The Origins of Climate Change

"Look what I've made! If we have enough of them, we can raise the climate by 2 degrees C!"

NERC plans a scientific study of shale gas (and other resources)

Thanks to the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, I am currently at the British Geological Survey with 50 or so British scientists, members of industry and representatives of the UK government, DECC and the Environment Agency. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss and plan two facilities for the scientific analysis of resource provision in the subsurface over at least the next 20 years. Shale gas is of central importance, as is geothermal energy, CCS and the storage underground of gas and radioactive waste.

The mood is extremely positive that, at last, there might be the measurement of the processes involved in shale gas exploitation, from the source of the resource to the monitoring and analysis of any environmental risks that might occur. There, it seems, will be the opportunity to monitor the whole process in 4D from the borehole to the surface and the atmosphere, depending upon scale, position and time.

The buzzword is "integration", such that data of all types are available to compare as time passes, and so that changes can be linked to the drilling and fracking processes which are occurring at the time.

There is an agreement that data should be taken from a long time before any drilling starts and include air and water monitoring, reflection seismic and seismological measurements, borehole and aquifer measurements, microseismic measurements, and satellite measurements, and continue throughout the multi-decadal lifetime of the project. It has been repeatedly proposed that the atmosphere and surface will continue to be fully monitored.

Underground, wells can be drilled and measured during and after the process has finished. The integrity of the boreholes can also be monitored and the presence of any pollutants entering local aquifers. Cross-borehole techniques and 3D seismics can be used to delineate and monitor the rocks between the wells so that they are fully understood and that any changes to them or the fluids they contain can be monitored.

Only a few from industry were invited, but those to whom I have talked are very happy that a collaboration between them and British scientists could provide UK data for the first time, which they believe will provide evidence for their claims. They have pointed out that it is incredibly important for the process to be completely open and transparent, and to fully involve the general public.

The UK government have committed £31 million to this ESIOS study so far, and the hope is that the measurements will ultimately allay fears, where fears are groundless, understand the scope of the risks, where they really occur, so that risks can be removed, minimised or mitigated, and also to lead to swift changes in policy and rules where they are necessary. All so that the general public can gain trust in processes involving the exploitation of the Earth's resources in the UK.

Issue 15: Shale Gas and Traffic II - The UK

Figure 1  The fatality rate per billions of kilometres driven for different vehicles on Great Britain’s roads between 2002 and 2013. Data from the Department for Transport. Top plot shows all of the data. The bottom plot shows all of the data except that for motorbikes, but at an expanded scale for easy reading

 

In the last posting (Issue 14) I discussed the effect to shale gas development on road traffic accidents in the USA. So far there has been little shale gas exploitation within the UK so we would not expect to see any large changes in the traffic statistics, if any at all. Every September the Department for Transport issues the annual road traffic accident statistics for Great Britain. There are data here for what types of vehicle are involved, the types of road and the number of fatalities, major and minor casualties. We need only look at one or two aspects of the data. One table sets out the number of fatalities per billion kilometres driven for different vehicle types and for each year from 2002 to 2013, the latest year for which data are currently available. Figure 1 shows that data, with all of the curves shown in the top plot, and all but the motorbike data shown in the bottom plot, but on an expanded scale. It is immediately striking that the general trend is for the fatality rate to decrease as the years pass, which is consistent with the improvement of road traffic regulations, vehicle design and public awareness. The only vehicle for which this has not been the case in the last 6 years is the pedal bike.

Figure 2  The fatality rate for different vehicle on Great Britain’s roads between 2002 and 2013 as a fraction of that for cars (i.e., cars = 1.00). Data from the Department for Transport. Values above 1 show vehicles involved in more fatalities per billion kilometres travelled, while values less than 1 show  vehicles involved in fewer.

