By Chris Reed

The 13th chapter of fracking watch will be the last installment for a while until some more nations around the world take up the issue of whether hydraulic fracturing is a bad or good thing. For this installment — instead of focusing on a government that has figured out fracking is just another heavy industry — I will focus on a First World nation with a strong green movement that seemed to be in the same stalled situation as California. Until last week, that is.

It’s Great Britain. Like California, Britain has a history as an oil producer. Like California, it has ardent environmentalists who depict fracking as a new and evil technology, not an old technology that has gotten radically better because of information technology breakthroughs that make it far more efficient. But after a heated debate in Parliament and the media, the realization that fracking only become a green evil when it killed the “peak oil” assessment of world energy needs seems to have sunken in. In California, we still have lame media coverage that never acknowledges that the Obama administration sees fracking as just another heavy industry, not the devil. In Great Britain, reality is being acknowledged.

Fracking sanity chapter No. 13: Great Britain

This is from a May 3 story on CNN’s website:

“LONDON — Britain’s government lifted its ban on a controversial mining process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, Thursday, allowing companies to continue their exploration of shale gas reserves.

“Energy Secretary Edward Davey said the decision was subject to new controls to limit the risks of seismic activity.

“A halt was called to fracking last year after two small earthquakes in Lancashire, northwestern England, where Cuadrilla Resources was exploring for shale gas.

“The process involves pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals into shale formations deep beneath the Earth’s surface, causing the fracturing of the rock and the release of natural gas.”

The CNN report says that Britain’s greens seem more worried about fracking causing earthquakes that tainting drinking water. (For the record, the U.S. EPA thinks that’s a crock.)

“The new controls imposed by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change include a requirement to carry out a seismic survey before work starts.

“Firms involved must also draw up a plan showing how the seismic risks will be limited, and monitor seismic activity before, during and after the exploration.”

A ‘turning point’ for Britain’s energy future

But in the end, common sense appears to have prevailed.

“Cuadrilla Resources said Thursday’s decision to allow fracking to resume marked a significant step for Britain’s future onshore gas industry.

“‘Today’s news is a turning point for the country’s energy future. Shale gas has the potential to create jobs, generate tax revenues, reduce our reliance on imported gas, and improve our balance of payments,’ chief executive Francis Egan said in a statement.

“In an interview with CNN, Egan insisted that fracking could be done ‘safely and sensibly’ in Britain and that there are huge reserves to be exploited.

“The company believes there is about 200 trillion cubic feet of gas under the ground just within its license area in Lancashire. To put that figure into context, the United Kingdom uses about 3 trillion cubic feet of gas a year, Egan said.”

So after an intense two-year debate, reason has won out in Britain. If only we could hope for such a logical process in California.

Fracking and climate change: What the reflexive critics ignore

And if only we could see California greens note that the fracking revolution’s success in accessing natural gas reserves is a tremendously positive development on the climate-change front. Some fossil fuels are way, way better than others.

Fred Pearce, a columnist for the lefty Guardian of London, goes where California’s rigid, hidebound greens won’t in an essay headlined “Fracking: the monster we greens must embrace.” His key point:

“The thing is, fossil fuels differ. Coal is uniquely nasty. But burning natural gas produces only half as much carbon dioxide as burning coal. So shale gas could be part of the solution to climate change, rather than part of the problem.

“Take the US. From a standing start a decade ago, it now gets more than a quarter of its natural gas from shale. Production is so cheap there that shale gas is replacing coal in power stations; and as a result its carbon dioxide emissions are the lowest since 1992. Low energy prices are even encouraging the manufacturing of some goods to return from China, where they were mostly made using coal-fired energy. What’s not to like?”

Have you ever heard anything remotely as pragmatic from a California green?

Nope. They belong to a religion that encourages people to feel morally superior to those who disagree with them on anything — and to see fossil fuels as evil no matter what. They aren’t part of a movement with a sophisticated worldview. If they were, a lot more would sound like Fred Pearce.

