20 Things politicians should understand ... (Part 3)

Continuing the previous two postings here is the third set of 5 more "Things politicians need to know about shale gas science", inspired by the recent Guardian article entitled "Top 20 things politicians need to know about science" from an original article in Nature.  

It is not just politicians that need to know this stuff - without it the whole debate is not possible.

11. Seek replication, not pseudoreplication

Results consistent across many studies, replicated on independent populations, are more likely to be solid. There is nothing better than good quality data and lots of it from different locations. Unfortunately data is often man-power intensive and hence expensive. However, government and companies must be prepared to spend money on collecting that data if the general public are to trust their operations (and here).

Moreover, data from different scenarios or locations can often be combined in a systematic review or a meta-analysis to provide an overarching view of the topic with potentially much greater statistical power than any of the individual studies. This requires that data is made freely available between companies and to the general public as well as academics.

Since data is expensive and represents a commercial advantage, companies are not likely to share it or make it available on their own, however enlightened they are. Interestingly Cuadrilla have released a large amount of water quality testing data here and here because they recognise that it represents part of the community patrimony. It is hoped that this will continue. The government should take a central role in coordinating the archiving and publication of all shale gas data through, for example, the British GeologicalSurvey, but is currently avoiding it.

12. Scientists are human

It is not a case of companies bad, politicians bad, activists bad, scientists good – scientists are human too. Although most scientists take extreme care in balancing evidence and following a scientific rationale, a few are less than candid. One must always remember that scientists have a vested interest in promoting their work, often for status and further research funding, and occasionally for direct financial gain. This can lead to selective reporting of results and occasionally, exaggeration. Peer review is not infallible: journal editors might favour positive findings and newsworthiness.

All this adds up to the statement that scientists should not be believed blindly nor their statements regarded dogmatically. If shale gas extraction is to be carried out successfully, it needs the informed consent of the local communities – informed consent means listening to the statements of a range of scientists and others to form a balanced evidence-driven view upon which solid decisions can be made.

13. Significance is significant

Opinion is not important. The only way of testing data is by using valid statistical tests.

One of the most common ways of stating whether an effect, such as whether hydraulic fracturing has contaminated an aquifer, is real is the statistical significance or P-value. The P-value is a measure of how likely a result is to occur by chance. Thus P = 0.01 means there is a 1-in-100 probability that what looks like a link (say fracking and aquifer contamination) actually occurred randomly. We would call P=0.01 very significant as it also indicates that there is a 99-in-100 probability that the link is real. Usually P<0.05 is taken as the limit where a link is considered to be proven.

So far we have no data in the UK that can be used to carry out a test like this because there has been no fracturing where back-ground data is available (no fracking was carried out at Balcombe). Similarly, no background data is available in the USA and so proper statistical tests cannot be carried out there either. However, such tests will be common in future, in the UK at least, because companies are committed to carrying out before and after water quality tests on aquifers.

14. Separate no effect from non-significance

The lack of a statistically significant result (say a P-value > 0.05) does not mean that there was no underlying effect: it means that no effect was detected. A small study may not have the power to detect a real difference. For example, tests of local wild-life around the Balcombe drilling site may suggest that it suffered no adverse effects from disturbance by the drilling operation. Yet if the tests sampled too few animals it would not have the power to detect impacts had there been any. Even then, it would be extremely difficult to distinguish between disturbance by the drilling operations and disturbance by the large number of protestors.

15. Effect size matters

Small responses are less likely to be detected and may fall below the measurement sensitivity of whatever instrument is being used. However, a study with many replicates might result in a statistically significant result but have a small effect size (and so, perhaps, be unimportant).

Let’s take drilling or fracturing induced earthquakes. When hydraulic fracturing is carried out it results in thousands of tiny earth tremors by definition – the whole process is designed to make fractures in the rock and each fracture formation is an earthquake, however small. These earthquakes are mapped in the sub-surface by microseismic methods, and it is possible to see where each one occurs and to delineate the fracture network that forms. If one correlated these earth tremors with the hydraulic fracturing process, there would be, not surprisingly, an extremely significant result -  an apparent smoking gun! However, all of these earthquakes have such a small magnitude that they are never felt at the surface, and are hence unimportant – in fact, a smoking pop-gun!

However, occasionally one earthquake might be big enough to be felt at the surface, but it would not materially alter the significance of the correlation. We must try to correlate problem earthquakes with hydraulic fracturing, but so far there are just too few for this to be possible (only two in the UK, and few in the USA where most of the bigger earthquakes associated with shale gas are not due to hydraulic fracturing, but the irresponsible and thankfully obsolescent habit of disposing of old fracking fluid by deep underground injection).

