Of course to make a profit you do have to able to sell your product for more than it costs to produce don’t you?

With Motley Fool describing iGas as a “ticking time bomb” and reporting that “based on its current forecasts it is projected to breach certain of its bond covenants in the second half of 2016” things are not looking too healthy for our fracking friends are they?

They posted a plangent complaint on their Facebook page about being misunderstood – it was very touching!

The constant efforts to smear and discredit @BackingFracking, its members and supporters, is really quite gratifying…it shows how worried ‪#‎fracking‬ opponents are.

Unproven allegations that Backing Fracking is an industry astroturfing group, constant efforts to identify, “out” and then undermine the credibility of supporters – and now an outright lie that we offered cash to people in return for attending a demo – all show that there is nothing that anti-frackers won’t do in order to try and control the media perception of fracking.

It also highlights their growing desperation and concern about the emergence of a series of residents groups all supporting shale gas extraction.

You can keep on trying to defame us, you can keep trying to shut us up, and you can keep trying to intimidate us, but listen up folks: it won’t work, and only makes us stronger and more determined to carry on our campaigning.

Now, it’s quite funny to read these shills complaining that they are being discredited and smeared when that is all they have done to others on their Facebook Page and Twitter accounts for the last 3 months. They have hardly attempted to put forward a positive argument in favour of fracking since Christmas, even trying to distance themselves from their poster boy Stephen Tindale’s claims that fracking might be a bridge fuel in recent days.

But let’s analyse what they said a little shall we?

The allegations that Backing Fracking is an astroturfing group are “unproven” but they are not described as “untrue“, which is quite revealing.

They apparently feel hard done by because people make efforts to identify their supporters and their interests, but fail to see the obvious point that real grassroots supporters are open about who they are. It doesn’t need an effort to work out who I am – you just have to ask if it’s not obvious. Anti-frackers on the Fylde don’t hide behind anonymity or get upset when people find out what WE do for jobs. It seems that they are complaining that by identifying the vested interests of those who speak for their group we are undermining them? But that can surely only be the case if the vested interests described put those people in a negative light can’t it?

I don’t know the truth regarding allegations that people were offered cash to attend a demo, but I do know that the attendance at their events is embarrassingly low, so if they were offering cash it clearly wasn’t enough.

And then we have the accusation that anti-frackers are trying to control the media perception of fracking. Now that coming from an organisation with such strong links to the North West Energy Task Force is pretty hilarious isn’t it. Yes , that the “Task force” that is run by PR company Westbourne Communications. We may not have their budgets but it would appear from the outraged squeals here that we are succeeding in out-gunning them in every way.

I’m not sure where they get the mistaken idea that we are in the slightest bit concerned about “the emergence of a series of residents groups all supporting shale gas extraction” because we are only aware of 3 – Backing Fracking, FORGE and Blackpool Fracking for a Better Future. They have all been around for an age and  same half dozen people post on all three.

Backing Fracking has only 255 Facebook likes, 181 Twitter followers, a mailing list of about 130 and refuses to admit how few people have signed their pro-fracking petition.

FORGE has 285 Facebook likes – we imagine most are the same people who have like Backing Fracking, but we can’t tell because they routinely block anyone who comments disagreeing with fracking.

Blackpool Fracking For a Better Future had over 650 Facebook “members” within a week of starting up but has now declined to 591, presumably as people who were signed up by the organisers got tired of the same old drivel from the same old people – amusingly, the only two people to have started discussions on there since early January are our old friends Michael Roberts and Ken Wilkinson, who coincidentally are just about the only people apart from the anonymous “Backing Fracking” and his pal Lorraine to post on the other two groups. Groups that grow organically (like grass roots supporters tend to) don’t suddenly acquire 650 members and then decline in numbers over the course of a year.

So where are these new groups Backing Fracking speaks of emerging, and where are the emerging from?

The truth is that there is no grassroots support for fracking as has been made very evident by the marked absence of local residents without interests in the industry speaking at the public sessions of the inquiry.

We’re very sure though that Backing Fracking will carry on campaigning though – after all they raised £1,100 in donations back in October for a web site some flyers and expenses, and we’ve never seen a flyer, they don’t have a website and they claim they don’t bribe people to attend demos – they’ll have to spend it on something won’t they?

The list for Tuesday includes the following pro-speakers

James Rudd – NSG Environmental
Michael Roberts – Retired Vicar and general fractivist
Stuart Livesey – Delta Imperial Credit
Jim Harrison – Builder and smallholding owner
Nick Campbell – Inspired Energy
Frank McLaughlin – Retired Commercial Director
Clare Smith – Stay Blackpool

The list for Thursday includes the following pro-speakers

Devon Platt – Geology Student
Paul Linderman – Paul Linderman Lettings
Tony Raynor – Abbey Telecom

Which one of the nine is the odd one out and why?

The answer is international jet-setter Devon Platt as he is the only speaker who does not have (as far as we can tell) a clear and documented connection to the discredited North West Energy Task Force.

