FFFFracking again!

Saliem Fakir, the head of the Living Planet Unit at the World Wildlife Fund South Africa, hasn't wasted a moment. Shell has just announced release of its environmental management programme for its drilling for shale gas, and the unshaven one is out there with his usual list of "could"s and "might"s and "legitimate concerns".

What it adds up to is another step back into the dark ages, yet another potential source of energy and wealth doomed to the gloom of GREEN. When will these Job's comforters wake up to the fact that nothing we do is without risk? Risks can be managed - that is what engineering is all about.

In this case, fracking will be about 1000m deep, way below the water about which WWF is so concerned. Yes, a pipe containing chemicals will pass through the valuable aquifer, but that does not mean it will contaminate the aquifer. Yes, there is a risk the pipe might break, but that is remote if it is properly engineered. Yes, fracking will involve the use of some water - but if successful, it could create billions of rand, which our country needs, as well as giving us a source of energy which is far cleaner than coal.

So all the "could"s and "might"s and "legitimate concerns" are postulates which have to be offset by the far more important postulate, that this could be a source of wealth for all our people. Whom should we believe? asks Fakir. What do you want, and what are you prepared to risk? That should be the question.

What the frac?

There are calls for a moratorium on exploring for shale gas in the Karoo.

Does the rent-a-mob have a clue what they are talking about? Do they know the depth of the shale, and have they worked out what that means? Do they understand that not much deeper, the rocks start to glow? Are they not worried that 'fracking' might bring all that lava to the surface?

Seriously, though, at the depths we are talking about, the problem is not the damage done by fracking, but how to keep the cracks open while the gas comes out. As soon as possible, at the pressures 1000 or more metres down there, the cracks close up and the miniscule risk of the water from the upper aquifers getting contaminated goes for ever (and anyway, the mechanism for water to move up and down in the upper layers of the Earth's crust is not obvious).

The other thing about this bunch of do-gooders is that they preach 'sustainable development' of the Karoo. That requires some additional source of wealth. All that I have seen is regrowth of the villages by city dwellers anxious to get away from it all. This is hardly sustainable. New wealth to sustain development would flow if gas were discovered in large quantities.

How sad that the producers of that cheap trick called "Gaslands" failed to get the message across in the USA, which has just increased its gas reserves by 500 million tcf due to shale gas. This has probably saved the US economy. The Gaslanders have come here in the hopes of more bounty than they could get at home - and some of us have fallen for it. The wealth that shale gas in the Karoo could create is almost immeasurable - and the anti-fracking mob think it is worth throwing away. Does 'fascist pigs' fit the bill? It does if you are struggling to make ends meet in a distant dorpie.