Fracking is set to resume in the UK after a five-year hiatus with planning officers recommending the controversial technique be used to test for gas in North Yorkshire. Third Energy wants to frack for shale gas at an existing well outside the village of Kirby Misperton to see if the rock below is suitable for large-scale exploitation. It could lead to hundreds of wells across the rolling hills of Ryedale and create an indigenous shale industry after years of delays. Hundreds are expected to demonstrate when North Yorkshire county councillors take the final decision next Friday in Northallerton. Public opposition has prevented any fracking since 2011 when it caused two minor earthquakes near Blackpool. The Conservative dominated council will be under huge pressure from government to give the go-ahead, while most local residents ar e opposed.
FT 13th May 2016 read more »
Britain is on the verge of fracking for shale gas for the first time since 2011, after council officials backed plans to carry out the controversial process at a site in Yorkshire. Gas company Third Energy’s plans to frack at Kirby Misperton in Ryedale should be approved by councillors, North Yorkshire County Council’s planning officer said in a report. Fracking could be underway by the end of the year if councillors follow the officer’s recommendation in a crucial vote later this month. But the plans have attracted fierce opposition, with hundreds of anti-fracking protesters expected to demonstrate against the plans when the council’s 11-man planning committee meets in Northallerton next Friday.
Telegraph 13th May 2016 read more »
Guardian 13th May 2016 read more »
The amount of electricity generated from coal in the UK has fallen to zero several times in the past week, grid data shows. In what green energy supporters have described as a “historic turning point” for the UK’s power system, coal-fired electricity first fell to zero late on Monday night and for the early hours of Tuesday morning, according to data from BM Reports. On Thursday, there was no electricity from coal for more than 12 and a half hours, more than half the day, with it making no contribution to the UK’s power supplies late at night when demand was low and for a period in the day, the data shows. It is thought to be the first time the UK has been without electricity from coal since the world’s first centralised public coal-fired generator opened at Holborn Viaduct in London, in 1882, according to the Carbon Brief website which reports on climate science and energy policy.
Guardian 13th May 2016 read more »
VETERAN oil explorer Algy Cluff, 76, saw his pay fall more than 16 per cent to £284,136 last year as a Scottish Government moratorium forced his company to write off licences that could have converted “billions of tones” of offshore coal into gas. “Longannet, which was the last remaining coal fired power station in Scotland, has now closed and makes a mockery of the Scottish Nationalist Party’s energy policy where they have even imposed, at this critical time, a moratorium on both shale gas and underground coal gasification,” Mr Cluff writes in the 2015 annual report for Cluff Natural Resources. “We accordingly concluded that continuing to pioneer for a future energy formula which would convert cleanly and safely our offshore coal into gas was not consonant with our shareholders’ best interests.”
Herald 14th May 2016 read more »