20 Things politicians should understand about shale gas science (Part 1)

In the light of the recent Guardian article entitled "Top 20 things politicians need to know about science" from an original article in Nature, and inspired by it, here are the first five of their points but with particular emphasis on shale gas extraction. But its not just politicians that need to know this stuff - without it the whole debate is not possible.

 

1. Differences and chance cause variation

The real world varies unpredictably. For some branches of science such as physics, the questions may be reduced to very simple experiments whose results are more straightforward to interpret. In Earth Sciences, as in Life Sciences, we cannot simplify the complexity of Nature, and hence scientific results may seem more open to interpretation. The important thing is to recognize that there is a natural complexity and variability and take that into account in the interpretation of scientific observations. There is, for example, a variation of the amount of natural methane in aquifer waters. We need to understand that before we can attribute methane in drinking water to shale gas extraction.

 

2. No measurement is exact

Practically all measurements have some error; and let's be candid here, errors are not bad things but a recognition that there is a limit to what we can do.

Some things cannot be measured very well. Imagine you want to weigh 10 grammes of salt but you only have a 5 kg kitchen scale, the chances are that you might weigh out anything between 1 gram and 50 grammes even if you are careful as can be.

Some things can be measured with incredible accuracy: Arsenic in drinking water can be measured accurately to about 10 parts per trillion! (The US EPA sets its safety threshhold for arsenic in drinking water at 10 parts per billion because it believes that arsenic is cummulatively dangerous at higher levels and it knows it can accurately measure these amounts.)

The good news is that measurement errors can be quantified and quoted easily. You should NOT trust any measurement unless it has an associated measurement error especially if the argument rests on the value of the measurement.

 

3. Bias is rife

Experimental design or measuring devices may produce atypical results in certain circumstances. The corollary is that it is not sufficient to just take the results of a study, but to understand how it was carried out.

For example, a study of gas in drinking water may show that there is more methane within 100 m of a shale gas well. An interpreter (politician, activist, scientist) might then say "shale gas is leaking into the aquifer and contaminating it." This is wrong. There has been no distinction made between thermogenic methane (shale gas, formed at depth by heat) and biogenic methane (naturally occurring methane in aquifers formed at shallow layers by bacteria).

Perhaps if the analysis showed that most of the gas was biogenic (which is actually the case), the interpreter may then say "As the gas is biogenic it was not caused by shale gas extraction." This may also be wrong because the drilling, though not contaminating the aquifer with shale gas from a deep provenance, has disturbed shallow biogenic gas in a way that it has entered the aquifer temporarily.

The results of studies should be carefully studied for interpretation bias.

 

4. Bigger is usually better for sample size

The average taken from a large number of observations will usually be more informative than the average taken from a smaller number of observations. That is, as we accumulate evidence, our knowledge improves. The problem with shale gas is two-fold:

• Most of the concerns come from the practice of shale gas extraction in the USA.
• Almost no scientific studies have been carried out there, although the situation is slowly improving, most opinion is not based on evidence.

It is extremely irresponsible to extrapolate the US situation to the UK and other parts of Europe for a number of reasons (population density, different shales, regulation and data gathering). There is already more high quality independent publicly available scientific data from the few wells drilled in the UK than for all the thousands of wells in the States. That is a result of the responsible attitude of the companies and government protection agencies. We need public overview to ensure that it continues.

 

5. Correlation does not imply causation

It is tempting to assume that one pattern causes another. However, the correlation might be coincidental, or it might be a result of both patterns being caused by a third factor – a “confounding” or 'lurking' variable. For example, it is tempting to believe that methane exists in aquifers because of shale gas drilling, and it is important to find out if that is true. However, we have already seen that an inability to discriminate between two types of gas (thermogenic and biogenic) can lead to misinterpretation, and acts as a 'lurking' variable.

Early studies in the US were not very good because they had not measured the methane in aquifers before shale gas extraction started and hence could not be sure that what they were measuring was natural or as a result of the drilling. These studies relied on the association of a rise in groundwater methane close to wells (other more recent studies have also found the opposite).

However, even if it were true that there is a correlation between well position and high levels of groundwater methane it does not imply that the drilling caused the groundwater gas concentrations. It may simply be that the wells were placed to extract shale gas at a position where gas has been reaching the surface naturally for millions of years. In other words, a well placed well.

