Fracking and Flooding

In ten years from now, if I am still alive, I shall be able to look over the hills of England and Wales and will see, if the politicians have their way, a series of small gas works, erected to fracture shale rock underground, perhaps a kilometre or more deep, with storage tanks on the surface so that this country may collect natural gas to burn for heat and power. Not many people have imagined this vision; there is a disconnect in our minds between the surface appearance of fracking operations and the imagination of the public, which to me seems to believe that most of the mess of industrial plant will be deep underground, failing to understand that the surface works will be very apparent and not very beautiful.

So our mental picture of what fracking will be like is probably fuzzy and indistinct. By the time we see the reality it will be too late to change it. However, our imaginations should not merely concentrate its efforts on the appearance of fracking plants. It should try to stretch itself further.

In the past few months more rain fallen on the south of England than at any time in the past 248 years, as far as we can ascertain. Watercourses are full, rivers overflowing and some parts of the land are flooded. Ground water cannot percolate through the saturated soil and much water runs off to places which were not designed to receive it. Underground springs have come to life, a direct result of the heavy rainfall and even a sink hole has emerged in the suburbs again caused by the heavy underground water. Water tables rise and fall, but the rise in the water table has been unprecedented.

This is an effect of heavy rainfall.

Now let us try to push our imagination to a place which sees such heavy rainfall in places where there is a great deal of fracking operations. The underground movements caused by heavy rainfall of the kind England has just experienced will inevitably affect the fracking operations. No system of underground pipes and works can be built to withstand the forces of nature in a way that is economically cost effective. Almost certainly underground pipes will be fractured if there is another period of record rainfall after the fracking installations have been built. This will mean that leakage of methane into the water courses and into the atmosphere is an inevitable result of fracking.

When you think of fracking think of floods, think of underground springs suddenly appearing and think of sinkholes.

Filed under: climate change, energy, global warming Tagged: Flooding, fracking, fracking operations, heavy rainfall, leakage of methane, natural gas from shale, sink holes, underground springs, underground water, water tables