Lined up against these industry apologists will be 99 passionate local residents.

Cuadrilla seem as far away from having a social licence to operate as they ever have been.

On her website Ms Allanson is scathing about those who
“promote the view that tourism in Ryedale will be ruined when we at FORGE know that that decades of gas extraction in the area has had no adverse consequences for tourism whatsover (sic). The ignorance and lack of knowledge of critics who are opposed to fracking knows no bounds and yet some people still believe them.”

How funny then to read Ms Allanson’s reaction back in 2010 to Moorland Energy’s plans to build a gas processing facility on a proposed farmland site (2.2 hectares)  to the east of Thornton Dale and south-east of Wilton just 2.5 miles from her own tourism business.

Lorraine Allanson, who runs a bed and breakfast and holiday cottage complex near Pickering, said: “This seems to have come out the blue and we don’t want it to impact on what is an absolutely stunning area.”

She added: “This is also in the Vale of Pickering and full of tourists, which is the biggest industry. There all sorts of issues including safety.”

In another article she is quoted as saying

“So many businesses rely on the beauty of the area and if this gasworks is going to be a blot on the landscape we need to know where it will be.”

Funnily enough, one Neil Milbanke, who is one of Lorraine’s ardent supporters on the FORGE facebook page was so anti gas development 6 years ago that he set up a protest group. His recent Damascene conversion to supporting shale gas is rather amazing isn’t it?

Of course, it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind as Shania Twain reminded us recently, but honestly Lorraine,”that don’t impress me much”

It is also odd that somebody who is so dismissive of what she calls protestors should also have a bit of history in opposing development herself – I wonder what a B&B owner’s reasons for objecting to a development of 46 Holiday lodges and an education/conference centre in Whitby – 20 miles from her own business might be?

Funny old world in the Backing Fracking camp isn’t it?

POST SCRIPT – It seems I got it ALL wrong

Here is Lorraine’s response

Sorry Lorraine – I didn’t say you joined a campaign group or  wrote letters of objection about the Moorland application did I? Where did you get that from? I just quoted what you told the papers and they printed. I don’t need to clutch at any straws to show the bizarre difference between what you said then and what you do now.

The fact that you objected to the Whitby application as part of a group makes not a blind bit of difference.

The lady doth protest too much methinks!

I would have put this response on your FORGERY page but you won’t let me post on there

POST POST SCRIPT

And now Ken Wilkinson has ridden in to defend this damsel in distress:

Clockwork Ken (named thus by his paragliding club as he is apparently so easy to wind up)  really doesn’t like me because I give him a hard time on the many newspaper columns that he infects with his generalisations about how safe fracking is because it’s run by “experts”. He really, really hates it when I ask him to try to back his statements up and he can’t

What is particularly hilarious about his comment is that Kenny didn’t bat an eyelid when his pals Backing Fracking launched ad hom attacks at  me as recently as 13th February (in fact he joined in!) and to Barbara Richardson on 1st February. Again he joined in the thread without whining once about “unacceptable” ad hominem attacks that “even the gutter press would see as unacceptable” LOL.  Funnily enough he really doesn’t seem to be able to ignore me ins spite of his protestations.

In fact Backing Fracking are so obsessed with me that in spite of the fact that I haven’t posted on their petulant Facebook Page since Christmas they have launched at least  7 ad hominem attacks on me and several more against others. It’s quite shillarious

The Police were very complimentary about the exemplary behaviour of all of those present – it was largely a good humoured event, helped along by the hilarity occasioned by the bumbling attempts of the Backing Fracking contingent to look like a cross section  of normal people (hint – having a few females apart from Ellie and Lorraine along might help a little next time).

We couldn’t help noticing that their organisation seemed to fall apart completely in the face of such a large contingent of people opposing fracking – mind you we did understand that it would be very hard for them to run that gauntlet with their heads held high, talking to one another and smiling at people as per their instructions.

The promised “branded Transit type tipper” was conspicuous by its absence and certainly didn’t feature in their photo call, so we mocked one up for them.

The event was supposed to be being run by their very own “Parade Commander” which sounds rather grand and frightfully well organised. It seems that this Parade Commander, Colin Johnson, may be the film extra we can see on this website.

How appropriate that a group pretending to be something it is not should be being organised by somebody who appears to make a living by playing a part! We think he may have been worried about being upstaged by all the coverage of Mark Ruffalo though as he wasn’t much in evidence and to say the “parade” was shambolic is an understatement.

Sadly Colin may not impress all of the Backing Fracking followers –

so maybe that’s another reason it all fell apart – we know what Backing Fracking’s Rob thinks of “actorvists” after all!

This plan above shows their original planned route and the purple line shows how they shambled towards their allocated space. They tried hard to compete with the happy noise from the anti-frackers but it was clear that their hearts weren’t really in it. A fact that was confirmed when after 30 minutes or so they all shuffled off again, with one of the many men there being overheard saying that he was only being paid to be there until 10:00. We have no idea who he works for, but it made us all laugh.

