10,000 signatures reached
To: UK Government and Five Quarter
Hands off our coastline
Do not experiment with undersea coal gasification anywhere on the North East (or UK) coastline.
Why is this important?
Five Quarter want use the North East as a testbed for undersea coal gasification (UCG), an experimental method of squeezing out the remaining drops of coal. They have received licences to test down the NE coast from Amble to Hartlepool.
Five-Quarter claim that what they are planning is Deep Gas Winning. They admit that the rocks around the gasification chamber will fracture. This means they are fracking as well as gasifying.
In tests run in Australia UCG wells were found to leak the same substances to groundwater as can be released by fracking. There are dangers of blowbacks and explosions. Many test have failed. It has never been used on a commercial basis.
The gas produced is syngas or coal gas. It is a mixture of methane (natural gas), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. They plan to pump it back into the hole they have made using Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). This is another process that has not been fully tested.
Surely it would be better to use renewables and not produce the CO2 in the first place?
There is of course the carrot of job creation. Any jobs created by UCG/fracking will be highly specialized. However, if the same amounts of money were to be invested in renewable energies and/or home and public building insulation, which the public have been shown to prefer as the majority of surveys have shown. There would be far more new jobs and far fewer environmental concerns.
We don't want our coastlines to die.
Five-Quarter claim that what they are planning is Deep Gas Winning. They admit that the rocks around the gasification chamber will fracture. This means they are fracking as well as gasifying.
In tests run in Australia UCG wells were found to leak the same substances to groundwater as can be released by fracking. There are dangers of blowbacks and explosions. Many test have failed. It has never been used on a commercial basis.
The gas produced is syngas or coal gas. It is a mixture of methane (natural gas), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. They plan to pump it back into the hole they have made using Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). This is another process that has not been fully tested.
Surely it would be better to use renewables and not produce the CO2 in the first place?
There is of course the carrot of job creation. Any jobs created by UCG/fracking will be highly specialized. However, if the same amounts of money were to be invested in renewable energies and/or home and public building insulation, which the public have been shown to prefer as the majority of surveys have shown. There would be far more new jobs and far fewer environmental concerns.
We don't want our coastlines to die.