The next feature is that fatalities involving motorbikes are by far the worst. Figure 2 shows the same data as the previous plot, but as a fraction of the data for cars. We can see from this plot that fatalities involving motorbikes has increased over the years from 14.58 times larger than that for cars in 2002 to 17.55 times that for cars in 2013. In other words, kilometer-for-kilometer, it was 17.55 times more likely to die in a road traffic accident in 2013 if you were driving a motorbike than a car. While this apparent increase is more to do with the fatality rate for cars dropping faster than that for motorbikes, getting on a motorbike is, perhaps, something that one should think twice about for one’s own sake as well as the sakes of one’s parents, spouses and children. Riding pedal bikes on the road is also dangerous with 24 fatalities per billion kilometers pedalled in 2013, a rate that has not dropped significantly since 2009 – in fact 5.13 times more deaths per kilometer involved a bicycle than involved cars, but perhaps we should console ourselves that few of us clock-up sufficient kilometers on a bicycle to be too much at risk. The next most dangerous way to travel is, surprisingly, coaches and buses, which in 2013 had a fatality rate 3.27 times that of cars on a kilometer-by-kilometer basis. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the rate of fatalities involving ‘white van man’. Vans and light goods vehicles had a fatality rate in 2013 of only 2.2 deaths per billion kilometers driven having decreased year-on-year for the last decade. That is less than half of the fatality rate involving cars. Clearly the reputation ‘white van man’ has for bad driving is not only not deserved, we should be lauding their safety record.

Shale gas exploitation will increase the traffic of all types of vehicles including cars, coaches and vans. However, it will be heavy goods vehicles that are most involved. Since 2002 the fatality rate per billion kilometres driven of heavy goods vehicles has dropped year-on-year from 19 to 11. During that time the fatality rate remains about twice that of car travel (Figure 2).

The question is whether these data for heavy goods vehicles will increase if shale gas exploitation is developed in the UK. The likelihood is that the fatalities caused by HGVs will increase in proportion to the extra distance travelled by the vehicles required to service the shale gas industry. The Institute of Directors’ 2013 study estimated that there would be 312880 truck movements over the 20 year period of the development of a 100 pad 40 lateral shale gas industry in the UK in the worst case scenario where all the development water needs to be trucked in. If we assume that each movement is 200 km and that all of the movements happen in the same single year, the increase in kilometres driven in the UK will increase over the 25 billion kilometres reported in the Department for Transport’s 2013 statistics for Heavy Goods Vehicles by one quarter of a percent, or when converted into fatalities, 0.68 extra fatalities over the whole 20 year period of the shale gas development.

Even if the overall number of fatalities increase, it is unlikely that the rate of fatalities per billion kilometres driven or the relative fatality rate to that of cars will change much unless the shale gas-related traffic is driven much more irresponsibly than the HGVs which are currently being driven in the UK. Thankfully, the UK’s road traffic and goods traffic regulations are strong and comprehensive as well as being strictly enforced by inspectors and the police. It is unlikely that irresponsible HGV operators would be allowed to operate on the UK’s roads.

There is one more thing that we have to take into account – these shale gas HGVs will not be operating on urban roads or motorways for some of their journeys, but on small country roads. Perhaps the fatality rate on these small rural by-ways might be increased when huge shale gas lorries start using them? The same Department for Transport statistics includes a break-down according to road type. Figure 3 shows the fatality rates for each vehicle type in 2013 but broken down by whether the incidents occurred on rural or urban roads. Almost all types of vehicle show a higher accident rate on rural roads. Motorbikes and pedal cycles show the greatest differences. Pedal cyclists are 2.9 times more likely to die on rural roads than urban roads per kilometre cycled, while motorbikers are 2.4 time more likely to die on rural roads. This flies against our intuition. We imagine that the press of traffic in cities is the cause of the deaths of many cyclists, and so it is – but more die in the countryside because more cyclists cycle there and a car or a lorry is just as fatal at a country junction as at a city one. The expected reason for the statistics for motorbikers is not so clear, though some have associated it with a penchant for driving fast over winding country trunk roads that is indulged in by a subsection of the biking community.

Figure 3  The fatality rate per billion kilometers travelled for different vehicle on Great Britain’s roads in 2013, comparing urban and rural experiences. Data from the Department for Transport. 

