Frackland
An archive of the Frackland blog 2014-2019
I ran a Wordpress blog, Frackland, from 2014 to 2019. It comprised just 22 posts, but often quite lengthy and technical. I think they have stood the test of time well, even though they were designed to be ephemeral or topical for the epoch. Instead of setting up a new Wordpress site after moving my web pages to a new ISP, which would be too complex, I have now made the 22 blogs available (with their accompanying comments if present) in the form of pdfs, accessed through the links below. Some of the blogs have been reconstituted from incomplete Wayback Machine archives, and lack the original Wordpress formatting. However, the text and images have been preserved to match the original. I have grouped the blogs by their main subject matter, as follows.
James Verdon is an academic geophysicist at the University of Bristol. He has also consulted for the government and industry.
- 26/11/2014 James Verdon - an introduction
- 26/11/2014 James Verdon misleading explanations of fracking
- 10/12/2014 James Verdon misleading on shale gas
- 26/11/2014 James Verdon misleading explanations of fracking
The commentator in the first post above, to whom I gave short shrift, has been around for fifteen years or more. He is typical of the inadequate, right-wing, climate-denying, half-educated blogger, apparently with nothing better to do than post frequent comments on newsworthy or often trivial items. Verdon himself is discussed further in my page here about the unscrupulous behaviour of some earth scientists.
The following posts concern mainly Cuadrilla, the company which operates in Lancashire:
- 10/12/2014 Nick Riley starry-eyed about UK shale geology
- 14/12/2014 Slick talking by Cuadrilla's Lord Browne
- 22/10/2018 There may be trouble ahead
- 26/03/2019 Cuadrilla plumbs new depths of incompetence
- 14/12/2014 Slick talking by Cuadrilla's Lord Browne
Politics and regulation were discussed in the following blogs:
- 06/01/2015 Fancy a quick frack - then Nick Grealy is your man
- 07/07/2015 The mysterious case of Frack Free Witney
- 14/03/2017 Fracking through the looking glass
- 10/03/2019 Regulating fracking - Leggett and Smythe letter
- 07/07/2015 The mysterious case of Frack Free Witney
Nick Grealy, who died in February 2018, was a pro-fracking journalist and would-be shale gas operator. Witney is the parliamentary constituency of David (now Lord) Cameron. When he was prime minister his constituency was inexplicably omitted from the areas offered for new hydrocarbon exploration licences. The third and fourth blogs above discuss the inadequacy of the regulations and definitions of fracking in the UK.
Drilling in the Weald, SE England, is discussed below:
- 26/06/2015 Sussex drilling precedent
- 26/08/2017 Horse play at Horse Hill
- 07/10/2017 Cowboys and Injuns
- 11/12/2017 Analysis of UKOG drilling results at Broadford Bridge
- 12/08/2018 What do we know about the Newdigate, Surrey earthquakes?
- 26/08/2017 Horse play at Horse Hill
Lastly, evidence on the technical inadequacies of Professor Paul Younger of the University of Glasgow, is discussed below, along with the attempts by himself and his colleague Dr Rob Westaway to have me silenced:
- 15/08/2016 Academic freedom of expression denied by corporate lobbying
- 24/08/2016 Paul Younger - Part 1. Hydrogeology and hydrocarbon exploration
- 02/09/2016 Paul Younger - Part 2. Quantitative modelling of stress and fluid flow in rocks
- 31/01/2017 Paul Younger - Part 3. Hydrogeology of fracking (part A)
- 03/02/2017 Paul Younger - Part 3. Hydrogeology of fracking (part B)
- 12/02/2017 Glasgow frackademics
- 24/08/2016 Paul Younger - Part 1. Hydrogeology and hydrocarbon exploration
Paul Younger died aged 55 in April 2018. Rob Westaway died prematurely in August 2021. More commentary on Younger is provided in a separate web page.