An energy firm which has been test drilling for controversial “shale gas” in Lancashire has said it has found vast gas resources underground.

Cuadrilla Resources began testing for gas on the Fylde Coast in March, using a technique known as “fracking”. […]

Cuadrilla hopes to drill as many as 400 wells over the next nine years and up to 800 over 16 years if gas extraction is successful.¹

Click here to read the full BBC article.

I have already posted an earlier article which details the process of fracking and the long-term environmental devastation it has already caused across America and beyond.

Basically, if you were ever looking to systematically pollute vast tracts of land, then you’d struggle to beat the process of fracking. It goes like this: take huge quantities of freshwater, mix in a secret and highly toxic cocktail of chemical ingredients, and then inject it into the ground under high pressure. The results are impressive, as this recent article in The New York Times shows:

With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.

While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.

The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.

Other documents and interviews show that many E.P.A. scientists are alarmed, warning that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by an E.P.A. consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law.

The Times also found never-reported studies by the E.P.A. and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.²

Click here to read the full article.

And here is a short documentary film made by Earth Focus and UK’s Ecological Film Unit, who looked into the effects of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale of the Appalachian Basin, North-East America:

A word of caution though, because if you feel angered or worried about any of this, then do be careful how you raise your objections. Some in America, who have expressed opposition, are now being treated as eco-terrorists:

As for Britain, exploratory drilling around Blackpool was suspended due to earthquakes, and an announcement is expected in the next thirty days as to whether permission will be granted for further fracking:

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said it had to ensure any operations which went ahead were properly regulated.

“We welcome the news that Cuadrilla believe there to be good quantities of gas contained in the shale covered by their licence,” he said.

From the same BBC news report.

The DECC spokesman also told the BBC that “nothing will temper the government’s firm and unbending commitment to safety and environmental protection”. Nothing that is, except money and influence perhaps…

Cuadrilla Resources is owned by its management team and two substantial investors, AJ Lucas and Riverstone LLC. And the Managing Director of Riverstone is Lord John Browne of Madingley.

Prior to his appointment at Riverstone, Lord Browne, who was also a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs, had spent 41 years working for BP, having been appointed as Chief Executive in June 1995. Indeed, he was the immediate predecessor to the much reviled Tony Hayward, who assumed the position of CEO after Lord Browne’s forced resignation from BP in May 2007. So could Lord Browne have been culpable in any way for what was to occur just a few years later in the Gulf of Mexico?

In July 2010, just a few months after the devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Tom Bower wrote this about Lord Browne:

Last Monday, amid the elegant surroundings of Dartmouth House in London’s Mayfair, Lord Browne of Madingley, the dapper former chief executive of BP, gave a lecture about ‘inspiration and vision in business’.

At ease in front of 60 hand-picked guests, the ultra-smooth tycoon shrugged off all personal responsibility for the company’s unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

He brushed aside critical questions about the poisoned legacy he bequeathed his beleaguered successor Tony Hayward.³

In his article, entitled “Return of Lord Oil Slick: Why has Cameron handed this Labour luvvie such a key job?”, Bower continues:

After his appointment as BP boss in 1998, Lord Browne swiftly transformed the firm from a dying oil corporation with just two fields – in Alaska and the North sea – into the world’s second largest behemoth.

By re-focusing on so-called ‘elephants’ (the big oil reservoirs) and ruthlessly cutting costs, his mastery of financial engineering used BP’s rising share price to launch audacious take-overs of failing oil companies, especially in America.

His success earned worldwide plaudits.

After re-branding BP as ‘Beyond Petroleum’ – the world’s most environmentally friendly oil company – he boasted during visits to Washington that BP was not only the largest producer of oil in America, but also the most successful explorer in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the most difficult places to extract oil. […]

Success depended on BP earning high profits, which could be used to set up a merger with Shell. Lord Browne went for broke by cutting costs.

His philosophy was ‘more for less’: operations would be completed at a cost that was 10 per cent cheaper than the previous time, and so on.

Taking his cue from New Labour, targets became the Holy Grail. In July 2000, he announced that production would annually grow over three years by 5.5 to 7 per cent, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and Angola.

This optimism was hailed and BP’s share price soared. But, in fact, BP’s growth turned out to be only 2.9 per cent and BP could hit its targets only by more ruthless cost-cutting.

