Frackers cry foul over geothermal drilling

MINISTERS have been accused of “blatant double standards” for allowing drilling in Cornwall that is able to cause stronger tremors than fracking.

The United Downs Deep Geothermal Project, in Redruth, Cornwall, the UK’s first geothermal extraction site, opened in December last year. It consists of two wells at least 8,200ft (2,500m) in depth being drilled into the ground to extract renewable energy.

Unlike fracking, tremors caused by geothermal drilling are not formally regulated by a national government body. This is despite the “seismic hazard” which can cause earthquakes “magnitude four and above” that could be felt by up to 4,000 Cornish homes, an assessment of the Redruth site stated.

Dr Ben Edwards, from the University of Liverpool’s school of environmental studies, said regulations for geothermal drilling were “ad hoc”. “You would assume, given the similarity of the processes, that there would be a similar regulatory oversight for both,” he said.

Fracking is regulated by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), which stipulates Fracking involves drilling into the earth before a highpressure mix of water, sand and chemicals are directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Geothermal drilling involves injecting water down a borehole which travels through natural fractures. This captures heat, pumped out as hot pressurised water, converted into electricity using a steam turbine. drilling must be suspended every time a 0.5 magnitude tremor is detected.

In December, Cuadrilla, a fracking operator, was forced to stop drilling for 48 hours at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire after small seismic tremors were recorded. The tremors, measuring 1.5 on the Richter scale, produced a similar vibration to “dropping a honeydew melon”, researchers at the University of Liverpool said.

Cornwall’s £18million geothermal project was part funded by the European Union and Cornwall county council, which admitted that the geothermal approach “is similar to the ‘fracking’ process used to capture shale gas”.

Dr Edwards said the geothermal drilling process required more liquid than fracking, which could result in stronger earthquakes. “Geothermal tends to inject a lot more [than fracking] and deeper down,” he said.

Francis Egan, chief executive officer of Cuadrilla, said he was “disappointed by the blatant double standards being applied to the shale gas industry with no scientific basis or credible research”.

A spokesman for the United Downs Geothermal Project denied the proceBRITISH bakers are turning to artificial intelligence in the quest to create the perfect loaf.

A team of researchers based in York has been awarded £77,000 in government funding to create a machine that will take the guesswork out of baking.

Around 80 per cent of the UK’s bread is made with automated machines, but everything from the weather to the quality of flour could affect how the bread turns out.

Using artificial intelligence, food scientists at RedBlack Software and research association Campden BRI hope to give bakers the ability to fine-tune their recipes.

“My husband is an amateur baker and he makes sourdough,” says Jane Tyler, managing director of RedBlack Software “Every loaf is different. There is this unpredictability.”

This happens on a much larger scale in bakeries, with £205million worth of product wasted each year. “Even slightly differing flour qualities have a big effect on the end product quality,” she says. “Because of this, bakers throw away considerable amounts of dough.”

The AI being tested works by gathering data from a variety of sensors in the bakery that reveal everything from the humidity in the air to the speed settings on the mixer. The robot can then learn from this data to predict exactly what can create the perfect dough.

M&S already uses a separate software by RedBlack in more than 500 of its in-store bakeries to help staff predict what they should be baking at various times of the day to meet demand.

The Intelligent Dough Mixer Project will last until early October before several unnamed major British retailers test the technology in-store. dures were similar. He said: “The geothermal concept we are trialling in Cornwall relies on pre-existing natural fractures, not on creating new artificial fractures like the fracking process.

“The pressures, flow rates and volumes of any well treatments we carry out will be much lower than stimulations carried out in shale exploration. We will be circulating water, not complex chemical mixtures.”

A spokeswoman for Cornwall county council said the operators had confirmed they were adopting thresholds in accordance with the OGA guidance.