Trust me, I'm a fracker

There is no doubt that UK exploration of shale gas divides opinion - even among process engineers. There are many among our readers who will favour it for the business opportunities it generates for the supply chain, while there are others who will oppose it on either economic environmental grounds.

Perhaps the most potent attack on fracking in the UK has been the pollution argument. Studies in the US seem to show that both the chemicals used in fracking and the ground gasses released by the process can pollute water supplies.

However, at least as far as contamination from ground gasses is concerned, Cuadrilla’s UK gas monitoring consultant seems convinced the water pollution argument is a red herring.

Ground Gas Solutions (GGS) managing director Simon Talbot told Process Engineering that many of the fears regarding pollution are driven by basic errors made in the monitoring of gas movements at US projects.

In particular, the complete lack of baseline monitoring of shale sites’ gas regimes before fracking started meant that the shale gas industry in the US hasn’t been able to defend itself over allegations of ground gasses polluting the water table, even if in many cases the gasses were already there.

Talbot is convinced that UK developers will be able to defend themselves against the likes of the US horror stories of kitchen taps catching fire through a comprehensive gas monitoring regime, one that Cuadrilla has employed GGS to carry out.

If something has changed [in the gas regime] we can alert our client

Ground Gas Solutions managing director Simon Talbot

All well and good, but I doubt this argument will be enough to satisfy the vocal opponents of shale gas.

Talbot said that as a result of GGS’ continuous monitoring and laboratory testing of Cuadrilla’s sites’ gas regimes, “we can demonstrate that nothing has changed at this well site, or if something has changed we can alert our client and there will be a range of actions operator could take” .

These actions, he said, could range from stopping drilling to allow further investigation all the way through to sealing up a well and abandoning a site.

However, the immediate question that springs to mind is whether, when given this information, shale gas developers can be trusted to act on it responsibly. Or, as it was put to me in tweet responding to the article from Tundra Process:

But surely, you say, this isn’t just a matter of trust? Surely the developers are bound by regulations? Didn’t David Cameron earlier this month in a Daily Telegraph article supporting shale gas development claim that if “any shale gas well were to pose a risk of pollution, then we have all the powers we need to close it down”?

Well, yes and no. Under the Health and Safety Executive’s Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR), developers are bound by law to report incidents that pose an immediate threat to human life, such as a well blow-out.

However, issues of pollution are covered by the permitting process run by the Environment Agency in England and Wales. As part of the permitting process, developers must produce environmental impact assessments before they begin work. In specific relation to impact on groundwater, developers must also produce a site condition report at the beginning and end of operations. There is an option within this requirement to update the report throughout the life of a project, but it is only an option and not mandatory.

In other words, developers are not duty-bound to report any major breaches of ground gasses into the water table during operations - only report on the condition of water at the start and end of fracking. We must simply trust that they will act, either because of the responsible companies that they are, or for fear of losing their permit should Environment Agency enforcement officers just happen to pop along on a spot-check of the site.

If we in the process industries want to get behind shale gas development, we should be calling for tougher environmental regulations for the sector. It is only by being transparent in this way, by being able to show the general public that they are adequately protected from the risk of pollution, that we will silence some, if not all, of the fracking protestors.

Trust is not enough in this heated debate.