Hundreds of engineers were sacked. Budgets for safety and maintenance were slashed. Skilled oil men resigned in disgust.

Bower’s catalogue of criticisms and failures goes on and on. Click here to read more.

I have been corresponding with a Australian, Tony Dickson, who has agreed to permit me to publish something on these posts and on Monday (a good day for blog traffic) an article by Tony will appear. I hope that you will read it then, enjoy it, and that it will set you thinking.

Tony’s work highlights the problem of economic growth, a problem that i have explained in these pages before. In the words of Brian Czech, we are shovelling fuel on a runaway train. Tony is a farmer and sees things with the logic of someone who lives close to the land, unlike me. Read all about economic growth and what it really means tomorrow.

I don’t feel particularly let down, as such, by the desperately unconvincing England performances of late (mainly because I’ve come to expect very little from them). It’s just that I always feel like I’m wasting my time when I watch them play.

Sporting performances, much like oratorical performances, should be entertaining and engaging and not boring and tremendously disappointing. England matches have become so depressing to watch that the team’s persuasive power as voiceless rhetoricians has dwindled and my interest in them has all but died along with it.

The current England team (or, for that matter, any England team from the last two decades) is certainly not the Sir Winston Churchill of the football world. It is neither commanding nor assertive and it most definitely is not convincing. At the moment, it more closely resembles Tony Hayward of BP infamy on its stumbling and bumbling road to redemption.

Regardless of tonight’s result against Wales, one thing is for certain: the England team has got a long way to go before it is anywhere near as eloquent and convincing with its feet as Churchill was with his mouth.

Vallares, an acquisition vehicle established by Hayward and financier Nat Rothschild, has agreed in principle to a tie-up with Genel Enerji, which owns oil fields in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, and is expected to announce a deal in the coming days, the source said.

The exact terms of the deal are unclear but it is expected to net Hayward and his Vallares co-founders tens of millions of pounds.

In June, Vallares raised 1.35-billion pounds (US$2.2-billion) from investors to target emerging-market oil assets.

The plan was to offer owners of oilfields a shortcut to a London Stock Exchange (LSE) listing, thus enabling them to raise finance to fund the development of their assets.

Hayward said he would be CEO of any acquired company and has assembled a team of big names around him, including former deputy CEO of BP and Chairman of Petrofac, Rodney Chase.

Hayward, Rothschild and the other Vallares founders, are entitled to a 6.67% stake in the enlarged group, following the completion of a deal, and this would be worth around US$300-million if Vallares buys all of Genel Enerji.

The Turkish group, which is controlled by one of Turkey’s richest men, Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, was valued at US$3.3-billion to US$3.6-billion in 2009, when it announced a planned merger with London-listed Heritage Oil, which subsequently collapsed.

Since then, political progress between the Kurdish regional government and Baghdad has led to a significant increase in the value of Kurdish oil assets, which would support a valuation above US$4-billion.

Genel Enerji said in May it was considering selling a stake to an investment partner, seeking to capitalize on a surge in interest in Kurdistan in the past year, to raise capital to help fund developments.

A second source familiar with the matter said the Turkish group was close to announcing a deal. Genel Enerji and Vallares declined to comment.

Last month, Reuters reported the two sides were nearing a deal.

The tie-up will need to be blessed by the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG oil minister, Ashti Hawrami, is due to attend an energy gathering in Istanbul on Thursday, according to the agenda for the event.

Cukurova Group, controlled by Karamehmet, owns around 56 percent of Genel Enerji, while the family of its CEO, Mehmet Sepil, owns around 44 percent.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

The Callaghan story came to my mind this week as the world braced itself for another economic crisis. Or, as the Mirror put it:

Our political leaders holiday while the economy is going down the drain

The global economy is going to hell in a handcart. British jobs, businesses and pensions are on the line. So where are our political masters? Sunning themselves on holidays abroad. It beggars belief that his deputy Nick Clegg and George Osborne – this Government’s real number two – decided to head off on holiday at the same time as their boss [David Cameron]…It beggars belief that his deputy Nick Clegg and George Osborne – this Government’s real number two – decided to head off on holiday at the same time as their boss.

Remember Tony Hayward?

A more recent story is developing about the tipping point in the career of BP boss Tony Hayward. It is now suggested that his demise was in part due to his comment in the midst of the BP oil-spill crisis to the effect that he wanted his life back. After that, his prospects of survival as CEO of BP appeared remote.