Fracking watch: Previous posts

No. 1: Germany

No. 2: China

No. 3: Russia

No. 4: Saudi Arabia

No. 5: Brazil

No. 6: Canada

No. 7: Argentina

No. 8: Mexico

No. 9: South Africa

No. 10: Poland

No. 11: Algeria

No. 12: Indonesia

By Chris Reed

Nations that are energy giants without being particularly affluent are the least likely places for environmental alarmism to drive public policy. They’re used to aggressively developing natural resources, and they don’t have the large cadres of affluent urban elites for whom environmentalism is a secular religion where faith trumps facts.

That definition very much fits Indonesia, the far-flung archipelago of islands in the southwest Pacific and the northeast Indian oceans. What most people know about Indonesia is limited to recalling that the president lived there as a child and what they remember about the 1965 Sukarno coup attempt from watching “The Year of Living Dangerously.” But besides being the fourth most populous country in the world (251 million people), Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of coal by weight, the third-biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas and the eighth-biggest exporter of natural gas.

Fracking sanity chapter No. 12: Indonesia

And so, of course, Indonesia and the international energy exploration firms it often partners with are moving aggressively into hydraulic fracturing, eager to join the fracking revolution. Huge shale reserves have been found on both Borneo (shown at right in a map from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists) and Sumatra, Indonesia’s two largest islands.

This is from an April 6 article on The Energy Collective website:

“A study by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, estimated that Indonesia has geologically attractive shale gas resources in the Barito and Kutei basins of Kalimantan [shown above] … .

“Edy Hermantoro, an upstream oil and gas director at the energy and mineral resources ministry of Indonesia said ‘Bandung Technology University estimates that Indonesia holds 1,000 tcf [trillion cubic feet] of shale gas reserves’.”

Trillions and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas

This is from a May 1 story on Upstream, an online trade publication of the oil and gas industry:

“Australia-listed NuEnergy Gas has started hydraulic fracturing operations at its Muara Enim production sharing contract in Indonesia, in a step to advance first gas sales by the end of this year.

“The company said on Wednesday that a fracking programme using radial jetting techniques had begun in five new untested coalbeds covering about 29 metres of gross pay.

“The programme is aiming to improve the production potential of the Suban coal seams, provide information for resource auditors to calculate reserves, and confirm the water and gas production characteristics across the full spread of coals underlying the PSC in Sumatra, Indonesia. …

“NuEnergy’s exploration programme is progressively proving and de-risking the South Sumatra CBM (coalbed methane) resource which is estimated by the Indonesian Government to be in excess of 180 Tcf (trillion cubic feet),’ [said NuEnergy chief executive Chris Newport].”

The straightforward, mature Indonesian approach — study and confirm resources; evaluate opportunities and risks; establish relationships with firms with fracking expertise; start small but think big — boy, could we use that in California.

Instead, an Assembly committee rushes to pass legislation that bans fracking based largely on the lie that it pollutes groundwater. Hydraulic fracturing occurs thousands of feet below the groundwater table. That is one of many reasons that the Obama administration has concluded it’s just another heavy industry that needs strong regulation, not the devil.

This lack of clear thinking is why I’ve undertaken my tour of fracking around the planet for CalWatchdog. My point: If California doesn’t exploit its huge energy reserves, that won’t stop the rest of the world from joining the brown energy revolution, leaving the Golden State at a huge competitive disadvantage and killing manufacturing as a noticeable source of jobs. The whining from greens in California and Europe can grow so loud that if deafens people, but it’s not going to derail the appeal of fracking in the places where people are geologically and economically literate and sensible.

It’s not just the Halliburton in-house newsletter that is speculating fossil fuels will be around forever because of fracking and other unconventional developments. It’s extremely respected journalists like The Atlantic’s Charles C. Mann.

Fracking watch: Previous posts

No. 1: Germany

No. 2: China

No. 3: Russia

No. 4: Saudi Arabia

No. 5: Brazil

No. 6: Canada

No. 7: Argentina

No. 8: Mexico

No. 9: South Africa

No. 10: Poland

No. 11: Algeria