The most useful academic subject I ever studied was risk management. This taught me how and why people exaggerate, or underplay, the likelihood of certain things happening.
Through my MSc course, I had the honour of meeting Paul Slovic, author of an iconic 1987 paper on the perception of risk. This stated that true risks can be largely distorted in the mind by ‘dread’ and ‘knowability’.
Dread reflects the degree of personal control and possibility of death or catastrophe now or in the future. A dread risk terrifies us, so we want to see it removed, or at least reduced.
Knowability relates to a risk’s novelty, whether it is understood or can be observed and whether its effects are delayed or unknown to those exposed. Lack of knowability makes people anxious. It is unsettling.
Dread and knowability, taken together with how many people may be affected, can be used to predict the public’s perception of risk fairly reliably, Professor Slovic concluded.
Driving a car, for example, is a very familiar risk, taken voluntarily, well understood and personally controlled. The risk of death or injury is perceived as lower than it really is. Who steps behind the wheel thinking that it may be for the last time?
Genetic engineering, nuclear power, nanotechnology and other industries are on the opposite side of the equation.
Shale gas is the latest bogeyman. It certainly ticks a few of the ‘dread’ factors. It is new and little understood by the public, and there are some legitimate concerns about it.
Some of these concerns boil down to energy policy issues. A new dash for gas might divert investment from renewables, for example. And locking into large-scale new gas-fired generation would make it impossible to decarbonise UK electricity by 2030, as recommended by the government’s advisory Committee on Climate Change.
If commercial shale gas proves relatively cheap then another risk is that it will encourage consumption across the world by depressing global prices.
On the other hand, more gas use could allow the UK to ditch dirty and inefficient coal-fired power stations sooner (ENDS Report, June 2011), so it could make meeting mid-term carbon targets easier.
Then there are more tangible risks of harm from shale gas exploitation. The tremors – ‘earthquake’ seems too grand a word – that UK shale pioneer Cuadrilla Resources has admitted causing near Blackpool have not helped improve the public image of shale gas. Earthquakes certainly tick the ‘dread’ box.
Nevertheless, they were far too small to cause damage on the surface. And, according to a report commissioned by Cuadrilla, they are most unlikely to be repeated (ENDS Report, November 2011).
The company was just astonishingly unlucky that its first drill site was directly over a stressed fault, primed to move. Such fracking-caused quakes are virtually unprecedented, it says.
As with any industrial site, shale gas extraction presents the risk of surface spills and other such mishaps. There will be additional truck movements, and gas flaring could have air quality impacts.
There is also the issue of who pays for the monitoring of groundwater and flowback water – the fluid that emerges at the surface after fracking.
The Environment Agency has declared that an environmental permit will be needed only where the risk of pollution is significant. This would be the case where a well is drilled through a sensitive drinking water aquifer, for example. This is not the case with Cuadrilla’s wells, a situation likely to be repeated elsewhere.
Without income from permit charges, the cost of monitoring falls on the public purse. This is not an acceptable situation in the long term, but could be solved by a simple amendment to the environmental permitting regulations requiring permits for all shale wells. This might go some way to calm public concerns, too.
The risk of groundwater pollution resulting from chemicals used in fracking or from natural radioactivity it might liberate from the rocks below us, has been dismissed by the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive (which regulates the oil and gas industry). The same applies to leaks from poorly-cemented wells.
All of this is not to say that the US experience of shale gas development has been roses and kittens all the way. Regulation of the industry there is slipshod, confused and inadequate. Fracking has been deliberately derogated from usual controls on groundwater pollution, and has been banned in some jurisdictions.
Some operators have been known to cut corners. Disclosure of the chemicals used – far more than would be permitted in the EU – is limited. Even the US Environmental Protection Agency is not entirely certain what is going on. It has been tasked by Congress to find out, and should report next year.
So it is no wonder that there have been pollution incidents in the US and that the industry has developed a poor reputation: the legitimate issues and missteps in US shale gas development noted above add up to quite a long list.
It’s impressive, therefore, that in the public perception the main ‘risk’ of shale gas is something else entirely. This is the fear that fracking for shale gas can cause a flaming jet of methane to come out of your kitchen tap. Its source is the US documentary film Gasland.
But flames will never emerge from my tap; not because I live far from any shale gas reserves, but because this fear is nonsensical.
It turns out that methane contamination of drinking water wells in rural Pennsylvania, far from mains water supply, has been known about for decades – long before there was any fracking in the area. The gas is shallow, and biogenic – produced from bacteria – rather than coming from deep below the ground from broken shale rock.
Despite this, the message that shale gas equates to flaming taps has found a ready audience. In the UK, the Co-operative Group, in full activist mode, has encouraged it by sponsoring showings of Gasland.
Likewise, anti-shale gas protest groups such as ‘Frack Off!’ and ‘The Vale Says No!’ (TVSN), prominently advertise the risks of groundwater contamination on their websites. “Tap water you can set on fire,” says Frack Off!, which also offers the same graphic clip from Gasland.
I recently spoke to several activists about shale gas and drinking water. All insisted that the risks were real and significant. I suspect that some thought I was a paid lobbyist or agent provocateur. It was a strange and uncomfortable sensation.
As I have said, there is plenty to be concerned about with shale gas. But it is not healthy if such a non-issue becomes the focus of debate. In the long-term, spreading what are effectively false fears will only backfire on the environmental movement as a whole. Who will trust the boy who cries wolf?
Postscript
Just as I put the finishing touches to all this, I received an e-mail from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. It announced that it will hold an inquiry into risk perception and energy infrastructure.