You may not remember James Callaghan

The labour Prime Minister James Callaghan was known as Sunny Jim for his avuncular way of reassuring voters. It backfired in 1979 when he returned from an economic conference in the middle of political turmoil. He appeared suntanned and relaxed at a time when the public was suffering strikes and considerable hardships.

In a brilliant headline, the Sun newspaper claimed an early political scalp for Rupert Murdoch. As the BBC recalled much later

“Crisis? What crisis?” Three words that helped bring down the last Labour government in 1979, even though the man generally thought to have uttered them – Jim Callaghan – did not in fact do so. The Sun journalist who fashioned that headline caught the popular impression of a government unaware of a very serious state of affairs which had sneaked up on it.

…and so back to David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne

The Mirror this week [Aug 2011] has taken a leaf from the Sun handbook for political journalism. The story of insouciant politicians would have been a little more convincing if it had covered the news of a week ago that the leader of the opposition Ed Miliband was also taking a summer break, as were most other political figures in advance of the season of party conferences in September.

What do you say, Sir Francis?

How different from the cherished image of one of England’s greatest military leaders and adventurer Francis Drake. As we used to be taught at school, Sir Francis was playing bowls when news came of the arrival of the Spanish Armada. As the journalists of the day prepared to pen the tale of his preoccupation he remarked that there would be time enough to defeat the Spanish after he had finished his game of Bowls. Doubt is cast on the authenticity of the legend.

His reputation would have been different if the Armada had not been defeated. Even that was less do with Her Majesty’s No 2 naval commander, and more to do with unexpected weather conditions. If the battle had been lost an Elizabethan version of a Sun journalist might have slammed his insouciance rather than praising it, anticipating the Callaghan headline by four hundred years.

tea cup design for Vintage at the Southbank

There are, as usual, plenty more designs from me and other members of LPT to mention too, but for now, may I once more throw down the hankie gauntlet, and ask everyone reading this to come up with a square thought or pattern of their own, so that in October we have a bountiful exhibition on our studio washing lines!

Champion: Sepp Blatter (Picture: PA)

Hayward’s company was responsible for the planet’s biggest oil spill and Goodwin was a key player in the collapse of the banks and the global economy.

Even so, it turns out the worst scoundrel of all is the man who would not let us have a football tournament.The Swiss president of football’s governing body – which has faced corruption allegations and awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia over England – led the top ten, which also included Simon Cowell.

Sporting love rats Ashley Cole, Tiger Woods and Ryan Giggs also featured, while a list of heroes was topped by US president Barack Obama and included David Beckham, Prince William and Jade Goody.

About 2,000 people were polled for TV channel Syfy.

Click here for more analysis at the Activist Post

Click here for the blog they don’t want you to see

U.S. House Republicans urged passage of a measure to block a phase-out of traditional light bulbs, as the Obama administration called the bill anti-consumer.

The legislation, which was debated on the House floor yesterday and may be voted on this week, would cost Americans $6 billion in energy savings in 2015, the White House said in a statement yesterday.

Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, introduced the proposal to invalidate lighting efficiency standards that would effectively ban bulbs similar to the one invented by Thomas Edison more than 130 years ago. The requirements were included in a 2007 energy law signed by Republican President George W. Bush.

You remember ol’ Joe Barton, dont’cha, kids? He was the one who called the deal worked out between President Obama and BP in which BP would set up a $20 billion fun to pay for damages after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a “shakedown,” and who apologized to Tony Hayward when he testified in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Original image

Keeping the light-bulb standards in place would be “overkill by the federal government,” Barton said in yesterday’s debate.

“If you’re Al Gore, and you want to spend $10 a light bulb, more power to you,” Barton said, referring to the former Democratic Vice President who won a Nobel Prize for his advocacy of policies to curb climate change.

…snip…

Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican, said on the House floor that the government “wants to tell consumers what type of light bulb they use to read, cook, watch television, or light their garage.”

…snip…

The new standards will cut air pollution and save consumers money in the long run, Democrats said. Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said during debate that the efficiency standards will save the amount of energy over 20 years that would otherwise be produced by 30 coal-fired plants.

The danger posed by the mercury in CFLs is “extraordinarily small,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, on a conference call yesterday with reporters.

Republicans are bringing up the bill under parliamentary rules that prohibit amendments and require two-thirds of the members voting to pass.

