Is there any wonder ....

... that eco warriors seem to be losing heart ?

Looking around at the various forums on eco / homemade / green living topics, all seem a lot quieter these days.  HML we know about, but Selfsufficientish, Downsizer, River cottage, and even Green living forum look not as lively as once they were.

But can we be blamed for losing heart ?  Our politicians gathered together in Paris to make fine words about saving the environment.  Then come home to allow fracking more or less anywhere.  Now I can understand the desire to not be dependent on Mr Putin for energy, but I do have my doubts on the wisdom of fracking.  One of the things that worries me is that I've often seen explanations of the process - all say that the rocks are hydraulically fractured, then the gas/oil forced out by injecting a mix of water, sand and chemicals.  You know I have yet to see one explanation which states exactly what "chemicals" ?  How should I know whether to be worried or not ?

I can just picture where we are going. Once the rush of fracking has filled in the interim whilst our new nuclear reactors are built, we'll then start looking for a new geologically stable site for long term disposal of nuclear waste.  Oh just a minute ...

I heard a spokesman from a company who are researching the whole fracking process speaking on Radio 4 yesterday. This research group is funded by companies like Cuadrilla, yet is still 'independent'. The speaker was describing how fracking could be carried out under National Parks, and was very good at making the whole process sound very non-invasive. I was not convinced...

I am told that fracking is not new technology and they have been doing it here for ages already without any problems, not that that is necessarily helpful.
I am certainly persuaded that the hazards have been massively over-hyped, but my feeling on the matter is of What is the -ing rush?
The gas has been there for millions of years, it isn't going anywhere and energy prices are only ever going to go up, at least for the foreseeable future.

Obviously they want to have the deals and backhanders while they are in government, and perhaps they want to get it fracked before somebody discovers there actually is a real and serious problem.

Your logic of leaving it in the ground as a reserve is a good idea, I reckon. Along with the coal that isn't (yet) economical to mine.

But I think the reason for rushing is that we can't get nuclear plant built in the time scales we need to meet demand, once we have decomissioned ageing reactors and dirty coal stations. So we would be left dependent on imported energy or fuel. Not that we have any domestic uranium mines either ...

Of course, that all depends on whether new nuclear plant gets built at all now since we were relying on the French to do that. And maybe the UK might also back out of the CO2 targets ?

Chilli-head wrote:Your logic of leaving it in the ground as a reserve is a good idea, I reckon.  Along with the coal that isn't (yet) economical to mine.

I can't claim credit for the latter: that was Mrs T.