Are UKOG fracking at Horse Hill in Surrey?
Channel: Talk Fracking
Date: 2016-02-25

The British government passed new laws within the Infrastructure Act 2015 which define hydraulic fracturing of shale (or strata encased in shale) as a process involving (or expecting to involve) the injection of more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid at each stage (or expected stage) of the hydraulic fracturing, or more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in total.

When asked to comment on this new statutory definition, Professor of Geology, Stuart Haszeldine OBE (University of Edinburgh) said, "I have not discovered any argued definition to explain how or why these numbers were chosen. Or, indeed, why volumes of fluid are chosen at all - when the geological effects of fracking are really a consequence of strain rate (i.e. “speed” of imposed deformation of the rock)."

Professor Haszeldine added, “Given the very clear public concern about fracking of any type in the UK, it seems to me that releasing these new rules and definitions, buried in the text of the Infrastructure Act, without a clear supporting scientific argument, explanation, and justification, is potentially very unhelpful. That risks the perception, of what could be a move to enable scientific data to be gathered, to be perceived as dodgy and conspiratorial manipulation of the rules by Government.  Much more debate is needed to understand why this “definition” is needed which ignores fluid pressures, and to explain why this is not simply a cynical swerve around the planning and judicial rules of precedent, to enable drilling and fracking where many members of the public are opposed to that activity."

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