Last Saturday (02/07/2011) Wordfest hosted a debate about the hot environmental topic of hydraulic fracturing – a controversial method of extracting natural gas from deep below the earth's surface, more commonly known as 'fracking'.
Last Saturday (02/07/2011) Wordfest hosted a debate about the hot environmental topic of hydraulic fracturing – a controversial method of extracting natural gas from deep below the earth's surface, more commonly known as 'fracking'.
The convenor of Wordfest, Chris Mann, chaired the debate between professors, the leader of an environmental lobby group, an independent columnist and a geologist, in front of an audience that filled about half of the Eden Grove Blue lecture theatre.
He said that oil corporation Shell, which is applying for the rights to explore areas of the Karoo for natural gas using the fracking method, had declined an invitation to attend the debate.
No representatives of the government attended either, so no policy makers were present. Philip Lloyd, a professor from the Energy Institute at the Cape Province University of Technology, spoke in favour of fracking.
He wrote a paper on it in 1963, and believes it is not as harmful as some activists make it out to be. He said it could balance out the monopoly that Eskom had over the South African power supply, and would make the country less reliant on imported fuel sources.
He pointed out that using gas as a fuel would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and accused the documentary Gasland (that exposes the apparently very harmful effects of fracking on communities and the environment in the United States), of faking certain shock-value aspects of the film.
His direct opposition, spokesperson for the Treasure the Karoo Action Group (TKAG) Jonathan Deal, said until fracking was proved to be a "benign technology" he would oppose it.
He accused Shell of misleading people by saying that thousands of jobs would be provided if natural gas were found under the Karoo. This was stated only stated in advertising, but not in the legally binding EMP [environmental management plan]documents that were a component of Shell's application to frack.
Deal defended criticism from the media that the TKAG used overly emotional language in their campaigns, by saying that this was necessary in order to get the attention of South Africans.
He agreed with Lloyd that burning gas was "cleaner", but countered this argument by saying that the processes used to obtain the gas were not in themselves good for the environment.
The opinion of Ivo Vegter, an independent columnist, was that neither Shell nor the TKAG could be trusted. He said industrial waste was not a new problem and could occur in any mining initiative.
He believes farmers in the Karoo are getting worked up about fracking because they do not own the mineral rights to their own land. He concluded by saying, "We don't ban things because accidents occasionally occur."
