Eighteen protestors were arrested Saturday following attempts to blockade the site in Balcombe, West Sussex where UK Company Cuadrilla is scheduled to begin exploratory drilling for shale gas. It is one of several sites in the UK being examined; collectively they could provide billions of pounds in new energy and create several thousand jobs.
Environmentalists though have ginned up opposition to the procedure claiming, with little evidence, that it causes earthquakes and pollutes the water supply. The controversial method of hydraulic fracturing involves using high-pressure liquid pumped deep underground to split shale rock and release gas.
Despite the claims of greens and lefties a group of British scientists led by Professor Richard Davies of Durham University said their study "established beyond doubt" that while fracking can indeed cause earthquakes, it's not a significant mechanism for inducing tremors that can actually be felt by anyone other than a seismologist using fairly sensitive measuring equipment.
The ‘ginned up’ include a former page 3 girl, a professional clown, and veteran eco-campaigners. The said veterans have tried to portray the situation as being a community opposed to the procedures but while a majority of residents are opposed, locals say that 90% of the protestors are from outside the village.
Ironically the name Balcombe is believed to be a Cornish word that means mining place camp. That’s not likely to comfort opponents in this quaint village of less than two-thousand sixteen miles north of conference town Brighton in the south of England.
Balcombe might be a Conservative voting village; but you know the left is involved as soon as you hear the police criticized, that a big corporation is trying to kill people and the infamous ‘wealthy few’ are blamed. Ashley Williams, an opponent of the drilling said: "The community are standing up for themselves against a company that is trying to poison them. As soon as regular people put their head above the parapet the state jumps in to defend the interests of a wealthy few."
Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jon Trickett attacked the Prime Minister last week over the issue saying that the firm of Tory consultant Lyndon Crosby was already representing the Australian fracking industry and strongly suggested a conflict of interest. Chancellor George Osborne has already cut taxes in half for fracking explorers.
Included in his parliamentary rant Trickett said "Whether it's tobacco, alcohol, lobbying and now fracking, we need to know what role lobbying has played in deciding what our Prime Minister does”. This extraordinary comment from the shadow minister suggests he is clean and pure as the wind driven snow when in fact it’s well understood that lobbying plays a significant role in what any Prime Minister does.
In fact, like the rest of his friends on that side of the political aisle he does exactly what Ms. Williams did; he pointed the finger at big corporations and suggested that the whole policy was about making profit for a selected few. As King Solomon wrote, “there’s nothing new under the sun”.
There are still issues to be ironed out with fracking but it’s also clear that research and development is addressing and resolving those issues. Andreas Spath, a freelance writer with a PhD in geochemistry wrote “Current scientific opinion suggests that fracking in and of itself is unlikely to cause dangerous earthquakes. If, however, large quantities of wastewater from fracking operations are injected into disposal wells, the area in question is likely to become susceptible to more powerful and potentially damaging earthquakes.” The method he speaks of though is illegal in the EU and American fracking has not experienced significant problems with it.
The facts though will matter little to hysteria driven eco-campaigners who have convinced themselves that only renewable energy is safe and won’t damage the planet. Expect the protests to continue because these people live to rail against something that is destroying humanity and will manufacture whatever cause they must so they can continue.
