.  The government is to consider all responses to the SEA prior to making any decision on further onshore licensing.

DECC’s SEA report and Regulatory Roadmap are available for download.

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Knighthood conferred: Nicholas Nigel Green

The Queen has been pleased to approve that the honour of Knighthood be conferred upon Nicholas Nigel Green, Esquire, QC on his appointment as a Justice of the High Court.

Read more at - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/knighthood-conferred-nicholas-nigel-green

Knighthood conferred: Stephen Edmund Phillips

The Queen has been pleased to approve that the honour of Knighthood be conferred upon Stephen Edmund Phillips, Esquire, QC on his appointment as a Justice of the High Court.

Find out more at - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/knighthood-conferred-stephen-edmund-phillips

UK to support Aung San Suu Kyi’s work with Rangoon General Hospital

Prime Minister David Cameron and International Development Secretary Justine Greening met with Aung San Suu Kyi today, on her second visit to the UK since her release from house arrest.

They discussed the UK’s support, which will fund a team to assess plans for the renovation of the 1500-bed hospital, one of the oldest in Rangoon.

Read more at - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-support-aung-san-suu-kyis-work-with-rangoon-general-hospital

US scientists identify forces driving geological activity on Saturn moon

Parliamentary Yearbook reports on research by American scientists at Cornell University which provides evidence of Saturn’s gravitational pull on one of its moons, called Enceladus.  Saturn’s tidal gravitational forces are responsible for variations in the intensity of plumes of icy water particles erupting from geysers on the surface of Enceladus.

Enceladus is one of the inner moons orbiting the planet Saturn, which has over 60 moons in total. It was first discovered in 1789 by the German-born British astronomer, William Herschel.  Apart from the presence of water ice on its surface, very little was known about Enceladus until recently.  During the 1980s, the Voyager spacecraft mission to the Saturnian system revealed most of what we know about the moon today.

Enceladus is 500km wide and reflects almost all of the sunlight that strikes its surface, caused by a very smooth surface of fresh water ice. Consequently, the surface temperature is a chilly -201 degrees Celsius (-330 degrees Fahrenheit).  It has at least five different types of terrain.  In addition to areas containing craters (up to 21 miles wide), it has smooth plains, linear crack and ridges, fissures and distinctive crustal formations. According to experts, these features indicate that the interior of the moon may be liquid today, despite the fact that it should have frozen a very long time ago.

Following the Voyager mission, scientists proposed that Enceladus may be geologically active and believed that water venting through the moon’s surface could be responsible for the icy material in one of Saturn’s rings.

In 2005, the Cassini-Hyugens Mission to Saturn produced images of plumes of icy material rising from the surface of Enceladus.  Later images subsequently identified jets of icy particles resembling geysers or volcanoes erupting from the southern polar region of the moon.  These were identified as jets of water particles, freezing on contact with the cold space temperatures.

Since 2005, scientists have sought to understand the effects of Saturn’s gravity on Enceladus.  They have predicted that Saturn’s gravitational forces cause Enceladus to stretch and compress, creating heat and pressure which forces liquid through cracks in the moon’s icy surface.

In this latest research, American scientists from Cornell University have analysed 252 images of Enceladus during its orbit around Saturn. The images, taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, provide evidence that the intensity of the icy plumes varies systematically depending on the proximity of Enceladus from Saturn.

The data show that the icy plume is dimmest when Enceladus is closest to Saturn, becoming increasingly brighter as it orbits away from the planet. At its most distant point from Saturn, the plume is three to four times times brighter than at its dimmest.  

According to Dr Matthew Ledman, lead researcher: “What this tells us is that Saturn’s tides are having a significant effect on how much material can escape from beneath Enceladus.”

Close up, Saturn’s gravitational squeeze partly closes up the polar fissures, nicknamed ‘tiger stripes’.  This limits how much material they release. As the moon moves further away from Saturn, the fissures open wider, releasing more material which results in bigger and brighter plumes.

Dr Ledman said: “Previous models predicted that when Enceladus was near the point most distant from Saturn, the cracks would be pulled open or widened, and the most amount of liquid would escape.  This is the first observational data we have that show quite clearly that is the case.”

He explained that the extent to which Enceladus responds to Saturn’s tidal forces may provide an important insight into the rigidity of Enceladus’ interior. The findings may help scientists understand what is happening beneath the moon’s surface and help to identify the source of the ice streams and water vapour.

NASA planetary scientist, Terry Hurford, was the first to predict Saturn’s tidal forces on Enceladus. He said: “On the model I used to predict this variability in the stresses, I assume there’s a global ocean and not just a local sea.”

www.parliamentaryyearbook.co.uk

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Unusual patterns of jellyfish sightings reflect the state our seas

Parliamentary Yearbook reports on unusual patterns of UK jellyfish monitored by the Marine Conservation Society during 2013.  According to the charity, jellyfish populations are “important indicators of the state of our seas”.

Despite their name, jellyfish are not fish. They are invertebrates belonging to an animal group called the cnidarians.  This animal group has stinging cells which are used both to capture prey, and as a defence against predators.    Their stinging cells contain a capsule which consists of a rolled filament and a poison.  When contact is made with the surface of the jellyfish, these capsules open, ejecting the filaments into their prey, through which poison is injected.  They are perfectly camouflaged because their body is 95% water. 

The collective name for a group of jellyfish is “bloom”, “swarm”, or “smack”.  The preferred term for a large group of jellyfish that congregate in a small area associated with seasonal increase or when numbers exceed the norm is “bloom”.