According to their Facebook page they also planned to deliver some coal to the Football Club. We didn’t see any evidence of that so maybe the whipround didn’t raise enough, or maybe they took it up the tradesman’s entrance.

Anyway – here is the email they sent out.

“If you are attending, please remember to smile a lot!”  oops #fail – we’ve never seen a more grumpy glowery looking shame-faced lot. Here’s a still taken from their own video:

“It really is now or never” – well if that’s the case on the basis of this morning’s showing it looks like never.

The best laid plans of mice and men eh..?

UPDATE ON PLANS FOR TUESDAY 9TH FEBRUARY

Hi everyone,

Further to our earlier email, we wanted to firm up some of the details for next weeks’ pro-fracking supporter’s (sic) rally.

WE NEED TO HAVE A SHOW OF SUPPORT ON DAY 1, TUESDAY 9th FEBRUARY!

Please join us if you can, for what we intend to be a pleasant, friendly and good-natured demonstration of support.

Event Plan

The group will assemble at the Form Up Point (FUP) in the car park South West of the crossroads of Bloomfield Road and Seasiders way at approximately 8:45am – 9:00am (point 1 on the map). Placards and banners will be available to collect here, but do please feel free to make and bring your own!

Once the participants are all in attendance and have been briefed, the group will move North crossing Bloomfield Road and enter the car park opposite the ground. The group will halt and wait adjacent to the road in preparation for the arrival of some vehicles that will be joining the demo (point 2 on the map). This is also the Line Of Departure / Step Off Point.

At some time between 9:00am and 9:15am the vehicles which are being formed up at Aldi car park will be called forward. As the first vehicle arrives at point 2 it will be held while the group assembles behind it and the second vehicle, a branded Transit type tipper, will position itself behind the group. All will set off North along Seasiders way to the roundabout, go around and make their way back to the original Step Off Point (position 2 on the map) where all vehicles will disperse immediately, with the exception of the Transit tipper, which the group will gather around.

The group will pause here while a spokesperson makes a short public address, and for the gathered media to take photographs and conduct interviews with the spokesperson and others.

After this, the Transit tipper will depart and the group will mingle around in the area specified by the Police, to show continued support.

Timings

Assemble 8:45am – 9:00am

Step Off (start the procession) between 9:15am and 9:30am (TBC)

Who’s in charge on the day?

Colin Johnson will be our “parade commander” for the day, and will be on hand to explain the plan in detail as well as any important “dos and dont’s” as far as local police are concerned.

Colin’s word is the law, and he will make all the decisions on the day.

WE NEED LOCAL SPOKESPEOPLE AND MARSHALS

We already have some key spokespeople lined up to talk to the media, but we’d like to nominate some more.

It would also be helpful if we could designate some of you as marshals to help Colin and make sure the demo runs smoothly.

If you’d like to assist in either way, please let us know!

IT IS VITAL THAT THE MEDIA SEE THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO THIS STORY, AND THAT SHALE GAS ENJOYS SUPPORT IN LANCASHIRE!

If you are attending, please remember to smile a lot!

During the short march past the entrance to the Blackpool FC ground, keep your heads held high, talk to one another and smile at people.

When the march past ends back at the Step Off Point (position 2 on the map) the Transit tipper will park so that the football ground is visible behind it, and we need you to gather around in front of it in small groups of 3, 4 and 5 people with your placards and banners.

Phil will make a short address to our group using a portable PA system, thanking you all for your support and to also explain more about just why it is we’re Backing Fracking and so should everyone else, and will give you some ideas on other things you could do to keep showing support for Lancashire shale gas.

This is a visual representation of what we want to try and achieve, so that when local journalists take photos or film this part, we want supporters in the foreground in clusters, Phil and the tipper in the middle ground, and the football stadium visible in the background (see – this is why we need marshals!)

PLEASE RSVP AND CONFIRM YOUR ATTENDANCE

We’d really appreciate it if you could RSVP to this email so that we can get a handle on likely numbers, something our police liaison have asked for.

It really is now or never. If we, as ordinarly (sic) citizens of Lancashire don’t stand up to be counted, people will simply assume shale has no support – and we can’t let that happen.

Kind regards,

The Backing Fracking team

Here’s how Ellie Rylands describes their plight

“22 year old Ellie Rylands, one of the organisers, says it’s time that people saw shale gas enjoys support not just from businesses, but also from ordinary members of the community: “Until now, whenever shale gas has been discussed, all we’ve heard are the opinions of the industry and businesses on one side, and anti-fracking campaigners on the other.  But there are lots of people in the middle that believe shale gas can be extracted safely in this country, and can see how it could create a massive jobs boost for the area, especially for young people like me emerging from college and university.”

Did Ellie mention that her Linked In profile shows that she was actually employed by Cuadrilla and Centrica last year?

