Looking back a year

2012-01-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

The new James Hutton Building, BGS Keyworth,
that includes a number of energy saving features:
photovoltaic cells on the roof, rainwater harvesting for the toilets
and a Micro-CHP (Combined Heat + Power) plant.
The building has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) 'A'
rating and a BREEAM'excellent' rating.

Reading the last issue of Nature for 2011 I was reminded of the number of events in which a detailed knowledge of the Earth system and decisions based on geological science were essential:

The world's population reached seven billion, reflecting the ever increasing need for resources to house, feed and transport humankind.

Food reached a record cost early in the year and in March the planet was struck by one of the largest earthquakes in recent times.

At the same time there was only limited progress on improvements in our ability to manage the planet into the future through agreements such as those that came out of the climate summit in Durban in December.

In May the British Geological Survey led a discussion at the Geological Society of London on the 'Anthropocene' and asked the question about the human influence on the planet:

'is our imprint on the planet no longer reversible and if so, should we declare a new geological epoch?'

Declaration of an epoch of course also implies that this time period will have an end in which humans no longer affect the planet: we may have become extinct; we may have fled and colonised other worlds and I leave this to the reader's imagination!

Food production requires careful management of water resources, much of which comes from groundwater, and fertilisers that are mined and for which important regulation of impurities is a health factor to be considered. Desertification, deforestation and pollution of the surface and subsurface through intensive agriculture all must be carefully monitored by geologists and ecologists.

Fuel for thought
The Tohoku earthquake, Japan was much larger than had been modelled as being probable in the region; the 'big-one' was expected to hit further south of Tokyo (and we must be mindful that this risk is still very real). This event was offshore in a known zone of tectonic plate collision, but its intensity indicates that we have much to learn about the physics of the planet.

Also we should not forget that large earthquakes (although they may be some 200 times smaller than the Japanese one) can cause incredible damage and loss of life in the interiors of continental regions and are in fact more damaging and less understood.

Although the earthquake, and the associated tsunami, killed thousands of people, the focus of attention of the world's press was on the Fukushima nuclear plant. Thankfully Fukushima is now safe, but it will take decades to clean up the site.

Many countries, including the UK, have since reviewed their nuclear power generation schemes. Nuclear technology will continue to provide a significant source of energy as we move further into the 21st century. Moving away from nuclear sources towards coal, oil and gas, the only short- medium-term replacement, only exacerbates the greenhouse gas emissions unless these are captured and sequestered.

Storage of nuclear waste, extracting hydrocarbons, and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) require a very thorough understanding of the subsurface of our planet and this is the overarching role of the geologist. Further geological research and survey is essential for making the right decisions on our energy future.

Recover and recycle
In 2012, as we wait for the world's economy to recover, there will be increased demand for resources to feed, house and transport our people. While we will need new resources in strategic metals, hydrocarbons and building materials, we must focus on:

recycling
better insulation
more effective transport
renewable energy
better water/soil/forest management etc.

For example let's think seriously about more efficient magnets in high-tech and energy applications, before we rush to mine metals from the sea-floor without a thorough understanding of the consequences.

On behalf of the staff of the British Geological Survey, I wish all of our partners and users of our geological information a very prosperous 2012.

The British Geological Survey Shale Gas project

2011-12-16T06:03:00.000-08:00

BGS has this week released new web pages and videos which include an abundance of information on shale gas.

Shale gas is considered to be a potentially important resource that is tightly bound in sediments which geologists call “black shale”. The shale of interest to gas producers was formed hundreds of million years ago in marine basins that were filled with sand and silt and organic-rich material deposited in the marine environment or transported from the adjacent landmass. These basins were deformed through tectonic compression and the gas is preserved in rocks buried 2km or more deep, where the gas has not yet escaped.

Currently gas consumed in the UK comes from conventional resources that are concentrated and trapped after gas has moved out of its source rock, for example in the North Sea gas fields. Black shale is essentially a source rock in which the gas is tightly bound to silt and sand grains and needs to be pushed out by injection in a process that is called fracking. There are large shale gas resources in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, in particular in Poland, the Ukraine and Baltic states. The potential of the shale gas resource has been known for some time and has been exploited in the USA, where some estimates indicate a potential reserve that would satisfy the US gas supply for hundreds of years. The recent interest in exploiting shale gas in Europe is due to increased gas prices and concerns over ensuring a secure supply of gas, but it is also due to improvements in drilling technology which allow efficient and safe extraction of gas if regulated properly.

National energy security must be considered and the economics of importing gas over exploitation of national resources must be assessed. Furthermore gas has advantages over coal in producing energy in power stations, as during the burning process it emits about 50% less carbon dioxide. In both cases however, the CO₂ should be captured and stored underground (see the BGS website on carbon capture and storage); capturing and burying the CO₂will be required by international regulation in the future in order to control CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere.

The newly released shale gas information on the BGS web site is, by necessity, quite technical in places, but is still a very useful source of information for the less technically minded and for those who want to understand its potential as an energy resource of the future. BGS, like government, must tread a delicate line between encouraging industrial exploitation of resources through full and open exchange of our data on resources and reserves, both in the UK and world-wide, and ensuring that we maintain an assessment of the security of supply of a number of key resources, whilst ensuring environmentally acceptable resource exploitation. An important aspect of this is establishing environmental baselines for groundwater, such as for methane in groundwater and the state of local ecosystems.

If you would like to know more, there is a lot of important information on the website, but please feel free to contact the BGS scientists who are experts in various aspects of shale gas resources, reserves and their potential exploitation.