The Socialist 2 May 2012

Kick out the ConDems!

Kick out the Con-Dems and end austerity

A strategy to stop austerity and bring down the government of the super-rich

Fight privatisation: Save our libraries

National Shop Stewards Network 6th annual conference

Rich list: The good times roll for the 0.00001%

Leveson exposes links between Tories and Murdoch

Them & Us

NUS conference Support for left and for action

Social dumping won't solve the housing crisis

Don't accept the misery of austerity

Unison leadership 'woefully inadequate' in face of cuts

Rotherham teachers stand up to bullying

Bilborough College Nottingham strike Action over five-term years

UCU joins 10 May strike - student solidarity needed

Workplace news in brief

TUSC: the electoral alternative to the parties of the rich

Thug attack won't stop anti-racist work

Socialist MEP discusses way forward for Tamils struggle

Sheffield marches against sexism and cuts

Capitalist crisis: 'Up to half of all Icelandic families are bankrupt'

Kazakhstan: Socialists jailed by regime

The government's fractured energy policy

Planning for the Planet

Previous issues, etc

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The government's fractured energy policy

A dangerous gas extraction practice - 'fracking' - will likely get government approval in Chancellor Osborne and energy secretary Ed Davey's new "dash for gas".

'Fracking' pumps carcinogenic liquids deep underground, breaking open gas-containing rocks, poisoning the water table and releasing the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere.

$Hydro fracking, photo by Creative Commons/ Mike Norton$

Hydro fracking, photo by Creative Commons/ Mike Norton (Click to enlarge)

Cuadrilla Resources, whose drilling in Blackpool alarmed residents when it caused two earthquakes (later admitted by the company), claim gas resources which could last the UK more than five decades are trapped in Lancashire shale. However the British Geological Survey suggest roughly 20-40 days of extractable gas.

Since fracking gas wells tend to dry up quickly, six to eight wells per square mile will be required around each of the tens of sites to be explored, in order to wring the maximum from the UK's shale gas resources, including as many as 800 in Lancashire and more in areas such as Sussex, the Guardian reported (17/4/12).

Gas is falsely considered a 'clean' fuel compared to its carbon cousins oil and coal. A recent study by Nature (7/2/12) showed that leaking natural gas - methane - from fracking gas fields makes gas no cleaner than coal. This is because methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - 100 times more powerful in the first two decades of its release, and 25 times over its lifetime. The earthquakes in Blackpool deformed the structure of the well, a potential source of leaked gas, among many others.

Renewable energy threatens the profits of the energy industry. The government's main concern seems to be keeping energy industry profits healthy!