So Ellie is clearly just a “resident”  in the middle of this bewildering battle and not part of what she, herself, describes as “the industry and businesses on one side“. Or maybe not. By the way if anyone isn’t sure about the link between the North West Energy Task Force and Cuadrilla, Ellie makes it quite explicit there. She is one link between NWETF, Cuadrilla and Backing Fracking.

Anyway – we already know from their last outing that Backing Fracking’s most vocal supporters and spokespeople are overwhelmingly made up of business people who stand to gain financially if fracking goes ahead.  Quotes were given to the media last time they appeared at Blackpool Football Club by Phil Wilson of Tutis Concepts, James Mansell of Clear Solutions International Ltd from Shropshire and Tim Freshney of WJF Technical Support. All business directors whose business either already get business from Cuadrilla or might presumably expect to if fracking goes ahead.

But still Backing Fracking claims to represent ordinary “residents“, and not those with vested interests. This is how they describe themselves on their Facebook page.

How does this claim stack up in reality?

Well, I am fortunate enough that local people share information with me, and clearly not everyone they think is “backing fracking” actually is.

I was amused to learn that a schoolboy error in a recent mailshot, headed “It’s now or never!” (yes it is by the way LOL) and begging 131 supporters to attend their rally at Blackpool Football Club on 9th , meant that they put all of the email addresses in the “CC” field and not the “BC” field. That really was rather amateur of them, and I imagine some of the addressees may have been none too pleased about it. It’s also a bit embarrassing for a group which seems to have a lot of security company directors as its leaders and spokesmen to have proved so dilatory in their handling of such sensitive information isn’t it?

As a result the addresses were all available to everyone who received the email. From there it wasn’t hard to identify many of those on the list and the results are very interesting.

Working with Preston New Road Action Group, we were able to identify 77 of the 131 from their email addresses using a bit of Google sleuthing where necessary. I won’t identify any individuals by name here, but we have separated people into categories as best as we could.

• PR Pros – we identified 4 people who work in PR for companies like Cuadrilla, PPS, and 2 other PR companies
• North West Energy Task Force/ NW Lancs Chamber of Commerce – we identified 10 who were either NWETF panellists or NWLCoC officers. (We already know that NWETF has its admin and communications provided by Westbourne Communications, and the NW Lancs CoC and Cuadrilla have been hand in glove for some time now)
• NWETF advocates – we identified 8 emails belonging to people who appear to work for companies that allow themselves to be listed as NWETF “advocates” – some of the 2nd category, above,  also intersect with this group of course.

At this point we invite you to pause and to consider just what right this group has to claim that it is made up of ordinary “residents” and not Ellie’s “industry and businesses on one side“.

• Other Businesses – we identified 27 individuals who we believe work for other businesses that could benefit from shale gas being allowed in the UK – 14 of these seem to work for just 3 companies. (Clear Solutions International, UB Services and Inspired Energy)
• Public People – we identified 9 people who are in public positions like being executives at local colleges, local councillors, officers at Lancashire sports clubs, or who run organisations that have received funding from Cuadrilla. Not exactly Ellie’s “people in the middle”.

Maybe pause again for a bit more reflection on those claims of Ellie’s here?

• Students – We identified a group of 9 people including Ellie Rylands (see above) who all seem to have a connection with Geophysics or Geology courses at the same University in Yorkshire. We also identified one individual who we believe to be one of Ellie’s relatives who we have added into this section.
• Old Friends – We identified 10 individuals (from around the UK and further afield) who are notable fracktivists on social media like Facebook and Twitter. Between them these people provide most of the content for the Backing Fracking and FORGE Facebook pages and many other pro-fracking social media channels on Facebook and Twitter.
• Unknowns – there were just 54 of the 131 email addresses (41%)  that did not lend themselves readily to identification  although we are still working on them. Some of them may eventually be slotted into the categories above, and we think we’ve recognised a handful as people we know to be opposed to fracking – one of whom was kind enough to furnish us with the list we are now analysing.

This means that nearly two thirds of those on the Backing Fracking mailing list can hardly be reasonably described as what their Facebook page calls “residents” and Ellie calls “people in the middle“. (We are ALL residents somewhere of course, but their inference is clear.)

If Backing Fracking think that our analysis above is in any way  inaccurate we’d be happy to sit down with Rob Peters and go through the list with him. If he has any corrections for us we’ll then update this page accordingly.

Given that their rally at Blackpool Football Club today, February 9th, has only received a passing mention in one local newspaper

and it has not been mentioned on any of their social media sites, which we do monitor carefully,  I think it is fair to assume that anyone attending is doing so as a result of their “It’s now or never” email sent last week to the email list we are discussing here.

Backing Fracking themselves confirmed this last night, when they tweeted that they hadn’t invited  “people from all over the UK” (although we know from their emails that that was in fact a blatant lie, as that is precisely what they did in two emails headed “Plans for Tuesday 9th February 2016” and “It’s now or never!”)

Frankly I think it is shameful that Backing Fracking should try to pull the wool over the the media’s eyes like this. It may of course be that they are honest today and admit that they are really a group of businessmen with vested interests, a gaggle of geology students, a motley crew of drilling operatives, security guard wannabes and a few obsessive old age pensioners with too much time on their hands.