In this example correlation does not imply causation, though:

• causation may exist too - more study needs to be carried out if this is suspected, and
• if gas has been reaching the surface naturally (not caused by the drilling), how is this the case? Are there natural pathways, fractures and faults that ease the transport of the gas? A responsible producer would be using science to have the best solution to these questions to ensure that the drilling operations did not exacerbate the effect.

Pimbys have been spotted in Balcombe?

It was bound to happen.

Sixty of the residents of Balcombe are protesting against the shale gas protestors. After weeks of leaving the protestors their right to peaceful protest, some Balcombe residents have had enough. 

In an anonymous letter they express their "strong disapproval of the recent & continuing protests", while not believing that "exploratory drilling or properly regulated further exploitation will unduly damage our environment".

Are these people a rare sighting of that friendly, timid but stubborn bird, the PIMBY, with its mellifluous call which sounds something like "Please in my back yard"! 

Cynics have said that, with the promise of parish councils benefitting in cash from drilling and production, the PIMBY is thinking about feathering its nest. 

I prefer the simple explanation that common sense, as exemplified by the Balcombe Parish Council's clear evidence-based report on fracking, will win out in the end for the good of all. Farmers that have been shown around oil and gas production facilities in Canada return home as converts; not because they have been bribed with money, but because they have been shown it as it actually is, and not how extreme shalegasophobes paint it.

Importantly the authors warn "Let other communities be warned that our hitherto friendly village has suffered not only from the protesting crowds but prior to that from the intemperance of self-appointed  “ activists”, unfair abuse of our Parish Council, politicisation of the village fete, unsightly banners and, above all, spreading of unwarranted fear." 

How many other parish councils will be reading this with trepidation, I wonder?

The authors' plea has gone out for "the Government, Local Authorities & the Industry to provide clear and easily understood  information on the rationale for developing a British shale oil & gas industry".

We, of course, try to do that in this blog, and all concerned academics ought to be part of the dissemination of such understanding. In particular, the call for public disclosure of data to the Prime Minister, and its follow-up, and in the Issues raised and discussed in the blog (e.g., earthquakes).

Wind, shale gas, HS2, badgers and the Aarhus Treaty

(28th August 2013) According to The Independent:

"The United Nations Economic Commission Europe has declared that the UK flouted Article 7 of the Aarhus Convention, which requires full and effective public participation on all environmental issues and demands that citizens are given the right to participate in the process."

The Aarhus Convention (in full here in English, in full here in many other languages) aims in its 22 Articles 

"...to contribute to the protection of the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being, each Party shall guarantee the rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters in accordance with the provisions of this Convention."

It is becoming clear that the UK government has not ensured that every person has been given access to information about wind farms or been able to partcipate in the decision-making process from an environmental point of view. We will see what impact the ruling has.

The big question is whether the Aarhus Convention applies to other current environmental issues.

Shale gas 

The Convention does not explicitly cover the production of oil or gas (See Annex 1 of The Convention), which is too much of an oversight to be other than deliberate. It does, however cover oil and gas refineries and installations for gasification and liquefaction. It may cover those plants which gather shale gas together before pushing into a gas pipe network.

However, The Convention does cover groundwater abstraction where the annual volume of water abstracted is equivalent to or exceeds 10 million cubic metres and also covers pipelines for the transport of gas, oil or chemicals with a diameter of more than 800 mm and a length of more than 40 km.

Moreover, The Convention does state (Annex 1, Paragraph 20) that any activity not covered by paragraphs those activities that are mentioned explicitly in Annex 1, but where public participation is provided for under an environmental impact assessment procedure in accordance with national legislation, fall also under the Aarhus Convention.

HS2

The Convention covers explicitly "Construction of lines for long-distance railway traffic".

Badgers

Unfortunately for badgers, not only has The Convention nothing to say about the management of wildlife, it contains an exclusion for short-term research and development under which current badger culling would probably fall.

In summary, we have a UN Convention, to which the UK is fully signed-up, that guarantees "rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice in environmental matters".  

In my view that means plentiful, accessible and factually accurate data and interpretation backed-up by scientific research, together with procedures to ensure public participation. This goes further than the recent call for public disclosure on shale gas developments that was made to the Prime Minister and its follow-up.

Do shale gas companies floccinaucinihilipilificate?

Floccinaucinihilipilification - the act of deliberately minimising the importance of something, is the longest non-technical word in the English language, beating antidisestablihmentarianism by one letter.

It is also what oil and gas companies are doing with shale gas and fracking. They are playing down perceived risks.

Most people will not take the companies seriously until they start taking the responsibility to address the risks honestly and to take ownership of them.