Scientists do not know the ultimate causes of jellyfish blooms but believe that bloom formation is a complex process which may depend on a number of factors. This includes ocean currents, nutrients, sunshine, temperature, season, prey availability, reduced predation and oxygen concentrations. 

Over the last ten years, Britain’s Marine Conservation Society (MSC) have been responsible for monitoring sightings of marine life species - including jellyfish - in UK and Irish waters. Researchers from the MSC have reported unusual patterns of jellyfish sightings for 2013.  Compared with previous years, there were very few sightings reported until June, followed by unusually high numbers reported during the summer months.  The researchers believe this was due to an unusually cold spring, followed by an extreme summer heat wave.

According to Dr Peter Richardson, the MSC’s biodiversity programme manager, “the scarcity of jellyfish reports before June was unusual and could well be linked to the exceptionally cold spring”.

He went on to say: “As our waters warmed, sightings of jellyfish increased with moon jellyfish reported in large numbers around the UK, reports of compass and blue jellyfish in the South West, and blooms of lion’s mane jellies around North Wales and north-west England.”

Dr Richardson reports that there is evidence that numbers have been increasing around the world. At the same time, he noted the diversity of opinion as to the cause. While some scientists argue that numbers increase and decrease as part of a normal cycle every 20 years, others believe that the increases are linked to causal factors which disrupt the natural water ecosystem. 

One such factor is the pollution of our oceans from industrial and agricultural practices, resulting in a process known as ‘eutrophication’.  This occurs when water bodies receive excess chemical nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen which disrupt the natural ecosystem to stimulate excess plant growth.  It results in massive algal blooms, accompanied by low levels of oxygen.  Jellyfish are known to thrive in such waters.

Other causal factors described include over-harvesting of fish - which compete with jellyfish for the same kind of food - is believed to lead to jellyfish proliferation and climate change, which affects changes in water temperature.

Whatever the cause, Dr Richardson believes that we “should consider jellyfish populations as important indicators of the state of our seas” and that large increases “are telling us about the health of our seas and cannot be ignored”.

www.parliamentaryyearbook.co.uk

Email: parliamentaryyearbook@blakemedia.org

Climate change is driving melting at world’s thickest ice sheet: alarming new evidence

Parliamentary Yearbook examines research by British scientists which suggests that glaciers along 5,400 km of the edge of the East Antarctic ice sheet are systematically changing in line with changes in temperature. 

There is significant concern about the impact that the earth’s increased temperature - over the last 100 years – is exerting on our planet.  As rising temperatures affects glaciers and icebergs, the ice caps at the Earth’s two Polar Regions - the North Pole and South Pole - are exposed to an increasing risk of melting which will cause the oceans to rise with devastating consequences.

The polar region at the northernmost part of the Earth is of course known at the ‘Arctic’.  This includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, the United States (Alaska), Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.  The Arctic Ocean in this area is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice), surrounded by treeless frozen soil. Known as permafrost, this is soil which has been at or below the freezing point of water for two or more years.  The average temperature for the warmest Arctic month is -10 degrees Celsius.

Large areas of the ice pack can be up to 3-4 metres thick, with ridges up to 20 metres. Despite this, ice at this Arctic end of the world is not nearly as thick as the equivalent polar region at the opposite southernmost end of the Earth, known of course as the ‘Antarctic’.

The Antarctic consists of the continent of Antarctica and ice shelves, waters, and island territories in the South Ocean.  In contrast with floating pack ice (this “sea ice” is typically less than 3 metres thick), an ice shelf is a much thicker floating platform of ice (100-1000 metres thick) that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down a coastline onto the ocean surface.

For some time, scientists have been concerned about the threat to sea levels from melting in the Arctic region.  Despite the fact that Arctic ice has a natural melting cycle - in which half of the ice pack melts away in the summer, to freeze back again in the winter - a previous study revealed that the 3-4 metre thick ice is melting so fast that half of it will disappear by the end of the century.  Further studies have suggested that the whole northern Arctic region could be without ice during the summer months in less than a century.

Until now scientists have largely dismissed concerns about melting in  the world’s biggest ice sheet located in the South, namely at the East Antarctic, due to the extremely cold temperatures in that region (which can drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius at the coast). However, a study by British scientists has now identified three significant patterns in the size of glaciers in this region which coincide with changes in temperature.

A team from the Department of Geography at Durham University collated measurements from 175 ‘ocean-terminating glaciers’ - where they meet the sea - along 5,400km of the   East Antarctic Ice Sheet’s coastline.  The measurements were obtained from declassified spy satellite imagery, covering almost half a century (from 1963 - 2012). The data was used to create the first long term record of changes at glacier edges in this region.

The research identified three significant patterns:  

       The 1970s-80s, when temperatures were rising, and most glaciers retreated

·            In the 1990s, when temperatures decreased, most glaciers advanced

·         In the 2000s, when temperatures increased and then decreased, there was a more even mix of retreat and                   advance

Lead researcher, Dr Chris Stokes, noted that the patterns identified were distinct from the natural cycles of advance and retreat triggered by the process of large icebergs breaking off at the terminus which happens independently of climate change.

Commenting on the patterns, he said: “It was a big surprise therefore to see rapid and synchronous changes in advance and retreat, but it made perfect sense when we looked at the climate and sea-ice data.”

Dr Stokes cautioned that:  “If the climate is going to warm in the future, our study shows that large parts of the margins of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet are vulnerable to the kinds of changes that are worrying us in Greenland and also in West Antarctica - acceleration, thinning and retreat.”

The alarming picture is of melting of both polar regions in proximal time frames under the impact of climate change. Welcome to water world.

This research has been published in the journal Nature.