SHIP Sails into Shale Debate with Balance and Detail
Shale gas extraction, and whether it goes ahead on a massive scale, is one of the big questions of our times.
But are people even asking the right questions about the effects of shale drilling? At the Shale Gas Environmental Summit, held at the end of October in London, consultant Joanna Hanson of Plexus Energy said that many community leaders, particularly in central and eastern Europe, cannot find information on shale extraction.
In the information vacuum, they could either become panicked, or subside into apathy. The problem is particularly bad in non-English speaking countries, Ms Hanson stated, as there is little information of any kind available, even on the internet.
In this context, the arrival on the scene of SHIP – the Shale Gas Information Platform - is a good development. This is a website and internet forum devoted to the latest research, conclusions and contentions about shale extraction. Funded by the German government, and run out of the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) in Potsdam, SHIP is set to publicise and ventilate all the latest thinking on shale extraction.
It began last summer in English, and very soon will feature both German and Polish versions. “Our objective is to support opinion-forming, based on the facts,” says Andreas Huebner, head of the project, and staff member of GFZ. “It is an expert network.”
“Articles on SHIP are written by scientists or rely heavily on scientific expertise. We’re setting up a section which will give space to the debate.”
Dr Huebner, a geologist by training, says the complexities of the issue need a good airing. And the debate will be multi-faceted.
“If you only look to economics, or only look to environmental issues, it will not be a true picture, “ he says. His colleague, Brian Horsfield, says “We’re not relying on speculation.” And SHIP will canvass all opinions – there is even a link to the controversial film, Gasland, on the site. Some articles presented on SHIP will also appear here on naturalgaseurope.com.
Dr Huebner says the discussion is well under way in Germany, where hydraulic fracturing has taken place in a piecemeal fashion for decades.
In May, Der Spiegel reported that Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) had concluded that there are up to 2.3 tcm of recoverable natural gas under German soil, primarily in the states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. This would amount to more than 20 times Germany's annual consumption of natural gas.
With the German economy still strong, it is to the advantage of all European Union member states that funding is going towards initiatives such as SHIP. “It is inherent in science that we be independent, and peer review is one of the main requirements of the papers we cover,” Dr Huebner said. “Scientific work etthics is important to us.”
He said that his centre, and the SHIP project, would work with industry as well as academia and government departments. “Deep drilling is very expensive. We couldn’t afford to drill many deep wells on our own to get access to rock samples, so we rely on relationships with industry.”