Fatalities involving cars are 2.1 times more likely on rural roads than urban roads, those involving buses and coaches slightly more at 1.1 times and vans and fatalities involving light goods vehicles are 1.8 times as likely on rural roads than urban ones. The reasons why are not clear. Perhaps the driving is more challenging. Perhaps people drive with less care and attention in the countryside. The one vehicle that seems to be slightly safer in the countryside is the HGV. Once again, we might imagine the effect that a developing shale gas industry might have on the fatality rates in the countryside. Since Department of Transport figures show that already HGVs travel 10 billion kilometres per year on rural roads and only 3.6 billion kilometres on urban roads (with another 11 billion on motorways), it is unlikely that a developing shale gas industry will make much difference. The earlier comparison with milk tankers seems to be a fairly accurate portrayal of the impact that shale gas traffic might have on the countryside.  

Issue 14: Shale Gas and Traffic

Figure 1.  The rate of accidents involving heavy trucks in counties in Pennsylvania with 20 or more wells operating before 2012, the rate for those counties with less than 20 wells, and the number of well pads drilled, using Pennsylvania Crash Reporting System data. (Resources for the Future report, September 2014).

Traffic... 

It takes lorries to develop a shale gas pad – lots of lorries and other vehicles. They are needed to prepare the site, construct the rig, carry the drilling string and casing, import the drilling and fracking fluids, export the flow-back fluid, carry drilling staff, inspectors, managers and scientific monitoring teams, take down the rig and sometimes to export the produced gas. If there are protests, there is also an increase in protestors' traffic, and the consequent traffic associated with policing and security.

Balcombe

How much traffic was a question that was asked by the Parish of Balcombe when test drilling was proposed there in 2013. The Balcombe Parish Council produced a very reasonable and readable report that touches on every aspect of the proposed drilling. Its section on traffic states that they were expecting seven to eleven weeks of activity with the largest vehicles being expected at the start and the end of that period, associated with the construction and taking down of the rig. They expected 10 Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) per day for the majority of the period and 30 HGVs per day for the most active two weeks at each end of the drilling. The light vehicle traffic was also expected to increase by 30 vehicles per day.

How does that compare with the background traffic through Balcombe? Well, of the 10,000 vehicles per day that have been measured to pass through Balcombe in several recent surveys, 4000 use the road that was to be used for the drilling traffic, and of those 200 were HGVs. That implies an increase of 15% in the HGV traffic for the busiest 2 weeks, 5% for the remaining 5 to 9 weeks, and less than 1% for the light vehicles.

In practice, it did not work out quite as it was planned. Local figures indicate that fracking protests delayed and obstructed HGV traffic sufficiently to ensure that many lorries took two or more attempts to access the site, while the estimated 5000 fracking protestors' cars and vans increased the light vehicle traffic by over 50% compared to the background level on some days; an irony given that no fracking was even planned at the site.

The Balcombe experience is just an interesting story; the development of a fully-fracked 40 lateral pad such as that which would be used in full scale shale gas exploitation is a different kettle of fish. What would be the traffic required for that?

Likely UK Scenario

The Institute of Directors have used data from high quality sources, mainly provided by the European Union, to estimate the number of lorry movements associated with shale gas production. They estimate that a single 10-well pad of 40 laterals could see 11,155-31,288 truck movements over 20 years, depending on whether the water comes from a mains connection or is brought in by road. Assuming truck movements are concentrated in the early years of drilling activity, this averages out at 6.1-17.1 per day over five years. This number accords well with the Cuadrilla/Balcombe Parish Council figure of about 20 per day, but over a shorter period (6 weeks) for the Balcombe case because they were envisaging one well with one lateral.

Spilt Milk!

It is worth putting this number of lorry and tanker movements into context. British dairy farmers produce 11 million m³ of milk each year. Milk tankers vary in size, but assuming a tanker capacity of 30 m³, 366,667 milk tanker journeys would be needed each year in rural locations to transport milk from the farms where it is produced. Consequently, if you are not inconvenienced by milk tankers, it is unlikely that you will be inconvenienced by the development of the 400 lateral per year annual development , which is the likely size of a maturing UK shale gas industry.

