Gaz de schiste

[DerekJ]

I found this link on our village website. It relates to the dangers of gaz de schiste and the planned exploration in various regions of France.

You may be interested, especially if your region is potentially effected.

There is also a petition associated with this.

[5-element]

There is quite a lot of opposition to this, and many people are organising demos and protests of all kinds.

[Anton Redman II]

Read the original posting and thought brain dead not in my back yard. Same kind of people who believed the air would be sucked out of your lungs once the train did 60 mph down hill in a tunnel. No rational arguments no scientific discussion

[woolybanana]

Given the fragile state of the oil supply at present, the pressure to get at resources of this type can only increase, so that opposition, whether justified or not, is more than ever likely to be swept aside.

[busybee]

I have created a website in English giving lots of information about the issues surrounding Shale Gas exploration in France, including links to the petition and many informative and interesting articles.

This is a serious issue that could dramatically change the environment in many areas of France and in my opinion, it is in danger of being rushed into without fully understanding the long term implications.

The government of Quebec have just taken note of their environmental impact report into Shale Gas (which took 6 months to complete) and decided to call a halt to any further exploration until a more detailed report can be produced. There are too many unanswered questions. I hope that the French government will follow their lead and make sure that this is the right thing to do before allowing drilling to commence.

Here in Midi Pyrenees the local government officials seem to all be against it, but I think a lot of protest is going to be needed to stop it happening.

Do please get informed on this topic and make up your own minds.

[DerekJ]

[quote user="busybee"]

Do please get informed on this topic and make up your own minds.

[/quote]

That's absolutely my intention. I made the original post as I only heard about what was being proposed this week and was interested to know more and see what the local reaction is.

As far as NIMBYs go....  I generally find that it better not to be over critical unless one is happy to have the perceived blight sitting in ones own back garden.

[Judith]

Busybee

Thank you for the web site in English.  I gave up with the French site - it was too difficult to read with the black etc. 

I hadn't heard anything about this, so this is all very useful.  Forewarned is forearmed and though I cannot see if our area is affected or not from the maps, no doubt if we are, we will see something about it soon if it is .....

[busybee]

There is an area between Carcassonne and Montpelier, M621 Plaines de Languedoc, on the map, but I don't know any more about it.

[Judith]

Busybee,

Thanks, no I don't know where that is, but I'll go hunt. We are far enough away from Montpellier, depends how close to Carca it gets.  And the description is not helpful, this is all the plains of the Languedoc!

[RPJ]

There is an English language web site which attempts to explain what is going on and what we can do to stop it. The news section is local to the Midi Pyrenees permit area but the information applies to Gaz de Schiste extraction wherever it rears its (currently) ugly head.

www.schistehappens.com

Come on in, the water's lovely (for the time being) .

[cooperlola]

[quote user="RPJ"]explain what is going on and what we can do to stop it.

[/quote]This is the rub - ie having the two things in the same breath.  What would be nice (but which isn't going to happen because it so rarely does with such emotive subjects) would be a balanced website with the pros and cons for us to look at so we can make up our own minds instead of having them made up for us.  I don't know enough about this to comment yet, but where do future generations think their power and energy is coming from - the Libyan dessert?