ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP An Taisce has called on Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte to hold a public consultation on the controversial practice of “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing of rock for gas, known as shale gas.
An Taisce chairman Charles Stanley-Smith said there was a question mark over whether the practice could be regulated successfully here to ensure it was “environmentally, socially and economically safe”.
Fracking involves injecting large volumes of water, chemicals and sand into rock formations to break them open and extract previously inaccessible fossil fuel deposits. The French national assembly voted to ban the practice, after months of protest and claims by environmentalists it could pollute the water table. The US state of New York has put approval for fracking on hold.
The previous government awarded onshore petroleum licensing options to three companies for the Lough Allen and Clare basins, covering 8,000sq km over parts of counties Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Clare, Cork, Limerick and Kerry.
The companies may undertake “shallow geological sampling” as in drilling to 200 metres under the current permits, but not fracking.
A second phase application for an exploration licence may include test fracking, Mr Stanley-Smith noted. “Given that the current licences are for 24 months, we have a year or so to examine regulations and get it right,” he said yesterday.
A recent Oireachtas committee briefing paper on the technique notes many shale deposits are under aquifers, and drilling and fracking can release extraction chemicals, or methane, into them.
It says there are fears fracking can contaminate water supply, and cause air contamination and greenhouse gas emissions.
It also refers to British Geological Survey concern that shale gas drilling near Blackpool may have caused two small earthquakes on April 1st and May 27th this year.
Writing in the current issue of An Taisce’s energy unit newsletter, Mr Stanley-Smith said the state of New York decided that no licences for fracking should be issued until “all the risks” were examined, and “appropriate enforceable safeguards are in place”.
“There is a large body of information out there on this already, including some wildly inaccurate claims and some claims which are true,” Mr Stanley-Smith told The Irish Times. He said that if the Government could not show that the safety of people and the environment could be protected, then the technique should be banned.
The Commission for Energy Regulation said that the issue of fracking was initially one for the Department of Energy to determine.