{"id":322167,"date":"2017-08-18T04:14:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T03:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/fracked-off-level-of-britains-shale-gas-reserves-has-been-hyped-says-geology-professor\/"},"modified":"2017-08-18T04:14:43","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T03:14:43","slug":"fracked-off-level-of-britains-shale-gas-reserves-has-been-hyped-says-geology-professor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/fracked-off-level-of-britains-shale-gas-reserves-has-been-hyped-says-geology-professor\/","title":{"rendered":"Fracked off? Level of Britain\u2019s shale gas reserves has been \u2018hyped,\u2019 says geology professor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Britain was thought to have potentially \u201cvery large\u201d reserves of shale gas for the fracking industry to extract. However, according to a geology professor, the supply has been grossly overestimated.<\/p>\n

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Prof John Underhill from Heriot-Watt University called on the UK government to come up with an alternative plan to extract gas, as he claimed the shale deposits under their feet were formed 55 million years too late.<\/p>\n

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Read more<\/p>\n


\n \"\u00a9\u00a0Paul
\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

The professor slashed the UK\u2019s potential for gas production, claiming the movement of tectonic plates had had a detrimental impact on its shale deposits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe complexity of the shale gas basins hasn\u2019t been fully appreciated so the opportunity has been hyped,\u201d<\/em> he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Because tectonic plates lifted and deformed the shale gas basins, they were eventually emptied of both gas and oil, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor fracking to work, the shale should be thick enough, sufficiently porous, and have the right mineralogy.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe organic matter must have been buried to a sufficient depth and heated to the degree that it produces substantial amounts of gas or oil,\u201d<\/em> the professor explained.<\/p>\n

Underhill remarked that the geological element has been left out of the current debate surrounding the viability of fracking, both from an environmental and economic point of view.<\/p>\n

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Read more<\/p>\n


\n \"Anti-fracking
\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m neutral about fracking, so long as it doesn\u2019t cause environmental damage.<\/em><\/p>\n

But the debate is between those who think fracking is dangerous and those who think it will help the economy \u2013 and no-one\u2019s paying enough attention to the geology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fracking firm Cuadrilla responded to the professor\u2019s claims, saying it will reduce \u201cspeculation\u201d<\/em> over Britain\u2019s shale capacity by carrying out drills.<\/p>\n

Cuadrilla\u2019s technical director, Mark Lappin, told the BBC: \u201cWe have noted the BGS [British Geological Survey] estimates for gas-in-place and consider that volume to be indicative of a very large potential reserve.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the purpose of our current drilling operations to better understand the reserve, reduce speculation from all sides and decide if and how to develop it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI expect Professor Underhill would be supportive of the effort to understand the resource including geological variation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: 17 Aug, 2017 11:48 Britain was thought to have potentially \u201cvery large\u201d reserves of shale gas for the fracking industry to extract. However, according to a geology professor, the supply has been grossly overestimated. Prof John Underhill from Heriot-Watt University called on the UK government to come up with an alternative plan to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":322168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-322167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}