If not then I sincerely hope that the Inspector won’t have been taken in by any claimed show of “support” from “residents” or “people in the middle” on Seasiders Way. We opponents of fracking certainly aren’t!

Their attempts to construct a bit of local support to get Cuadrilla that elusive “social licence to operate” don’t seem to be working very well do they? In the words of Backing Fracking on his own Facebook Page on Monday night “What a rotten bunch…”

POST SCRIPT

Yesterday Backing Fracking’s main media spokesman was a company director called Chris Evans who runs a company called Cee Cee Tv Systems from his home near St Annes.

Chris’s Linked In profile shows

Would it be too much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder whether Mr Evans can see any of the 22 jobs promised in Arup’s environmental statement coming the way of his “One Stop Full Security Solution“, now that Cuadrilla appear to have disavowed Tutis Concepts , whose director spoke out for Backing Fracking in December.

When asked about any connection between Cuadrilla and Tutis Concepts on the Victoria Derbyshire show yesterday, Cuadrilla were quick to claim that it “no longer works with the security company mentioned in that film” . There’s nothing like loyalty  is there? If anyone spots any Tutis Concepts Security guards at BFC this month do let us know! We were under the impression that they were  Cuadrilla’s preferred supplier under their cosy arrangement with the North West Chamber of Commerce until we heard that.

Assuming Cuadrilla were being totally straightforward with Victoria Derbyshire, I wonder what soured their relationship?

POST POST SCRIPT

Predictably (and they are so predictable) Backing Fracking were not very happy to learn that they had a mole, and even less happy to have their membership analysed as above. As a result whoever runs the Backing Fracking Facebook page has decided that attack is the best form of defence and is devoting far to much time for the good of  his or her own mental health on launching attacks on Refracktion and me personally. Take a look – it’s great fun Here is today’s instalment

What is so hilarious about this is that you could not ask for a clearer illustration of the fact that whatever shill is behind this account has no local connection or understanding of local history. He clearly doesn’t realise that Lytham Quays is actually visible from my front bedroom, and he has no idea what happened back in 2005 when more than 90% of those voting in a referendum organised by the Lytham St Annes Express opposed the scheme (which was why I complained about the ludicrous quote made by Kensington developments in the Telegraph article).

Trying to bluster his way out of his or her idiocy on Twitter this afternoon we have seen Backing Fracking

• claim that a house in Lytham is not in Lytham
• insinuate that the LSE allowed their poll to be manipulated
• claim that the population of Lytham actually lives in St Annes on Sea

it is hard to see how this person could demonstrate a greater disconnection with local residents if he or she deliberately set out to do it!

QED I think

Back in 2012 we raised a series of issues with the Advertising Standards Authority regarding a leaflet sent out to local residents by Cuadrilla. Several of our complaints were upheld in the ruling of 2013 including one which stated

Cuadrilla uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas

The ASA duly adjudicated that

On this point, the claim “Cuadrilla uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas” breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.11 (Exaggeration).

We were disappointed a couple of months later to have to report that Cuadrilla used almost exactly the same phrase in a Press Release.

Cuadrilla Resources uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas reserves

We did raise this with the ASA but they wriggled out of having to take any politically awkward action by saying:

“as it’s a press release (which is not considered advertising) we can’t take action”

It was disappointing that Cuadrilla took such a cynical attitude to the censure that they received from the ASA, but we supposed that readers would draw their own conclusions about what this says about the company, and perhaps the industry as a whole.

Imagine out surprise though when last night it was pointed out to us that Cuadrilla are making exactly the same claim on a website called http://www.shalegaslancashire.co.uk/

We think this is taking cynicism to a totally unacceptable level and would ask Francis Egan to explain why he feel able to throw the ASA’s ruling back in its face in this way. If he responds we will be happy to publish his answer here. There can be no doubt that these words are Cuadrilla’s own as the footer on the page states:

What is more concerning perhaps though is the involvement of two other bodies in making this claim – the logos of the East Lancs Chamber of Commerce and the North West Lancs Chamber of Commerce are  clearly visible on the page, and although Cuadrilla claim the copyright on all of the page content, the web site is actually registered by these two bodies.

Backing Fracking (more on them later) pointed out to us that this link between the Chambers and Cuadrilla was made public last year at http://www.lancashirebusinessview.co.uk/lancashire-chambers-join-forces-create-shale-gas-portal-50922/

This doesn’t change the fact that these Chambers will not be able to claim to offer any form of independent opinion at the enquiry which opens on 9th February.

Given the fact that local Chambers of Commerce are frequently in receipt of tax payer funding, it might seem reasonable to assume that you and I are, directly or indirectly, funding the promotion of Cuadrilla Resources’ interests by Chambers of Commerce who appear quite happy to put their names to questionable statements that have previously been censured by the ASA.

If this is not the case maybe someone from one of the Chambers can clarify the situation for us?

