Blackpool Says Frack Off

[spathiphyllum]

As more people are becoming aware of the environmental damage fracking can cause, more councils are refusing to allow it to happen.

https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/blackpool-council-says-no-to-frackers-as-it-declares-climate-emergency-1-9847527

"Fracking has also been banned from any Blackpool Council-owned land as part of a declaration on climate change."

[Buenchico]

Perhaps Blackpool council are scared of the major improvements that a big earthquake could bring to their ghastly town?

There are over 150,000 injection wells (using fracking) in the USA though and not one of them has caused any major tremor problems.

[spathiphyllum]

It's been proven that fracking damages the local environment. It takes essential minerals out of the floor, playing havoc with the natural balance of the ground. This can cause horrific landscapes and affect the local wildlife.

[fiction-factory]

I agree with Buenchico. Is it less enviromentally friendly than oil then or coal? (The answer is no.) The objections are not logical and protestors should focus their atention on more important matters. The councils are taking the easy option to appease protestors

[Old_Geezer]

Fracking is for oil, isn't it ?

[jackthehat]

Another toothless proposal.
The Local Authority owns precious little land (if any) which may come to the attention of a fracking compnay.

[spathiphyllum]

Fracking is mainly for gas, but can be for anything.

[spathiphyllum]

Fracking is the process, OG.

[Jackdaw33]

Chico clearly has the advantage over me. He is obviously familiar with Blackpool whilst I remain in blissful ignorance.

[New Judge]

//It takes essential minerals out of the floor,…//

Does it? Perhaps you could give us some (unbiased) evidence for that assertion, or at least explain what these “essential minerals” are.

The restrictions on fracking are absurd. Under current rules, drilling must be stopped for 18 hours if it triggers earth tremors above a 0.5 magnitude. To get some idea of just how absurd this is, there are many millions of tremors of magnitudes between 1.0 and 1.9 every year across the country. The Richter scale definition of them is “Microearthquakes, not felt, or felt rarely. Only recorded by sensitive seismographs.” The Richter scale is logarithmic, meaning a ‘quake of 0.5 is has only one tenth of the strength of one of 1.5. – The middle of the “microearthquake” range. Put simply, quakes of 0.5. magnitude probably occur all day every day across the UK.

The UK has had no sustainable energy policy for at least twenty years. It imports vast quantities of natural gas, much of it from countries where the standards of environmental protection are somewhat more lax than here. Meanwhile it faffs about with unreliable and hugely expensive alternatives which are OK when the sun shines or the wind blows but not much when it (often) does neither. Like it or not the country needs gas unless and until a viable alternative can be found. To ignore the advantages of the abundance of shale gas on the dubious basis that extracting it is harmful will damage this country’s competitiveness and simply make life more difficult for those living here. The government says it has no intention of relaxing the absurdities that make fracking almost not worth the bother and they have no practical alternative ideas. Blackpool Council’s ridiculous childish pronouncements are unnecessary – the government is making a good enough job of thwarting one of the greatest opportunities the country has to restore its energy self-sufficiency.

[douglas9401]

There are many emergencies in Blackpool of a season, climate may be the least of them.

[sanmac]

And if the Council is so concerned about protecting the environment perhaps they should stop selling all that rock.

[jackthehat]

It's not for nothing that the whole kit-and-kaboodle of them are known as 'The Clowncil'.

The current fracking sites near here (Freckleton & Roseacre) are under the control of Fylde Council on land certainly not owned by Blackpool Borough Council.

[Atheist]

We really shouldn't be extracting fossil fuels. Windmills are much better. They used to be a familiar sight, and any old windmills are now probably protected as listed buildings. We have to come to terms with the new world we are in.

[Buenchico]

I've got nothing against getting rid of fossil fuels, Atheist. However we're not going to get everyone driving electric cars (and with all of the recharging infrastructure that goes with them) overnight.

Neither are we going to be able to replace all of our coal and oil-fired power stations with nuclear ones (or with sufficient wind, wave or solar powered sources of electricity) in an instant, particularly if we have to massively increase electricity generation to power all our cars, buses, lorries and trains.

Similarly, while there have been some major strides in trying to reduce our usage of plastics, we'll still be needing oil to produce plastics for quite some time to come.

So, while it makes sense to gradually phase out our use of fossil fuels, we've still got to get them from somewhere until then. Fracking offers a cost-efficient means of doing so.

[Spicerack]

Fracking is very good for the environment.