THE CARBON WAR

Chapter 18
Dallas, Kent
Online, 9 th & 10 th 2015
The prospect of a full working day at home. I have been looking forward to it.
A chunk of writing early, while fresh. The sun rising over the pond. Check the
press before breakfast. Run the dog before coffee. And all the while, blackbirds
in song, spring in the air, London’s fumes and queues a world away.
But my ideal day is not to be. Leading the BBC TV news is the supposed
discovery of 50 to 100 billion barrels of oil below the Weald. A small oil company
drilling a single well near Gatwick Airport professes that up to 15% of this
vast “find” may be recoverable. This 15% would be equivalent to the entirety
of Brazil’s reserves, including its enormous offshore sub-salt oilfields.
Their CEO is interviewed. He explains that this terrific news is based on
one well, with no flow rate measurements. He is a tough looking Australian. He
shows not a hint of shiftiness or shame as he trots this rubbish out to camera.
Any geologist will instantly know that this is rootless hype. You cannot
possibly base such figures on a single well. You could not even base it on multiple
wells without knowing the flow rates.
I wait for the counter view to come: the expert who will say that this is
an exercise in hype and explain why, hopefully adding that even if if were true,
the oil probably couldn’t be produced at a price that would make the project
economic anyway. Especially if the UK’s famously strong environmental constraints
on on land drilling were to be applied. Look what is happening in
North Dakota, etcetera etcetera.
No such expert appears. The BBC relays the whole story as though it is
reliable fact.
There is another item on the news. Air pollution over southern England
is at record levels. Polluted air from Europe has combined with fumes from
British cars to send particle and toxic gas counts through the roof. People are