THERE is considerable hysteria regarding the issue of fracking and not much
science, and this is not good. While it is important that there are
safeguards when any new technology is to be introduced, a blanket ban on
future developments is not a good idea particularly when with regard to
electricity generation coal stations like Longannet are like likely to
close in the near future. As this happens those who resist the novel
extraction techniques should state where we are going to get our energy
from in future, as they are also likely to oppose the development and
building of new nuclear stations. They should also state their opinions on
the likely increase in gas and electricity prices as more conventional
sources of fuel dry up.

It is interesting to look at a particular point in time this week to see
the sources of UK electricity:

coal 22 per cent, combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) 29 per cent (that is 51
per cent from fossil fuels), nuclear 23 per cent, wind six per cent (from
an approximate maximum of 10 per cent) pumped hydro one per cent, standard
hydro 1.2 per cent, biomass five per cent and approximately 12 per cent
from the interconnectors from France, Holland, Ireland and the East-West
connector (as a result of rounding the total is just short of 100 per cent).

When Longannet does shut down it will need to be replaced and the most
likely replacement would be CCGT. If a station of the same output was to be
built then the carbon dioxide emissions would be about 60 per cent of that
from the existing station. The question is where is the gas to come from?
Those who oppose fracking should give the answer. Carbon capture techniques
when these are developed applied to a gas turbine system would reduce the
CO2 output even further and there is less to store away.

As can be seen from the above figures wind energy is about six per cent of
the total. During spells of little wind this total can be less than one per
cent. Those who say “just build more wind farms” do not realise that there
are technical issues when wind energy as a percentage of the total goes
above around 20 per cent; 100 per cent is out of the question.

So let us wait for the science and engineering to determine the best ways
of extracting gas which is locked in to shale and other sources and perhaps
in another 50 years the work being done on nuclear fusion will have
developed to the extent that we can really have zero emission power
generation. In the meantime a mixed system is the best we can do.

Louie Macari,
42 Imlach Place. Motherwell.


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