Luke Ashley

That`s absolutely right Maggie. Paul Mobbs explains the history quite well in a recent article. SLAPPing campaigners for telling the truth – the underground coal gasification lobby turns even nastier He also accurately explains why the Government refuse to listen to the concerns of residents and why the mainstream media (BBC) are not encouraging balanced debates in his latest article, Fracking - you are not important By the way. He emailed me today asking if I knew of any groups that wanted to be added to his "Extreme Marches contacts." section. If you know of any, get them to send him an email, extrememarches@fraw.org.uk

Check out page 12 of this Pdf. In the UK the total area where coals are suitable for gasification is approximately 2800 km The best (or ‘good’) areas occur in Eastern England, North Wales, Cheshire Basin, South Lancashire, the Midlands, Warwickshire, South Wales and the Midland Valley of Scotland. There is potential for combined UCG-VCBM (Coalbed methane from virgin coal seams) schemes where ‘good’ UCG areas overlap with areas that have favourable VCBM characteristics.

Yes Maggie. We will be watching this very closely. Good news for Wrexham residents though. Controversial plans to test drill for gas in Wrexham thrown out

That`s exactly right Maggie. That link to the blog is a very good example of what we can expect in ANY area of the UK. And this is why leebarnfield needs to be a little more lenient in how he moderates the thread. One cannot talk about the potential impacts of extreme energy exploration and exploitation in a particular area if it has not happened yet. All we can do is tell people what is happening in other areas and if you have been researching for 4 years as I have, you can work out what the next moves will be and how the frackers operate. They are like dodgy car sales reps to start with and sell a very convincing story about how it will only be exploration. This is just a way of getting their foot jammed in the door. Once that happens, any Council or community will find it very difficult to what they REALLY have planned. We are told we should consider exploration planning applications on their own merit. Well to do that, you HAVE to consider what has happened in other parts of the country and how extensions to planning permission are applied for and before you know it, your area has become an industrialised fracking zone with toxic radioactive chemical wastes being dumped into nearby waterways because the water treatment facilities are not equipped to handle such waste. So my advice is to keep the chain on the door when they come knocking. Give yourself all the time you need to properly asses the dangers and impacts. Make sure that every single household in the proposed affected area know about the proposals. This could save the council and local police a LOT of money down the line. Whatever the frackers try to bribe your council with will be minuscule compared to the cost of policing future protests. Have a think about why these protests are happening. They are for the same reason women took to the streets to fight for equal rights, It`s because they and we anti frackers KNOW we are right and that fracking and extreme energy are wrong. If people do as I have done, and do their OWN research rather than jumping on some sound bite bandwagon in support of the Tory Government, people will realise that a shale gas revolution in the UK needs to be fiercly opposed as it has been done in many other towns, cities and countries around the world. People need to try and not focus too much on the word `fracking` and potential water contamination. People need to take a look at the much wider picture and you cannot do that by ordering people to give factual and unbiased information about energy extraction in the locality the forum covers. Your local community is my local community when it comes to shale and coal bed methane extraction. If you know the geology, you will realise there are no borders and that we could be seeing drilling rigs from Shrewsbury to Chester. What happens in your community could have a knock on effect in my community and so on.

I see. Perhaps you could check the rest of the thread and remove some links unrelated to the local area. Being that this is an unbiased Forum. Now I have to spend some time looking through other threads to make sure there has not been any `Campaigning`. I would hate to think I`ve been singled out as a `troublesome` campaigner by adding my first ever post to an already established thread if there are others who are obviously freely campaigning.

I added a few links to back up what I wrote above. Must be one of those forums where I need to have made a certain amount of posts before links are allowed. Sorry for sounding like I know what I`m talking about and people should listen.

No amount of science or robustness of a regulatory regime can prove fracking is safe or ensure the level of safety now or in the future. NOBODY can predict that human error or machine and equipment failure will not occur. But history tells us that the hydrocarbon extraction industry experiences human error and equipment failure on a daily basis resulting in serious injuries and fatalities along with catastrophic environmental damages. In light of this knowledge, and the fact that fracking gone wrong can cause irreversible damage to, aquifers, soil, air quality and the climate, that affect the majority, the long-term impacts that surround the shale and coal bed methane extraction industries outweigh, * BY FAR*, the short term economic advantages to be gained by a select few. One third of government ministers linked to UK companies fuelling climate change. Neither can anybody predict whether natural events such as earthquakes, ground movements or build up in formation pressures will or will not occur during drilling, production or long after plug and abandonment that can impact on the integrity of a well. Total global ban. Nothing less will do.