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Quarry, Meath Copyright: Conrad Childs

UCD Earth Institute Seminar informs public debate on subject of ‘Fraccing’

The UCD Earth Institute had its inaugural public keynote seminar for the 2012/13 session on November 28th at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin city centre. Prof. Peter Styles from Keele University addressed a full house on ‘Managing the Risks of Fraccing for Shale Gas Extraction’.

Fraccing is a controversial subject, referring to a means of releasing petroleum, natural gas or shale gas from layers of rock not previously accessible through traditional drilling methods. It involves using pressurised fluid to fracture the rock layers, thereby creating routes for trapped gas or petroleum to flow and be more readily retrieved. Often hailed as a solution to the problem of diminishing fossil fuels, fraccing is nevertheless contentious because of concerns about the impact on local water supply from contaminated run-off following the process, and also, more recently, induced seismic activity or minor earthquakes in the region of the fraccing activity.

Prof Styles’ paper addressed how these risks, and particularly the risk of seismic events, might be mitigated if fraccing were to become a viable and secure source of energy for the future.  Significantly, none of the risks are any different to, or greater than, those that currently attend traditional mining or drilling activity. At the moment the seismic events induced by fraccing activity are all relatively minor. “I doubt you will ever get an event measuring larger than 3 on the seismic scale” says Styles, “because the rock type where you conduct fraccing isn’t strong enough to support a larger event than that.” Nevertheless, he would recommend a measurement of 0.5 on the seismic scale as an upper limit before temporarily halting the fraccing activity to find out more. Crucially, mapping of pre-existing fault-lines and associated seismic activity within the rock can ensure that scientists and engineers fully understand the environment they will be working in and can isolate and mitigate any impacts of fraccing immediately.

Images from the UCD Earth Institute inaugural public seminar on fracking, 28 November 2012

Some audience members questioned Peter closely about the various risks associated with fraccing. He has been instrumental in compiling a report on these risks and recommending very conservative approaches to their management to the UK government Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). He suggests that much of Europe may end up following the UK lead in this regard, but emphasises that we shouldn’t automatically discount shale gas as a potential energy source for the future. “You have to ask yourself, do you want gas? Most people do – they want the lights to work and to be able to cook. And I don’t think it’s fair or ethical to let other regions carry all the burden of extracting that gas and transporting it to us…I’m a strong believer in local solutions to local problems.” Hydrofraccing, if managed carefully and based on high quality scientific research on the region in question, can provide a secure source of energy for the future since dependence on supply from politically unstable regions would be reduced. This is also in the context of traditional power stations in the UK coming offline over the next few years. Some alternative supply of energy needs to be found, and Styles advocates examining all possibilities carefully rather than simply adopting a ‘not in my backyard’ approach.

The Earth Institute’s keynote seminar series is intended to present high quality evidence-based research to a general audience so as to inform debate on such topical subjects. As the first in the series, Peter Styles’ lecture was informative and wide-ranging, and enjoyed considerable engagement from audience members on both sides of the fraccing argument. 

Further Information:

Fight Club: Is fracking good for Britain? The Times, 4 July 2012  
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