How silly and naive of Gary Smith, General Secretary of the GMB union to say that the nations energy future relies on gas as the only show in town. Also, by implication for him to express support for fracking for shale gas, so long as it isnt a wild west of an industry and we dont see some of the disgraceful behaviour around shale there has been in America. Whether it be conventional, or unconventional gas like shale, the man obviously does not grasp that they are both finite resources and will run out at some point, and so just from that standpoint alone, neither are something we can possibly rely on in terms of our long term energy future. Also, even if they were entirely harmless to the environment, which they are not. In referring to the future he obviously also fails to take on board the recent IPCC report concerning the need to reduce our overall emissions from burning of fossil fuels in order to avert a climate catastrophe, or research by Cornell University which shows that in its overall cycle, fracked gas is at least as harmful as, if not more harmful than burning coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. He is quite obviously also, additionally blind to the much more environmental friendlier and renewable alternatives at our disposal, such as solar, wind, tidal, wave and hydro power, or indeed technologies, and various innovative measures which might help us to reduce our overall energy consumption, investment in the whole of which, pound for pound would create many times more jobs than the highly inflated 64,000 claimed by UKOOG could be by the fracking industry in the article, based on the proposals contained in the One Million Climate Jobs report. Indeed, as a result of investment in Germany in solar power alone, on sunny days, photo voltaic power can cover at times 30 – 40 percent of the current power consumption (see: cleantechnica/2013/11/07/germany-solar-pv-report-must-read-energy-reporter/). When you consider that in addition to a similar amount of investment by us in solar power here in Britain, that as an island country we are surrounded by the sea, and have some of the greatest tidal ranges in the world, have the greatest potential of any European country to harness offshore and onshore wind, as well as hydro power from our lakes and rivers, for Gary Smith to say gas is the only show in town suggests to me he doesnt get out around town much. To think that those of us who are already against fracking in the Wigan area, dont have a considered view on the issue, is also something of an insult. It implies you can only have such a view, if you come to the same conclusions as he does. The problem with that, is his view isnt a considered one at all. Fortunately, there are at least some counter arguments by me, along the above lines mentioned in the article.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 21:35:54 +0000
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