News

Durham Energy Institute reacts to fracking announcement

(13 December 2012)

Professor Richard Davies

 Professor Richard Davies, Director of Durham Energy Institute, has called for a balanced discussion of hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas, popularly known as fracking. The government has given the go-ahead for a firm to resume hydraulic fracturing in Lancashire. 

Professor Davies said:

"What we do have is lots of data on this topic. Tens of thousands of fracturing operations have already been completed in the United States and the dimensions of the hydraulic fractures recorded at least for the last ten years. So we can adopt an empirical approach to understanding the chances of a fracture extending further than ever before.  Our analysis shows that the chances of a fracture extending further than 500 metres vertically are very small. There are also hundreds of examples of induced earthquakes caused by activities other than ‘fracking’: the filling of dams, fracturing for geothermal energy, injecting water to maintain oil fields pressure and because of subsidence triggered by mining of oil and gas.

"It is claimed that companies involved in shale gas are not releasing data about operations – but in fact there are hundreds of papers in the public domain that can be accessed and I’ve spent months poring over them while producing a paper on the topic.  The compilation and reviewing of 20 years of shale gas activity will give us a pretty good steer on the chances of something extraordinary happening. It is the sort of data mining task one of our undergraduates would excel in – some studies have been published, but in the surrounding media hysteria, a lot of basic information has been missed. This would go a long way to informing not just the broader public who are often misinformed by the media, but also industry, academic geoscientists and engineers, regulators, non government organisations and publics about safe shale gas operations in a hyperbole-free way."

Professor Davies is lead author of the research paper “Hydraulic Fractures: How Far Can They Go?” which is available from Durham University Media Relations office.

To access/download Professor Davies' paper entitled "Shale Gas: Mining The Data", visit: http://breakthrough.durham.ac.uk/durham-research/public-research-debates/