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Tour d’Europe, Part II: Great Victories of the Movement to Ban Fracking

By Tina Callebaut

During my last days as an intern here at Food & Water Europe I would like to take you on a tour of the many different victories against fracking in Europe. As drilling has started in Lancashire despite opposition from local communities, it is now more important than ever to stand together in solidarity to not only halt but prevent fracking projects everywhere by banning the technique and promoting the development of clean renewable energy. Here is a run down of the current state of fracking in Europe.

France

Let’s kick off our tour with a visit to France, where in March 2010, two exploration permits were granted for shale gas. The licenses covered in total an area of around 9.672 km². Massive protests followed, which led the Prime Minister at the time, François Fillon, to declare a moratorium on the exploration of shale gas in 2011, which prohibits the exploration and exploitation of liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons through hydrofracturing and cancels the exploration permits for projects where hydraulic fracturing would be used. France’s Constitutional Court confirmed the constitutionality of the ban and the revocation of the permits in October 2013.

Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the law only prohibits the use of hydraulic fracturing, but does not impose a ban on the exploration or exploitation of gas through other techniques. As the technique is not clearly defined by the law, small changes and new innovations might already have the ability to circumvent this ban. However, in June 2017, the French minister of environmental transition announced that there would no longer be any permits granted for the exploration or extraction of hydrocarbons in France. Nice one, France!

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Privatized Profits, Socialized Risks: The Ruse of Natural Gas Exports

The natural gas export boom is tied to the spread of fracking, an inherently dangerous activity that threatens public health and our climate.

By Mitch Jones
Originally published in Food & Water Watch

Food & Water Watch’s Mitch Jones on what Congress SHOULD push for.

A new Short Term Energy Outlook released by the United States Energy Information Administration this week predicts that the U.S. will become a net exporter of natural gas this year and will remain so for the foreseeable future. That’s a remarkable turn of events given that the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the lower 48 states didn’t happen until February 2016. In addition to the existing pipelines for export of LNG to Canada, pipeline capacity for exports to Mexico are set to almost double by 2019. In addition, LNG export facilities are being expanded at Sabine Pass in Louisiana and Cove Point in Maryland is set to open later this year. Four additional facilities are currently under construction and expected to be exporting by 2020 when the United Sates is set to become the third largest exporter of LNG in the world.

The drive to ship natural gas overseas isn’t limited to LNG. The Mariner East 2 pipeline in Pennsylvania is being developed to export natural gas liquids for the plastics industry. The growth of the exploitation of fracked gas in the Marcellus Shale has been a boon for the plastics industry. It relies on petrochemical manufacturing to turn ethane, found in “wet” natural gas along with methane and other hydrocarbons, into plastics. Since 2012 chemical companies have aggressively invested in petrochemical plants and export facilities focused on profiting off the ethane glut that results from fracking.

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How Our Fossil Fuel Addiction is Ruining Our Oceans

By Taylor Avery of Food & Water Watch

Across the globe, people purchase about 20,000 plastic bottles every second. The vast majority of these bottles are not recycled and end up in landfills or in the ocean. It’s escalating into a major environmental crisis, and the fossil fuel industry is partially to blame.

While many of these bottles are made out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a highly recyclable material, efforts to recycle fail to keep up with the growing rate at which people use plastic bottles. Moreover, major food corporations continue to manufacture demand for soda and bottled water, packaged mainly in plastic, which takes hundreds of years to decompose.

In 2010, nearly 200 coastal countries generated over 275 million tons of plastic waste. In 2016, 480 billion tons of plastic drinking bottles were sold across the world. A report conducted by the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) found only about 30 percent of PET bottles in the U.S. (most bottled water bottles) were recycled in 2015. Major drink brands like Coca-Cola produce the greatest number of plastic bottles, but the top six beverage companies package their products in bottles that use very little recycled PET. That mostly unrecycled plastic ends up in the ocean where it is consumed by wildlife.

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Tour d’Europe: 6 Particularly Unnecessary Gas Projects in the EU

In this week’s blog, Frida Kieninger from Food & Water Europe takes you on a tour across Europe, examining six of a host of unnecessary planned gas projects. All of these projects currently try to get on the EU Commission’s “Projects of Common Interest” list (PCI list). Here’s why we find these infrastructure plans are far from being in the common interest:

  1. Italy – More Algerian Pipeline Gas?

Italy, the EU’s third biggest gas consumer, has big ambitions concerning the expansion of its already very dense and interconnected infrastructure. Besides plans to build more LNG terminals (import terminals able to regasify liquefied gas shipped to Italy from all over the world), there is also a host of pipeline projects planned. An especially daring one is the Galsi Pipeline, aiming at connecting Algeria and Italy, running through Sardinia. The problem? While Galsi’s construction will be complex and costly, planning to be the deepest underwater pipeline ever built, it’s hard to see the need for this pipeline: Two pipelines that aren’t fully used already connect Italy to North Africa, Tunisia and Algeria. Italy even announced recently it would stop importing Algerian gas via pipeline. Additionally, the country has a number of LNG terminals that are far from being used at full capacity. To be more precise, two of Italy’s three existing LNG terminals were only used at 7% and 3% capacity respectively in the last years.

This infrastructure development comes at a time when gas usage in Italy has decreased by around 19% between 2010 and 2015. Algeria, however, relies  almost 100% on gas for electricity generation while its own resources are more and more depleted. Building a pipeline from Algeria, which relies on gas, to Italy, which doesn’t need Algerian gas, makes no sense.

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Trump About to Withdraw from Paris Agreement While Ireland Passes Fracking Ban

It is a historic day on which one nation passes a ban on onshore fracking, while another nation intends to walk away from the Paris climate agreement.

Paris agreement withdrawal makes U.S. a rogue nation

In her statement, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe, roundly condemns Trumps withdrawal from the global climate agreement:

“The Paris accord falls far short of the bold, decisive action needed to avert the most serious impacts of impending climate chaos – but it is certainly better than nothing. By choosing to walk away from the table, the United States effectively becomes a rogue nation when it comes to matters of climate change, human rights and global leadership in general. Mr. Trump’s foolish, belligerent decision to abdicate responsibility at the federal level now makes real action on climate at the state and local levels even more critical. For the sake of our planet and future generations, it is imperative that elected leaders at every rung of government – from the smallest town halls to the halls of Congress – do everything in their power to resist fossil fuels and help enable a clean energy revolution.”

Americans must do everything in their power to counteract Trump’s destructive plans, but action in other countries is now more important than ever. It might be a silver lining that on the very day the U.S. president disregards the first global accord to combat climate change, the Irish Dáil decides to forbid the production of hydrocarbons by fracking.

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No Trump in Brussels, No Fracked U.S. Gas in Europe

By Frida Kieninger

On 24 and 25 May, U.S. president Donald Trump will travel to Brussels to take part in the NATO summit. We’ll be at a big anti-Trump march in the capital of Europe on the afternoon of 24 May, where we will show Trump that Europeans do not welcome the man whose policies threaten American and European communities as well as our global environment and climate.

We must stop fracked U.S. gas already heating (up) Europe

As much as most Europeans despise the new president of the United States, some of them are already using fossil gas from the U.S. for their energy needs or for petrochemical production. A total number of eight gas cargoes from Sabine Pass Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in the Gulf of Mexico have already been shipped to Europe, namely Portugal, Spain and Italy.

While there is no free trade agreement between the EU and the U.S., gas exports are possible, albeit with longer waiting times and only if deemed “in public interest”. This alleged public interest is not properly defined and the fact that all over America, communities suffer from the effects of gas extraction shows that claiming gas exports are in the public interest is highly cynical.

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