fracking • Wind Power For Every Home

Wind versus Fracking: The Debate Continues…

In a carefully calculated move to switch opposition to fracking to opposition to wind turbines the UK energy department’s recently-gone chief scientific advisor has claimed that a wind farm requires 700 times more land to produce the same amount of energy as a fracking site. Prof David MacKay, pictured right in the picture above, stood down… Read the rest

5 Major UK Offshore Wind projects Approved

Eight major renewable energy projects, expected to support 8,500 jobs, have been given government approval. They include 5 offshore wind projects and 3 Biomass projects. The contracts are the first awarded under the UK government’s energy market reforms. The Coalition Energy Secretary Ed Davey said the projects would help power up to three million homes and… Read the rest

Twin Turbine Trouble in Derby, England.

There are two sides to every story and the pro-wind and anti-wind lobbies’ arguments can be seen in microcosm in a corner of England where two 130m high wind turbines have been erected against the Derby skyline. Here, one of the blades is being delivered to the place of assembly: Severn Trent Water received permission to… Read the rest

Record-Breaking Wind in the UK!

While you may now be taking down the Christmas Lights and ruminating on how to get rid of those excess pounds piled on this Yuletide, December was a cause for celebration in the UK’s wind fraternity: U.K. wind farms generated a record amount of electricity in December as well as hitting weekly and daily highs after… Read the rest

Britain’s National Trust DG Favours Fracking over Wind Power

The National Trust. The guardian of thousands of historic houses, National Parks and all things to do with the heritage of the “Green and Pleasant Land” as William Blake called England. I am a member, so are many people in Britain and abroad. But having looked through their website pages, and scoured their executive council minutes… Read the rest

World Wind Industry Threatened by US Shale Gas Exports

The setting was the Cape Town International Convention, South Africa. The occasion was Windaba 2013, the third wind industry conference presented by the SA Wind Energy Association and the Global Wind Energy Council. The speaker was Steve Sawyer, Secretary-General of the GWEC. In an opening speech defininitely to make one sit up and take notice he… Read the rest

Fracking in UK Attracting Major Opposition

The controversial technology of extracting shale gas from under the ground by a process known as fracking, is beginning to generate opposition from local people in the UK close to the sites where shale gas has been identified. Despite the fact that shale gas is not expected to get into serious production until the 2020s, resistance… Read the rest

How Does Fracking Measure Up to Wind Power?

Let’s go back to basics: Natural gas is a fossil fuel that is produced through the decomposition and heating of organic matter over many hundreds of thousands of years. Conventional gas extraction involves drilling vertically through rock formations into gas pockets, from which the gas rises through the borehole and is captured at the wellhead. As… Read the rest

A Fracked Up Future?

A number of Governments, including the United Kingdom and the United States, are granting licences to extract shale gas from beneath the earth’s surface. It’s a relatively new energy source, and many see it as an alternative to renewable energy such as wind power, at least in the short term. But don’t be fooled. Extracting shale… Read the rest