This is really momentous news:
Cuadrilla Resources believes there are 200 trillion cubic feet of “shale” gas in the Bowland basin, which could result in a Lancashire gas boom creating 5,600 jobs at peak production.
Yeah, yeah, unconfirmed, they might be causing earthquakes with their drilling, Chris Huhne has seen Gasland and thinks everyones’ taps will blow up.
However, the killer fact is this:
Executive director Dennis Carlton said initial results show a basin five to 10 times thicker than America’s Marcellus shale.
That is, in technical terms, what is known as a fuck of a lot of gas.
One very back of the envelope calculation states that this one field, only Lancashire, could supply the entire UK’s gas demand for 30 years. Yes, at peak winter demand.
21 responses so far ↓
1 Antisthenes // Sep 22, 2011 at 10:24 am
Wont happen though the Greens will see to that.
2 bilbaoboy // Sep 22, 2011 at 10:27 am
Don’t need it. Got windmills, innit?
3 Adam Bell // Sep 22, 2011 at 10:35 am
Tim, I’m sure you’d be the first to point out that this hardly matters if the sheer depth of the gas makes it more expensive to extract than the alternative. If we’re lucky, we’ll get something out of this while continuing to invest in LNG.
4 Pogo // Sep 22, 2011 at 10:38 am
As Antisthenes says… The BBC are already on the case, their website explaining how fracking can cause earthquakes, the water coming out of the taps burning, the unsightly infrastructure, etc etc etc.
And we don’t need shale gas, after all, those windmills are so efficient and successful…
for the slow of thinking.
5 Pogo // Sep 22, 2011 at 10:39 am
The last line was prefixed with a “slash sarc”…
6 Richard // Sep 22, 2011 at 10:51 am
How are they doing at extracting it? I thought it was still a bugger to get out, or have things moved on?
7 Stuck-Record // Sep 22, 2011 at 11:28 am
It’s a shame you have to burn babies in wicker baskets to extract it. Sheesh, I’ve been listening to too much BBC.
8 Blue Eyes // Sep 22, 2011 at 11:35 am
The greens don’t like it because it’s too cheap and doesn’t trash half the countryside and provides employment in a formerly heavy-industry bit of the country.
9 Rob // Sep 22, 2011 at 11:50 am
Bad news for those who want to de-industrialise the UK. The BBC will give the Greens unlimited access to trash this.
10 dearieme // Sep 22, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Some time, by the Law of Flukes, the greens will be right about something. I do hope it’s not fracking.
11 bilbaoboy // Sep 22, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Tim pointed this out sometime back. A non-green view of fracking. And its a frakkin’ good read.
http://www.energytribune.com//articles.cfm/7206/Ten-Fracking-Things-Everyone-Should-Know
12 Prodicus // Sep 22, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Green women and dreadlocked unemployables in benders, all around the site… think I’ll set up a mobile veggieburger business. Run the cookers on coal, maybe.
What? They have to eat.
13 DocBud // Sep 22, 2011 at 1:38 pm
If it was a proper county extraction could be a problem, but seeing as how it is Lancashire it can be opencasted.
14 Richard // Sep 22, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Indeed, DocBud, Lancashire is not an ordinary county. It is a County Palatine, a far more important thing than those mere administrative units in the south.
15 micro-panda // Sep 22, 2011 at 2:45 pm
wow!!…who would have thought so many intelligent people could have such retarded views!! and i bet you all have kids, geee its some planet you going leave them!! clearly, you selfish arses, your way of life, now, is far more important than the planet, your kids and all other forms of life on this chance planet!! Good luck to all your poor kids!!
and no i dont have dreadlocks, i earn £30,000 a yr, i own my home and i love meat…but thank god i never got suckered into having kids
16 bloke in spain // Sep 22, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Good to see evolution in action @ #15
17 Ian Reid // Sep 22, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Actually Huhne has already ruled out using it, in his address to the Lib Dem party conference.. See:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/20/chris-huhne-dash-for-gas
The headline “Chris Huhne halts ‘dash for gas’ to keep UK on course for carbon targets” tells you all you need to know.
When someone with a functioning brain is running the country either this gas, or possibly cheaper foreign gas, will I’m sure be a greater part of the energy mix.
18 The Remittance Man // Sep 23, 2011 at 10:38 am
Ian,
In other words, the Huhne is saying: Energy companies must keep their costs down, but I refuse to let them access cheap sources of energy.”
Tim,
What resource to reserve conversion factor did you use? By all accounts it’s quite significant when speaking of this sort of deposit.
Tim adds: I’ve seen 20% recoverable mentioned……
19 Roger Thornhill // Sep 23, 2011 at 11:28 am
If we could harness the limitless supply of gas coming from Huhne, Lancashire could rest easy.
20 Shilling for Shale « Decline of the Logos // Sep 29, 2011 at 2:52 pm
[...] blogger Tim Worstall has been getting very excited about shale gas. Cuadrilla Energy, a company set up to explore for unconventional gas in the UK, [...]
21 Old news | h-info.co.in // Oct 19, 2011 at 5:23 pm
[...] other old news, the UK shale gas find made the news over here and the blogs. That links somewhat to the maybe gas is as bad as coal idea, which I find dubious (but [...]
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