Here’s what it says:
The Committee seeks written submissions on the following matters:
What are the key factors influencing public risk perception and tolerability of energy infrastructure facilities and projects?
How are public risk perceptions taken into account in the planning process for energy infrastructure?
How effectively does local and central Government communicate risk and could it be improved?
To what extent can public perceptions be changed by improving risk communication? (please provide examples)
How does and should the Government work with the private sector to understand public perceptions of risk and address them?
How do risk perceptions and communication issues in the UK compare to those of other countries?
The Committee invites written submissions on these issues by noon on Wednesday 14 December 2011.
It looks like the MPs share some of my concerns.
Charles Barraball said November 19, 2011 at 10:13 am
I am interested in ” Paul Slovic, author of an iconic 1987 paper on the perception of risk. This stated that true risks can be largely distorted in the mind by ‘dread’ and ‘knowability’” Can you send a link, please?
It is particularly helpful to read this blog on over-activist head-line grabbing. I was at Bow roundabout last night where two cyclists have been killed.
“Roses and kittens” a nice phrase. Have you patented that?
Gareth Simkins said November 19, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Hello Charles,
The paper is available (with perhaps dubious legitimacy, I would admit) at http://www.uns.ethz.ch/edu/teach/0.pdf
As for ‘roses and kittens’ – it just struck me as an appropriate phrase. However, there does seem to be ‘prior art’, as it were.
rossa ó snodaigh said November 20, 2011 at 12:04 am
I read your article and although its well informed you missed one major thing which of balances the balanced medium you were trying to achieve between avarice and fear.
.
You have been misled in your biogenic methane argument. This gets thrown around by the Fracking industry to entice intelligent minds to assume anti frackers fears are ilegitimate but they never mention the real cause of tap fires in fracking areas which is thermogenic methane, this is what is that is released during the fracking process and accounts for more cases of tap fires than biogenic methane does.
check this site out or just type thermogenic gas into your search engine
http://www.texassharon.com/2011/07/03/thermogenic-methane-migrated-to-well-water/
Another Qlder said November 20, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Rossa – I have a hard time to believe that the gas should come from the formation they are fracking. Fracture monitoring and frac developments have been monitored in many wells and no fracture network (based on microseismic activity) has been observed more than a few tens of ft away (most often about 30-100 ft from the frac location but up to about 300-500 ft max). The shales in these areas are over 2000-3400ft deep so the likelyhood that fracture penetrated all the way up to the surface are pretty slim (there is not enough power). And second, the chances that the gas from that depth seeps up through the entire rock column is hard to imagine since several other tight rock layers are overlying the Marcellus. It could be possible that the gas comes from very shallow sediment layers – but again, then it would be likely biogenic.
However, the article claims that they are positive about the thermogenic nature of the gas. In my opinion, it is sometimes really difficult to determine its true origin (bacterial vs thermogenic), even if you have the full isotopic composition. Before making a true judgment, I would like to see that isotopic composition that apparently so clearly shows its thermogenic nature!
some other reading regarding your Tioga County article here:
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110130/NEWS02/301289902/-1/ETN
and
http://www.tiogagaslease.org/landforlease.html
You should also look into the $$ some of these landowners make now, a few have even 6-digit income in one month! But of course, that does not help you if you get issues with gas in water.
But Gareth – great job on this article. I think there are many other topics out there that fit into the same issue. A handful of people try to scare people for whatever reason – but most often money! Either to be able to introduce new taxes or to get funding for their research! And by the time it is rolling, large organisations are already behind to keep the gravy train going!
Diana said February 29, 2012 at 12:21 am
Rod, You and I agree on many things but, here we part company. I’ve worked with both sectors my origins are nuclear, as you know, but I’ve worked with BP, Shell and Exxon and frankly seen little difference in the cultures. Engineering-led, and, compared to the innate hazards of what they do, spectacularly good records.
Take an example that you addressed in a recent thread, pipeline safety. The reality is, trutium leaks pose a tiny, tiny risk. One that doesn’t stand up to examination. But, in reality, given the energy we shove down them, neither do pipelines.
I used to work about 500 metres from a pumping station run by our UK Pipelines Agency, that moved aviation fuel from refineries to Heathrow airport. I can honestly say it never caused a moment’s concern (even when we realised we were about to have the primary data-centre for the UK’s biggest energy retailer on a site adjoining Heathrow’s tankfarm).
Our argument isn’t with gas. To a very large degree, gas and nuclear are natural partners as gas generation plant is low-fixed cost,, high marginal cost. It’s fast responding. Nuclear, even in newer designs is high fixed cost, negligible marginal cost and, although capable of load following, isn’t ever going to do balancing and peaking load. Gas can readily be run in Carbon Capture mode.
I’ve worked on a plant that would be identical to the front end of a gas-fired CCS plant. And gas can do what nuclear can’t provide transport fuels at low(ish) carbon impact, and low cost. I’ve run an LPG fuelled car (technically barely distinguishable from a CNG system). I’ve been trying, for three years, to come up with a viable, competitive way of doing three miles each way most days from my local train station in an EV. All I’ve been able to make work is a 1KW electric bicycle (officially illegal under local EU legislation). Compare that with coal, or renewables, and there’s nothing like that synergy.
Let’s be honest, the obstacles for nuclear are in our own ability to demonstrate safety (an argument already won, on any rational basis), and economics. That latter depends on showing consistent, rapid build more than anything else. And in markets rigged to support renewables. Gas, assuming some reasonably low carbon tax, isn’t the issue.