Trust will only come if we believe that risks are being managed well rather than being played-down, and where companies have enough to lose if there is a mistake.

Perhaps the Prime Minister ought to draft laws ensuring that companies involved in shale gas exploration and production have to arrange for a public bond as security for the environment.

Risk, shale gas and fracking

The risks involved in hydraulically fracturing wells are probably small, and certainly difficult to pin down.

It is certain that there is the potential for gas producers to damage the environment and human health, but we do not know how great. Earth science academics, like myself, understand the subsurface well enough to know that some of the threats are truly negligible, while life scientists point out that our ground and surface waters and surface habitats are tremendously fragile. Oddly, not much is heard from engineers!

The big question has recently been stated by John Kemp at Reuters  -

"Should oil and gas producers be allowed to hydraulically fracture wells even if there is a small but hard-to-quantify risk to the environment, property and human life?"

• The UK government has said YES for energy security and the greater good of all.
• Most environmentalists have said NO, based on distrust of commercial interests backed-up by often unsubstantiated data from the USA, where a totally different E&P regime exists.
• Local residents have said NO - that is the vocal one's have, but increasingly we hear of the silent ones that quietly support shale gas.
• Most journalists are behaving in an unbiased fashion, though one suspects that they are more interested in the social tension than the actual outcome - a bit like watching King Lear for the hundredth time.
• Some oil and gas companies have said YES, but many have said NO, regarding shale gas as too risky, but from an economic point of view.
• Academics have tried to pull the extreme views towards the middle ground where uncertainty is recognized and rationality derives from evidence. Unfortunately, in doing so, they have become stretched both ways, as if by bulls. This is not a happy or dignified position for the academic who only seeks reasonable debate.

Photograph modified from original by Lin Chun-Chung

There are worries that risks exist to ground-water, surface water, and ecosystems, or might cause air pollution, earthquakes, subsidence, massive release of  methane as a potent GHG, as well as cause nuissance by increasing traffic and industrial noise, or bring radioactive minerals to the surface, or by attracting protestors themselves, who may also be disruptive.


As John Kemp puts it -

"For their part, oil and gas producers insist all energy production is associated with some level of risk but fracturing has a good safety record and fears about it are exaggerated."

The problem is that no matter how small, there are perceived risks with all of these issues, and, importantly, these are risks that most people do not see the industry taking on responsibly.

The general population will not trust the E&P companies until they stop mindlessly minimizing the risks, but addressing them honestly, and putting themselves clearly in the position where the general public can see that the company will be in financial straits if anything goes wrong.

Perhaps we need large E&P bonds from companies before they are allowed to explore and produce from gas shales?

Follow-up to Letter to the Prime Minister

Several points have been thrown-up in response to my suggestion that we should have a factual clearing-house for data in order to allow us to judge the dangers to the environment and health which shale gas exploitation has the potential to cause.  

Data, Interpretation and Impact Mike Jones (@GroundWaterMike)and others suggested that there is more of a need for "interpretation and consolidation to give clear articulation of risk (and) to inform". I thoroughly agree that interpretation of impact and its clear communication is of the highest importance. However, there is a plethora of opinions out there ranging from the extreme shalegasophobe to the greedy commercial enterprise. Most people, governmental representatives, journalists and companies occupy some part of the middle ground. Who to trust when factual data is scarce or locked-away in company reports or academic journals? People currently lack, and desperately need, access to data so they can check the interpretations and decide which are somewhat over-egging the pudding and which to trust. Nobody seems to care about providing the general population with real information; the general population is constantly being underestimated. Well, at the end of the day, it will be the general population that has the best balanced view and will leaver that view politically. As for the interpreters and opinionators (of whom I am one), what none of them have is they also have no access to plenty of incontravertible data regarding shale gas and fracking. That means their interpretations have to be made in a mist of uncertainty. They would also benefit from a set of high quality data, especially as they would be able to refer to data that anyone could access at the click of a mouse.  

Accessibility Whatever engine that is used to provide the data should be as easy to use as possible. This has not been the traditional strength of governments, but is the strength of some software companies.  

Who would control the database All data required for regulatory processes as well as monitoring and testing data should be available. There should be a group containing representatives from government, academia, industry, protest groups and the general public overseeing the accuracy and clarity of the data. It must be independent and would probably benefit from being managed by a publishing company.  

