Durham Energy Institute reacts to fracking announcement

 Professor Richard Davies, Director of Durham Energy Institute, has called for a balanced discussion of hydraulic fracturing to extract shale gas, popularly known as fracking. The government has given the go-ahead for a firm to resume hydraulic fracturing in Lancashire. Davies said: "What we do have is lots of data on this topic. Tens of thousands of fracturing operations have already been completed in the United States and the dimensions of the hydraulic fractures recorded at least for the last ten years. So we can adopt an empirical approach to understanding the chances of a fracture extending further than ever before. Our analysis shows that the chances of a fracture extending further than 500 metres vertically are very small. There are also hundreds of examples of induced earthquakes caused by activities other than 'fracking': the filling of dams, fracturing for geothermal energy, injecting water to maintain oil fields pressure and because of subsidence triggered by mining of oil and gas. "It is claimed that companies involved in shale gas are not releasing data about operations - but in fact there are hundreds of papers in the public domain that can be accessed and I've spent months pouring over them while producing a paper on the topic.