DECC’s Wave 15 showed us this trend:

Now if you are somebody who makes a living out of trying to pump shale gas as a viable option this must be a tad frustrating!

However, if this is you then can we suggest that you don’t try to emulate the antics of  sweary-mouthed self-styled  “shale gas expert” Nick Grealy .

He seems to have decided to try to demonstrate that opposition to shale gas is really not significant and has penned a very lengthy article on his amusing web site in which he does his best to demonstrate this.  He calls it The great myth of UK opposition to shale.

He starts with some cod-psychology (believe me Nick is no Oliver Sachs), rambling between accusing opponents of shale of having Napoleon complexes (something I suspect he may know something about) and being victims of Stockholm Syndrome.

After a little rant about social media fracktivists (LOL we are anti-fracktivists – Nick Grealy is a fracktivist) he moans “To those who live in one particular echo chamber, their self-importance,  or not, tends to be biased.” which we of course agree with 100% as regards his own peculiar little shale gas bubble.

Next he indulges in his favourite lazy trope – apparently, he claims,  all of the anti-fracking Facebook pages have been set up by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace (You know he really, greally hates them!)

We think he has perhaps received a bit of a drubbing from the press recently as there now follows a rant about local journalists who want to work in PR. He of course can’t help himself returning to this anti NGO theme saying ” local men or women who invariably are members of the tiny local Green Party or Friends of the Earth, or both, were quoted at length by local papers“. For the avoidance of doubt I belong to neither of these groups, although that may change as I learn more and more about what is happening, courtesy of researching this industry. We’re sure he knows this statement isn’t actually true, but then the Grealy “No Hot Air” brand isn’t really about facts as such it seems.

Next he quotes from some unreferenced study which he claims shows that there are only 2,000 opponents to shale operating on Twitter and Facebook. This quite a bizarre claim, but even if it were true we’d still outnumber Nick and his barmy army quite considerably.

He notes that social media allows you to share to amplify your voice, saying this without any apparent awareness that the tactic is used extensively by the people on his side of the fence.

He then has a veiled jab at his pals at Backing Fracking saying “I know there are several readers who should also perhaps get a life and stop exaggerating the influence of shale opponents. In that regard, much of the industry makes the same error of magnifying the influence of a minority.” We hope Ken, Michael, Rob, Ellie and their friends haven’t noticed as they do do such a great job for us!

After a harrumph about the Upton protesters’ camp Mr G moves on to more scientific matters.

He has noticed that there are two petitions on the Government site:

Local Councils to have final say on Fracking within their constituency

Scrap Fracking UK Wide & Invest in Green Energy

The first of these has 4,700 signatures and the second 47,922. The second one has been running for a year and closed on 22nd January

Always craving a laugh, even when it’s at his own expense, Nick now goes on to list a number of other petitions which have exercised the great British Public, presumably with the intention of placing a context around what he seems to perceive as a laughable lack of opposition to shale gas.

He milks the joke with a bit more cod-psychology before getting tremendously exciting about the mapping tool which breaks down the signatures by constituency. And how he laughs at the pathetic numbers. Only 315 in Fylde he chortles.

He witters on a bit more about  things he has read about on  Wikipedia like Traumatic Bonding before concluding

Luckily, most of us know that there is nothing to fear except fear itself. After all, most of us can count.

Sadly for him though, we can. And we also do research outside of looking up Freud on the web.

You see Nick there was another poll running concurrently with the  Scrap Fracking UK Wide & Invest in Green Energy one.

It asks people to support Shale Gas – To facilitate and accelerate the onshore fracking for shale gas

It has a grand total of 872 signatures compared to the one opposing shale gas that has 47,922

It actually has 5 days left to run so maybe Nick and his PR pals can get the number up over 1,000 if they try really hard?

So, you see Nick, you may fool the gullible and impressionable,  who appear to hang uncritically on your every word

[of course, perhaps Ken is suffering from Betrayal Bonding after your swipe at him earlier in the article?]

but, after all, most of us can count and we can also do subtraction

The pro-fracking  petition has just 5 signatures from the Fylde – just 310 less than the other one

It would seem that if you are going to start using petition numbers to draw inferences about support or opposition, then the antis are about 55 times more numerous generally in the UK than Nick and his supporter friends, and over 60 times more numerous in the Fylde.

Bang!

The video must make uncomfortable viewing if you are a pro-fracker as Mr Egan stumbles through a not very convincing case under some testing questions from his interviewer.

Some highlights:

At 5:26 Stephen Sackur  won’t have Mr Egan’s figures on polling and quoted the May 2015 YouGov Poll figures at him. Mr Egan affects not to be aware of them. Either he is not doing his job or he’s not being totally straight with us.

At 9:40 Mr Egan talks of the 23 states in the USA where it’s been going on with “no er environmental er or health er repercussions“. Really? And which ARE those?

At 11:50 we have the new line from the fracking industry about water pollution. Now that the EPA has found that there is proven contamination of some private supplies they have moved back to a rearward trench and now simply claim that there is no proven case of contamination to “public” water supplies. Watch out for that word “public” you’ll hear it again and again now.

