Wind farms require 700 times more land than fracking to produce the same amount of energy!

Fracking does not create this kind of landscapes ...

Fracking is clearly the better alternative when it comes to creating small intrusion on the landscape:

A wind farm requires 700 times more land to produce the same amount of energy as a fracking site, according to analysis by the energy department’s recently-departed chief scientific advisor.

Prof David MacKay, who stood down from the Government role at the end of July, published analysis putting shale gas extraction “in perspective”, showing it was far less intrusive on the landscape than wind or solar energy.

His intervention was welcomed by fracking groups, who are battling to win public support amid claims from green groups and other critics that shale gas extraction will require the “industrialisation” of the countryside.

Hundreds of anti-fracking protesters on Thursday occupied a field near Blackpool neighbouring a proposed fracking site for energy firm Cuadrilla.

Prof MacKay said that a shale gas site uses less land and “creates the least visual intrusion”, compared with a wind farm or solar farm capable of producing the equivalent amount of energy over 25 years. --

Prof MacKay, who is Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, said that a shale gas pad of 10 wells would require just 2 hectares of land and would be visible - due to an 85-foot-high drilling rig - from 77 hectares of surrounding area. However, the drilling rig would be in place for "only the first few years of operations".

By contrast, a wind farm capable of producing the same energy would span an area of 1,450 hectares, requiring 87 turbines each 328-foot tall.

Read the entire article here

 

New study debunks another greenie propaganda slogan: Fracking does NOT cause any significant earthquakes

Another of the envirofundamentalist greenies' favorite propaganda slogans, "fracking causes dangerous earthquakes" has now been debunked:

Hydraulic fracturing used to access oil and gas from rock and shale hasn’t caused “significant” earthquakes, according to a study by Durham University.

“Hydraulic fracturing is not a significant mechanism for inducing felt earthquakes,” Richard Davies, director of the U.K. university’s energy institute, said today in a statement. “The size and number of felt earthquakes caused by fracking is low compared to other manmade triggers such as mining, geothermal activity or reservoir water storage.”

The new study is of course a bitter pill to swallow for groups like Greenpeace:

Tremors aren’t the only concern about the method, known as fracking, according to a Greenpeace statement. “Communities have also expressed concern about noise, disruption, traffic, falling house prices and a general industrialization of the English countryside,” Lawrence Carter, an energy campaigner for the environmental group, said in the statement.

It is interesting to see Greenpeace suddenly interested in noise, falling house prices and the preservation of the English countryside. These same greenies have no problem with all this when it comes to filling the English countryside with thousands of noisy, bird killing, ineffective and ugly wind turbines.

French/German television channel ARTE joins the anti-fracking campaign

The French/German television channel ARTE last night lost whatever was left of its credibility in covering energy matters, by broadcasting the Polish-American film maker Lech Kowalski's anti-fracking "documentary" "Gas-Fieber" (Gas Fever). 

Kowalski, whose most notable film hitherto chronicles the UK punk scene in the 70's, had managed to find a few half hysteric people in Pennsylvania and Poland, who seemed to blame shale gas exploration for almost anything that had gone wrong with their lives. And, of course, Kowalski did not allow any objective studies (which show that there are no “proven cases where the fracking process itself has affected water” - Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator) spoil his anti-fracking message. Neither were any representatives of the shale gas industry given a chance to address the purely anecdotal "evidence". 

The "debate" that followed the "documentary" was another low for ARTE. The French moderator was clearly in the same team with the invited two French anti-fracking activists leaving the cautiously pro shale gas German MEP Michael Paul to play a very minor role. 

The people in charge of Gazprom's anti-fracking campaign must have been very pleased with the evening. If they did not already sponsor this program, Kowalski and ARTE will have no problems finding funding for their next propaganda effort. 

PS
ARTE could have invited e.g. US ambassador to Germany, Philip D. Murphy to participate in the debate. He could have provided all the facts that were lacking in the program.