Times - Fracking Bridges

An Environmental Bridge too Far.

By Kent Barker

            There used to be a beautiful brick hump-back bridge over the river at the bottom of the hill by my house.  It was rather narrow. Doubtless when horse-drawn carriages, ox carts, hay-wains and the like met on its approach one would give way to the other with cheery wave and friendly conversation as drivers passed slowly by.

            With the coming of motor vehicles things changed. Brakes would have to be applied and one or other driver would be forced to back up, with possible imprecations, to let the other through.  But as cars got faster and the lane became busier, accidents became more frequent.  My sister and I, playing in the garden, would hear the squeal of rubber on tarmac and lay bets on whether it would be followed by the sound of crumpling metal and breaking glass.

            Once a car lost control, and ended up half way through our hedge with its front wheels in the rose bed.

            Eventually the council deemed it prudent to replace the bridge with a modern concrete structure, wide enough to accommodate two vehicles at once. The result is that cars and vans now travel at ten times the speed but we seldom, if ever, face the prospect of the roses being demolished.

            I was put in mind of our old and much missed bridge when I read about a petition to save a similar structure in West Sussex.  Boxal Bridge is an even lovelier stone-built single-lane affair that is threatened with demolition by the county council.  And why?  Because of Fracking.

            The bridge is just 400 meters from the entrance to a proposed drilling site operated by Celtique Energie.  This multinational company has an exploration and development license covering 1000 square kilometers of Southern England –from Liphook and Petersfield in the west to Copthorne, Horsham and West Grinstead in the east.  The company is currently appealing against the county council’s refusal of planning permission for drilling at Boxal Bridge. If they win, the bridge goes.

            I think it’s important not to be too emotional over things like Fracking.  After all, wouldn’t it be good for Britain to be far more self sufficient in energy?  Especially as up to 15% of our gas probably comes from Russia! Certainly Shale has transformed the United States’ economy and means that their petrol is about a third the price it is here.  Just imagine, less than 40p a litre!  If – and I know it’s a big IF – the UK was self-sufficient, how much extra money we’d have available to spend on the NHS or schools.  What’s a pretty bridge or two compared to those benefits?

            And if the only downside to Shale gas extraction was wider access ways and a bit more concrete on the countryside, then I might be in favour.  The trouble is it’s not quite that simple.

            Fracking involves drilling down vertically about 2km, then horizontally outwards for as much as 3km. (Possibly under your house!) On a typical well, up to 10 million litres of water containing sand, lubricating fluids and chemicals are pumped into the borehole under extremely high pressures. This opens up cracks in the Shale for the gas to escape.

            Some 60 different chemicals are used in the process including, crucially, Hydrochloric Acid to dissolve minerals and initiate the cracking.  There is a lively debate as to whether these chemicals are the source of pollutants – including Arsenic - found in ground water near US wells.

            So let’s summarise the potential downsides of Fracking: pollution or poisoning of aquifer water, release of methane gasses, chemical spills, seismic disruption, a vast increase in heavy traffic near wells, and concreting over parts of the countryside.

            Oh, yes, and one other. The carbon dioxide ‘green house gas’ emissions that will result from burning it. Surely if we are to invest large sums in creating or harvesting new energy supplies we should be promoting renewables and not fossil fuel hydrocarbons.  Even the government’s own report by Professor David Mackay concluded: “without global climate policies … new fossil fuel exploitation is likely to lead to an increase in cumulative carbon emissions and the risk of climate change”.

            Yet the same government continues its self-avowed policy of a ‘dash for gas’ while more environmentally friendly schemes such as renewables are left behind in the race.  The recently announced tidal lagoons in Wales are a welcome exception.  And some of the renewable heat incentive grants are, despite unbelievably labyrinthine bureaucracy, helpful.  But where is the legislation to require builders to make new homes genuinely self-sufficient in energy? Where’s the serious research funding for electric cars?

            It makes the citizen feel powerless in the face of corporate momentum and apparent governmental indifference.  It seems the best we can do is sign petitions to save sentimental structures like Boxal bridge.