At 13:10 he claims that methane is not a contaminant which may come as news to the scientists at Duke University

At 14:10 he gets a moment of light relief by laughing at Paul McCartney – he knows he’s safe there as nobody likes Macca much since he inflicted Mull o’ Kintyre on us all those years ago, but his relaxed mood won’t last.

At 15:15 he moves on to a bit of good old scaremongering about how the UK is running out of gas, but Sackur will have none of it and slaps him down again.

At 16:00 Mr Egan claims that “the environmental requirements for LNG  have been show, in terms of CO2 emissions to be two to three times what domestically produced gas [inaudible]” Now we’re not sure where he sources that figure from but we note Dr McKay’s report for DECC (which we know he’s read as he tries to use it debunk Howarth & Ingraffia’s methane findings elsewhere in the interview):

As long as venting scenarios are excluded, the data indicate that the total carbon footprint of shale gas exploration, extraction and transmission and use is likely to be similar to that of gas derived from conventional wells in the UK, LNG and non-EU piped gas.

At 16:50 Mr Egan actually admits that we can “in theory rely entirely for your energy supply on imports“which sort of blows his energy security schtuck out of the water.

At 17:20 he really is a bit sniffy about his ex-chairman Lord Browne but perhaps that’s to be expected given that one minute Lord Browne was growling about spending whatever it took to get shale gas happening in the UK and then he suddenly upped and left them all looking a bit foolish.

At 19:20 he really lets himself down by using the cliché of the century “we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good“.  Those of us with extensive experience of listening to shale gas proponents could see that one coming for a good half minute. It’s been used by everybody from Nick Grealy to Andrea Leadsom.

He nearly picks himself up again a moment later with “Gas is Good” – if he’d said it in German you could almost have believed it has come from the Audi PR department and not from London.

At 20:04 he claims, talking of emissions, that Dr McKay from DECC concluded that “natural gas produced from  fracking is is broadly the same as natural gas produced from conventional oil, oil reservoirs. And why wouldn’t it be“. Well perhaps if he looked at the report Dr McKay wrote he might find the answer.

All in all this wasn’t a car crash on the scale of a Michael Roberts or a Ken Wilkinson interview. Mr Egan is too skilful an operator for that but it looked to be a very uncomfortable 20 minutes for the man charged with getting shale gas working in the UK.

It’s well worth a look.

It  is interesting that the shale gas companies do not seem to observe the same standard of honesty to which they seem to believe opponents of fracking should be held.

The claims are:

The quantity of water required to frack an onshore shale gas well is broadly the same amount used to irrigate the typical British golf course each month. There are over 7,500 golf courses across the UK. This is also equivalent to the amount of water needed to run a 1,000MW coal-fired power plant for just 12 hours.

and

There have also been more than one million wells drilled around the world, and in no case has there been a single proven instance of water pollution

They can be found on this page

The claim that the amount of water required for fracking can be equated to the usage of a golf course was earlier made on page 20 of the Royal Society’s report “Shale Gas Extraction in the UK: a Review of hydraulic fracturing” where the authors write:

“Overall water use is important. Estimates indicate that the amount needed to operate a hydraulically fractured shale gas well for a decade may be equivalent to the amount needed to water a golf course for a month; the amount needed to run a 1,000 MW coal-fired power plant for 12 hours;”

You will notice, of course, that the Royal Society do not state which country the golf course might be in.

If you trace the provenance of the quote you will see The Royal Society report refers to page 50 of a report by Simon Moore from 2012 where the same claim is made.

In this report Simon Moore references a document from the fracking industry where this claim seems to have originally been made.

http://www.chk.com/Media/Educational-Library/Fact-Sheets/Corporate/Water_Use_Fact_Sheet.pdf

This document is no longer available at that URL but we do have a screen shot taken from it, which clearly shows the reference in question.

The same document is still available here . The fact that this is the source of the quote is indisputable given the additional reference both on the IGas page and in the quote in question to the 1,000 MW coal fired powerstation.

5 million gallons is approximately 19,000 cubic metres. If a golf course were to use 19,000 cubic metres in one month it would use 228,000 cubic metres in a year. That is simple maths.

To suggest that “the typical British Golf Course” uses this amount in a year is a ludicrous misrepresentation of reality.

The facts are that according to the Environment Agency the average (dare I say “typical”) English golf course is licenced to abstract in the order of 11,000 cubic metres a year. The actual volumes abstracted are considerably lower (average 5,848 cubic metres)

Page 15 of this document explains this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/290952/scho0107blwp-e-e.pdf

This report also tells us that “Environment Agency data suggest that three quarters of all water for golf course irrigation is abstracted” so we can deduce that if the typical (average) abstraction volume was about 6,000 cubic metres then actual water usage would average about 8,000 m3 per annum. This is some way short (only 3.5%) of the 228,000 m3 suggested here by the claim being made by IGas.

