Fracking risks grossly exaggerated

I SEE that Clare County Council, in response to a vocal minority of protestors, has decided to amend its county plan to ban the practise of “fracking” within its jurisdiction.

Such is the outcome of Irish parish pump politics, which is well on the way to the destruction of our economy and polity. The Clare Basin, along with the Lough Allen Basin, and perhaps the Dublin Basin, are bituminous shale basins where there is potential for the discovery and production of substantial quantities of natural gas in the form of methane (CH4).

Natural gas is already produced in declining quantities from the Kinsale Head gas field and some may soon be produced from the small and short-life Corrib gas field. It is now possible that, with successful exploration and development, our potential resources of shale gas could, in a relatively short time span, yield significant additional quantities of natural gas. This could fuel much of our electricity-generating capacity which will have to include the additional generating capacity required to back up unreliable, unpredictable and uneconomic wind-powered generating capacity that produces electricity only about a third of the time and not always when needed.

The EU and our government have agreed to — and we consumers heavily subsidise — massive investments in the development of high cost and unreliable wind power. The feasibility studies, social benefit analyses and the public consultation required under the terms of the Aarhus Convention have either not been conducted or if they have the results, have not been made freely available — and thus our government and the EU have acted illegally in this matter.

Moreover, as methane is the fossil fuel with the lowest carbon to hydrogen ratio, it would assist by reducing CO2 emissions by the state electric generating utility.

This economically and environmentally beneficial outcome can be achieved only if the perfectly normal and extensively-used practice of hydraulic fracturing of reservoir rocks is allowed — as it has been practised for many years in most countries that produce oil and gas and the risks of which are being grossly misrepresented and exaggerated by a noisy minority of NIMBYs whose opposition to it penalises the rest of us in satisfaction of their personal agendas.

Clare County Council, together with the Shell to Sea protestors, the wind power lobby and the anti-nuclear laws, are working together to ensure that this country is doomed to an uncompetitive electricity supply at the mercy of high cost and unreliable wind power, requiring the import of electricity (some of which is no doubt nuclear-generated), via interconnectors and the caprices of the global fossil fuel markets. Is this the way to attract industrial investment and create jobs?

As the sage said: “Those the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.”

David Whitehead, (FIMMM, C.Eng)

Glebe

Kinvara

Co Galway