US Shale Gas Road Fatalities

On balance, therefore, it would seem that the increase in traffic caused by shale gas development would be significant, when considered from the point of view of the number of extra vehicle journeys to be undertaken, but insignificant when put in the context of all the other journeys that happen on our roads every day as a matter of course. However, there is one very important piece of information that we have not yet considered. The largest loss of life associated with shale gas developments worldwide (mostly in the USA) is from road traffic accidents; accidents which often involve large tankers using roads that were not designed for them and local rural traffic that had hitherto had the lanes to themselves (Figure 1). Fault does not always lie with the shale gas traffic either, but the sharing of small, rural roads does lead to loss of life. Although the number is still small, and much smaller than the loss of life from coal-generated air pollution, each loss is significant for those involved.

Resources for the Future (RFF) is a voluntary funded organisation in the USA which was involved in developing environmental economics over 60 years ago. It provides high-quality objective research and analysis on critical issues such as energy, climate, ecological quality, and forest management. Resources for the Future published a report in September 2013 which examined the impact of heavy goods vehicles on the safety of roads in those areas where shale gas exploitation was being carried out in Pennsylvania using that state’s Crash Reporting System (CRS). They compared the rate of accidents involving heavy trucks in counties with 20 or more wells operating before 2012 to the rate for those counties with less than 20 wells, and compared both to the number of well pads drilled. The result is shown in Figure1 above. It is clear that the increase in the accident rate for counties with greater than 20 wells compared to those with less than 20 wells after 2009 when they had been approximately the same at earlier dates correlates strongly with the post-2009 increase in well pad drilling. In fact the increase in traffic accidents involving heavy goods vehicles is 2% for every new well drilled per month.

What might we expect in the UK? - That will  be the subject of a further posting.

European Shale Gas and Oil Summit 2015 - National Game Show

Reporting from the European Shale Gas and Oil Summit 2015 - Day 2

Finally, on engagement. It was decided, only semi-tongue in cheek, that what is needed is basic information widely available though the web, in pubs in supermarkets and through successful national game shows that inform about shale gas and fracking.

Initial proposals included:

Celebrity Come Fracking
X-Fracture
Big Bother
Shale of the Century

Do you have any suggestions???

PS. We are all very serious and professional here - well - most of the time!

European Shale Gas and Oil Summit 2015 - Engagement and National Leadership

European Shale Gas and Oil Summit - Day 2.

We know what the PM thinks about shale gas.

Almost everyone I speak to tells me that they would like to have, but do not have, trusted independent advice that enable them to make an informed decision about shale gas - about whether we need it and about the risks and advantages that come with it.

• The industry tries to tell people - but they are not trusted - too many hands in the till.
• Environmental NGOs try to tell people - but they are not trusted - too much passion and not enough basic sense.
• Local planning officers and civil servants (e.g., employees of the Environmental Agency) would love to tell people, but they are not allowed to.
• Scientists are unbiased (on the whole), expert and would like to tell people, but they have no independent funding and no platform.
• The media are more interested in drama than informing people about important things.
• Government does not try.

Where is the leadership?

People tell me that they would like:

• Direction from the top.
• More political endorsement with reasons why!
• Single point, transparent regulatory accountability that has teeth.
• An unambiguous guide to best practice.

Then they can feel comfortable about making an informed decision. Until then the default position is the status quo, which will ultimately lead to electricity outages, ministers over-ruling planning decisions and an erosion of a local say in local planning.

OUGO is the governments Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil, commonly called OffUGO!. It sits within the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Energy Development Unit and tells us that it is part of a Unit which is responsible for encouraging and overseeing energy development in the UK. OffUGO has a number of remits. One is to 'Support Public Engagement'. Yet I do not know what they have done in this sphere recently, and I doubt whether many readers of this blog have heard of them.

Leadership - erm...