IGas may try to claim that they don’t mention a specific figure for usage but they should not be allowed to get out of jail that way. They cannot have the golf course and the powerstation without the accompanying quantity in the Chesapeake paper being included as well.

It is broadly accepted that water usage per well (19,000 m3) referenced in the Chesapeake document is a reasonable estimate

“Average range in water requirements between 8000 and 19,000 m”

http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/608/art%253A10.1007%252Fs00267-015-0454-8.pdf

“with each well requiring 10,000 to 25,000 m3 of water for hydraulic fracturing”

http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/509451/1/UK%20Frac%20Sand%20Resources.pdf

For their claim that the water used for fracking is the same a month’s usage at “the typical English Golf Club” to stand up then they would have to be claiming to be able to complete a High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing operation to frack a well with just 666 m3 of water.

For your reference, Cuadrilla’s frack at Preese Hall in 2011 used about 8,400 cubic metres for the fracking operation with a further 900 cubic metres for drilling. A total of 9,300 cubic metres or 14 times what IGas’s claim here would suggest.

http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/protecting-our-environment/water/water-sourcing/

The fact that these figures and examples simply don’t apply to the UK is bad enough, but , as can be seen below they have compounded the fault by adding the extra “information” about the golf courses in question being British, and the number of golf courses in Britain, in an attempt to make fracking water usage look artificially inconsequential.

“The quantity of water required to frack an onshore shale gas well is broadly the same amount used to irrigate the typical British golf course each month. There are over 7,500 golf courses across the UK. This is also equivalent to the amount of water needed to run a 1,000MW coal-fired power plant for just 12 hours.”

The statement that There are over 7,500 golf courses across the UK is quite inexplicable. Golf Club Management state on http://www.golfclubmanagement.net/2012/02/uk-and-ireland-lost-42000-members-in-2011/ that

“Golf clubs in the UK and Ireland suffered a net loss of 42,700 members in 2011, according to a new survey.

The drop of 3.1 per cent from 2010 brings the number of club members in the British Isles down to 1,326,700, spread among 2,989 golf courses (a drop from over 3,000 in 2010).”

Although the number of clubs may vary a little year on year, the claim that there are over 7,500 golf courses across the UK is clearly deliberately misleading.

So in summary, it is clear that IGas have taken figures from the US which bear little or no relationship to the reality in the UK and then tried to claim they are relevant to the UK, adding exaggerated and incorrect detail, in a way which is totally incapable of substantiation.

Further down on the same page IGas make the claim that

“There have also been more than one million wells drilled around the world, and in no case has there been a single proven instance of water pollution.”

Whilst the extent of water pollution is open to question its existence is certainly not.

In June 2015 the US EPA published its draft report “Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources” in which it unequivocally stated:

“Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances where one or more mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells.”

Later on in the executive summary we can read:

Impacts to drinking water resources from subsurface liquid and gas movement may occur if casing or cement are inadequately designed or constructed, or fail. There are several examples of these occurrences in hydraulically fractured wells that have or may have resulted in impacts to drinking water resources. In one example, an inner string of casing burst during hydraulic fracturing, which resulted in a release of fluids on the land surface and possibly into the aquifer near Killdeer, North Dakota. The EPA found that, based on the data analysis performed for the study, the only potential source consistent with conditions observed in two impacted monitoring wells was the blowout that occurred during hydraulic fracturing (U.S. EPA, 2015j). In other examples, inadequately cemented casing has contributed to impacts to drinking water resources. In Bainbridge, Ohio, inadequately cemented casing in a hydraulically fractured well contributed to the buildup of natural gas and high pressures along the outside of a production well. This ultimately resulted in movement of natural gas into local drinking water aquifers (Bair et al., 2010; ODNR, 2008). In the Mamm Creek gas field in Colorado, inadequate cement placement in a production well allowed methane and benzene to migrate along the production well and through natural faults and fractures to drinking water resources (Science Based Solutions LLC, 2014; Crescent, 2011; COGCC, 2004). These cases illustrate how construction issues, sustained casing pressure, and the presence of natural faults and fractures can work together to create pathways for fluids to migrate toward drinking water resources.

The fact that fracking wells have polluted water is no longer a matter of conjecture or open to question in any way. It is an established fact, which has been, albeit reluctantly, accepted by the fracking industry, who now hang their hopes on the finding that such events may not be “systemic”. Even this is being questioned now by EPA scientists.

Accordingly the claim made here by IGas that “There have also been more than one million wells drilled around the world, and in no case has there been a single proven instance of water pollution.” is totally misleading.

Why are they allowed to get away with making statements like this?

Given that the Advertising Standards Authority are now on record as stating that they can not regulate statements  which are not “marketing communications as defined by the Code” or are on web pages which do not  “allow consumers to buy any service or product from the website”, can these companies really get away with saying just any old thing, secure in the knowledge that there is nobody to stop them?

Anyway – IGas get our first Pants on Fire award of 2016.

It probably wont be the last one.