If the measure clears the higher vote hurdle, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Senator Jeff Bingaman, the chairman of the Senate Energy panel, “thinks that efforts to repeal the law are just plain dumb,” Bill Wicker, a spokesman for the New Mexico Democrat, said in an e-mail.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on a similar bill introduced by Senator Michael Enzi, a Wyoming Republican. “The committee plans no further action,” Wicker said.

…snip…

The administration said the new requirements won’t dictate how Americans illuminate their homes. “Any type of bulb can be sold as long as it meets the efficiency requirements,” the White House said, without issuing a veto threat.

…snip…

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association, which includes Fairfield, Connecticut-based General Electric Co. (GE), is lobbying against the push to prevent the light-bulb changes. Manufacturers have said they already retooled their factories to make products that comply with the new standards.

Environmental groups and efficiency advocates have also countered the Republican-led push by noting potential cost savings to consumers under the 2007 law.

Mr Hayward told FT in June: “Vallares will not use the capital it raises to buy assets for cash “because we have no competitive advantage in doing that”. Instead, the company will target an emerging market player with “good quality assets that have neither the capital nor the capability to move them forward but by the same token don’t want to sell out”.

People want to give Tony Hayward, the ex-BP head, money to buy oil and gas firms in emerging markets, perhaps because the idea of rich people fiddling with the economies of less-wealthy nations gives them warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings of colonialism.

The debt limit fight is going to kill any chance of climate legislation, forever.

The price of solar panels could drop to $1 per megawatt of energy by 2013, according to a study commissioned by a solar industry group. That's half of what they cost in 2009.

Here's one way that's going to happen: A Massachusetts company has figured out a smarter, cheaper way of manufacturing silicon solar wafers. (Tasty!)

Van Jones wants to debate Glenn Beck. Who’s got popcorn?

I swear...doing great, actually...

April 20th, 2010…remember where you were?

How long did it take for you to realize there was an ongoing serious problem? How many days had to go by before it occurred the problem was tremendous, huge and that oil, it was going to keep on coming…all the way into shore…all the way into the career of Tony Hayward, splattering it with hydrocarbons and goo…

I don’t know how long it took for Tony to figure any of this out, to really understand the size of the problem in the Gulf back then. This wasn’t Texas City where the various deaths were lamented and then the company moved on, paid a fine…whatever. The eleven dead on the Deepwater Horizon were the least of his problems…the oil, they couldn’t figure out a way to stop the oil…caps and tubes and caps again…

And that Tony, throughout those early months, he just kept talking to the press and putting his foot in it.

“Make things right.” (Now BP would have to back that up, or at least make it look that way in the commercials.)

“I want my life back.” (Oops, boy did he want those two seconds back.)

“I don’t feel that my job is on the line, but that might change.” (Ya think?)

And then he was fired, well kind of. More accurate would be to say he was demoted, large pay cut; he wouldn’t completely get his life back, but he’d get enough to make the mortgage payments and be comfortable…

Well, if you were losing sleep over this, be ready to again get a good night’s rest because Tony’s finally got his life back now…and then some!

“Former BP boss Tony Hayward is set to make £14million from his latest venture – despite presiding over a disaster that wiped £40billion off the oil firm’s share price. Mr Hayward is one of four backers, including financier Nat Rothschild, behind Vallares – a newly created firm that plans to run oil and gas assets around the world. Yesterday the company listed on the London stock market after raising £1.35billion…

…the deal will see Mr Hayward and Mr Rothschild – along with former Goldman Sachs banker Julian Metherell and financier Tom Daniel – make as much as £533million between them if they successfully acquire £8billion of assets.”

Hey Mr. Dudley, how much did you make last year?

Or more importantly, the people along the Gulf, all those dealing with the GCCF and Ken Feinberg in the claims process…with the quick claims, the final and interim claims…how much did you make? How many of you lost jobs, houses, cars, savings? How many of you are suffering from mental health issues, from physical issues?

Well, hopefully this news will lighten your burden, put that skip back in your step and give you one less thing to be worried or depressed about. Yes, everyone can get back to business as usual because Tony Hayward’s doing just fine, better than fine actually…he’s got so much of his life back now, he just bought three more.

Read the article:

Former BP boss Tony Hayward set to pocket share of £410m windfall – a year after catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil blast that killed 11

Have a nice day.