Today's speaker was our own Club member, Peter Robertshaw, who gave us a fascinating Powerpoint presentation and talk on "Fracking or Fraccing".Indeed we were all warned of the threat of a Homework Assignment!!
He told us of the depletion of existing sources of energy, most of which are already imported from parts of the world with less than stable economies/politics/governments.
Our knowledge was tested of existing oil and gas wells, some of which were established as early as 1851, and possibly surprised us that 1329 Tr.cu/metres of supplies are still available in the UK, in one form or another.
He gave us a brief description of his working life and qualifications which are numerous, and a foray into Maltesers and other edible delights taught us how rock formations can hold vast amounts of useful gas deposits.
He took us through the process of traditional drilling, leading on to horizontal drilling by which fracking takes place, and led us through a process from which we could see that the whole industry is governed by such strong safeguards as to render the objections of protesters surprisingly ill-conceived.
He concluded by showing us how the choices between carbon-based and renewable forms of energy are still very much in favour of carbon based oil and gas, and will more than likely remain so.