Timeliness The data we have currently is rubbish. The USA is only now beginning to gather good scientific data. A process which has been impeded by the lack of regulation, secrecy and well-entrenched lobbying groups. However, preliminary data on health from Pennsylvania is coming in and the quality of groundwater studies is increasing. There is very little data available for the UK precisely because we have done little high volume fracking. However, that puts us in an extremely good position to start with a proper plan for making all data accessible. Already companies such as Cuadrilla have shown openness in having pre-tests carried out that will allow post-drilling and post-fracking tests to be compared with a back-ground level. These data are already available publicly. We need to ensure that there is more of the same for every site. The world is waking up to shale gas (e.g., Israel, the Netherlands, South Africa). The UK ought to be at the forefront of showing how it can be done safely and responsibly for the good of all.

A Fairy Story: The little girl and the marvellous liquid

Once upon a time there was a land which was very rich.

It had a marvellous liquid from which the people could make millions of different things. Some of the things were small but very important because they helped keep the people well and cured their illnesses. 

Other things that were made from the marvellous liquid helped the people move from city to city, or talk to one another, or teach their children. The things also helped make their food, go on holiday, or entertained them, making them laugh. Very often the useful things that were made with the liquid could not be made from anything else.

The marvellous liquid could also be burned to keep warm in the winter, or to propel carts so the people could move around. It was a truly wonderful liquid.

And so the people lived long, happy and fulfilling lives, and began to take the marvellous liquid for granted. They had parties in their gardens under the waxing moon and even burned the marvellous liquid to take the chill out of the air while they arranged their deck-chairs.

The trouble was that the marvellous liquid was running out. Everyone in the land knew it was running out, but no one wanted to think about it. The people were so happy with their interesting and useful things that they imagined the marvellous liquid would last forever. They were so dependent on the things that were made from the marvellous liquid that they could not think of a life without them; it frightened them too much, so they put it out of their minds.

And the people kept on consuming the marvellous liquid, especially by burning it in their houses and carts. 

And the reserves of the marvellous liquid got lower and lower and lower.

Then one day, somewhere in the very back of a small house, in a tiny street of one of the most minor towns of that land, a little girl called Mantissa was crying. She had just broken her favourite toy, which like all toys in the land had been made from the marvellous liquid. Her mother warned her that they could not replace the toy because the marvellous liquid was so rare now, that it was extremely expensive.

So the little girl said:

“If the marvellous liquid is so useful for making so many different, necessary and useful things, why do we waste it by burning it in our homes and carts when we could burn something else instead?”

So her mother went to the Mayor and said:

“Why are we wasting the marvellous liquid by burning it, when we could burn other things instead?”

So the Mayor went to the minister of state and said:

“Why not burn other things to keep us warm and to power our carts so we can conserve our marvellous liquid for making all those things upon which our life depends?”

And the Minister of State, well she went to the king, who thought it was a really good idea He discussed it with his plants (because he found that they gave good advice), and then passed it to the Prime Minister to do something.

And so all the homes and carts in the land were converted to run on gas, and no longer was the marvellous liquid wasted anymore by simply being burned.

But of course there was so little of the marvellous liquid left by then, that it was a real shame. There were no more toys made out of it, but that did not matter because there was just enough left to keep the people well and cure their illnesses.

Travel became slower and rarer and the people remembered how to write and sent letters to each other again instead. The people had holidays at home, taught their children in the traditional way and grew their food locally. Oh, and by the way, they entertained themselves, and laughed just as much as they ever did.

And they all lived pragmatically ever after.

Opinion: The Two Minute Rule

In response to my last posting some have said that they are not addicts to oil and gas. With, respect, this is twaddle - we are all addicts. Without oil and gas we would be no better off than a primitive tribe.

There would be no transport, no health service, no communications. Every article of modern life would be missing, radically different, much more expensive and difficult to obtain. Our life would be rural rather than urban, and there would be no aspiration to equality and liberty, merely to survival.

Is this harsh? Perhaps. But be careful before one signs up to the renewables mantra. It will not arrive for 100 years and depends upon rare earth elements such as gallium and neodymium that produce toxic and radioactive waste every bit as dangerous for the environment as what renewables are supposed to be replacing.

I could list all those things that require oil or gas to make or transport, but that would be a very long and boring list.

Instead, try the TWO MINUTE TEST - Stop yourself every two minutes and write down the first thing that you see. I will guarantee that it will be made from oil or gas or depend upon it in some way (transport, manufacturing tools etc.).

Try it for one hour (30 items) - it gives a perspective that is missing in our modern urban lives - then decide what you can do without, and recycle it.

(Please send your Two Minute Test lists of 30 items to gas.and.gaiters@gmail.com and I will collate and analyse the data.)