This week we will vote for the future of this country. If you are aware of climate change and other threats to our environment and therefore to our civilisation, it helps to take note of how the different parties plan to respond to these threats. What are they saying in their manifestos about: Energy and Climate change Water (services and resources) Mining and … [Read more...]
Fracking and water: what we can learn from the US experience
Many issues are poorly understood by those involved with and affected by fracking, the US shale gas industry can offer lessons Water is a critical but contentious resource for the fracking industry, which is booming in the US and poised to take off globally. Despite vast media coverage on the topic, many issues remain poorly understood by policymakers, the business community … [Read more...]
Fracking directly linked to earthquakes for the first time
Geologists in Columbus, Ohio, have for the first time linked earthquakes in a geologic formation deep under the Appalachians to hydraulic fracturing, leading the state to issue new permit conditions Friday in certain areas that are among the nation's strictest. A state investigation of five small tremors last month in the Youngstown area, in the Appalachian foothills, found … [Read more...]
Editor’s note: Ditch the fossils?
If there is one time when this nation speaks with one voice it’s when we experience power cuts. We seem unified in our addiction to fossil fuels. Suddenly the complaints roll in from business, domestic, rich and poor alike. We can’t cook, we can’t run our factories, the aeroplanes are delayed. Chaos ensues. Of course we need power. We are dependent on Uncle Eskom and if he … [Read more...]
Fracking in South Africa: a civil society perspective
Fracking has been perhaps the hottest environmental topic in South Africa in the last year – and for good reason. While industry would have us see hydraulic fracturing as the cure to South Africa’s energy shortages, communities, environmentalists, and a range of experts have raised serious concerns. So next month (actually just before Shell hosts a similar talk) … [Read more...]
Shell moet antwoord oor hidrobreking – AfriForum
Die waghond vir burgerregte, AfriForum, is gekant teen en bekommerd oor die moontlike gevolge van skaliegasontginning in Suid-Afrika. Hierdie organisasie het ʼn brief aan RoyalDutch Shell en Shell (SA) gerig waarin die maatskappye uitgenooi is om met hulle in gesprek te tree oor verskeie vrae wat deur verteenwoordigers van gemeenskappe dwarsoor Suid-Afrika ingedien is, waarin … [Read more...]
Water, wealth and whites
Stretching across the heart of South Africa, the Karoo has stirred emotions for centuries, a stunning semi-desert wilderness that draws artists, hunters and the toughest of farmers. It is now rousing less romantic passions. If energy companies and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) get their way, it will soon be home to scientists and geologists mapping out shale … [Read more...]
Government publishes new fracking regulations
Our government seems determined to ensure that fracking for shale gas will happen in this country, despite years of resistance and much evidence of the dangers this action would hold for the environment and for our nation. This week the government published two proposed new laws regarding the environmental regulation of fracking, “which indicates commencement of such … [Read more...]
Minister Molewa urged to address fracking implications
The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) considers the Minister’s decision to gazette the intention to declare fracking a controlled activity a portent of the risk fracking poses to our water resources in the greater Karoo. WESSA continues to urge the Government to exercise the precautionary principle enshrined in the National Environmental Management Act … [Read more...]
State intends to go ahead with fracking
In a General Notice, published by the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Bomo Edna Molewa, dated 23 August 2013, there is a clear indication that the state intends to allow exploration for the purposes of shale gas production. The process used to obtain shale gas is colloquially referred to as "fracking". The Minister has also reiterated in a press briefing in … [Read more...]
The latest on SA’s fracking tug-of-war
A South African government plan to allow fracking in the vast Karoo semi-desert has been condemned as "completely irresponsible" by environmental campaigners, who have vowed to fight it in court. The Karoo is bigger than Germany at more than 400,000 square kilometres. It contains about 100 towns and a million people and has been celebrated by poets for its bleak beauty. The … [Read more...]
Global activists warn SA against fracking
European environmental activists have warned that the oil and gas industry “cuts corners” when drilling for shale gas through hydraulic fracturing. But once disaster occurred, the companies would then blame locally outsourced suppliers, they claimed. Friends of the Earth (Foe) activist Darek Urbaniak from Poland said this during a meeting with Barry Wuganaale, the … [Read more...]
Offshore fracking on the cards for Mossel Bay?
PetroSA wants to explore the possibility of hydraulic fracturing to improve the productivity of three of the development wells currently being drilled 110km offshore of Mossel Bay. In an advertisement that recently appeared in Die Burger, environmental assessment consultant WorleyParsons and PetroSA expressed their intention to amend their existing production right and … [Read more...]
