Report: Shale gas / Schiste gas

The outcome of Shale Gas - Les Alternatifs, Alliance for Green Socialism

The world is running out of oil & gas. Capitalism has a huge investment in oil/gas infrastructure and use, so tries sources that are more difficult and more expensive, such as schiste gas. Traditional oil and gas is in large continuous fields, easy to drill into.  Schiste gas distributed in millions of tiny separate pockets. It is extracted by drilling down, then along horizontally, breaking up the rock formations, pumping in water & chemicals, and pumping out the gas.

Bad effects include:
- poisoning the ground and the water supply with chemicals (they will not disclose what chemicals they use)
- releasing methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas causing global warming
- changing the geological structure, causing earthquakes
- impact of thousands of surface well-heads

An underlying problem is that, if it were successful, schiste gas would lock us in to using fossil fuels, generating greenhouse gases, for a long time.

In France there is a powerful (but unevenly distributed) mobilisation against schiste gas, strongest in the south east (a demonstration of 20,000 in a village), based on citizens and local collectives, and acknowledged by political parties. Fifty municipalities have declared against schiste gas.Over 60 exploration licences have been granted. A law of July 2011 prohibits fracking – but the government has revoked nonky only three licences so far..

There is schiste gas, and interest in extracting it, in much of the rest of Europe, from Sweden to Hungary to Spain. Most governments favour schist gas at least in principle. Poland has large amounts and would like less dependence on Russia. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria would like more energy independence.

In Bulgaria exploration started in 2009 but has now been halted by protests. In Romania exploration has been stopped. Germany has paused exploration for further study by a commission. In Britain, exploration has been paused for further study of the seismic impact, after earthquakes caused by fracking.

In the USA there are over a million production wells.

Since the international water alternative summit in March 2012, a European network against fracking has been set up, with another meeting in, Sep 2012. The people’s summit in rio in June 2012 issued a resolution signed by dozens of people with the support of a score of organisations.

In France, a defensive struggle – the fight against schiste gas – poses the question of transition to different forms of energy. The defensive fight moves into a constructive phase..