Fracking Awareness North Somerset (F.A.N.S) is a new organisation seeking to mobilize community based resistance against fracking. We aim to build a network of groups all over North Somerset to collectively struggle against the insidious threat posed by fracking to our local communities and landscape.

F.A.N.S. will encompass and offer support for all anti-fracking/environmental groups in North Somerset, providing them with up to date information, encouragement and solidarity in fighting this cause.

Our Facebook page is now up and running and we are currently in the midst of designing our new North Somerset focused leaflets. We are also creating a new website so that we are easily contactable and can provide information and help for other groups around North Somerset.

Once our leaflet and website are finished, we are planning F.A.N.S Fortnight – two weeks of talks, presentations, meetings, workshops and film showings around the towns and villages of North Somerset. F.A.N.S Fortnight aims to educate the residents of these areas on the often complex issue of fracking. We seek to show them how they may be affected by fracking in the coming years, but also that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So it’s all go from North Somerset! Please feel free to get in touch if you are interested in supporting us or have a new group that would like to join F.A.N.S. We would also very much like to hear from anyone interested in helping out with festivals or ideas for promotion.

Fracking will bring industrial North Sea gas extraction to our very doorsteps. Together, we can stop it.

Community Organisation Offers 1/2 Price Solar to Homes in Areas that Need it Most

A pioneering energy-saving community group based in St Werburghs has devised a scheme to help Bristol go solar - more affordably. Called 'Let’s Go Solar', the scheme is looking for Bristol homeowners interested in having a solar-powered hot water system installed in their home for around half the normal price. The energy-saving kits use the power of the sun to heat hot water, enabling homeowners to save on fuel bills as well as reduce their individual carbon footprint.

Particularly welcome are homes deemed deprived according to government statistics such as some parts of St Agnes, St Pauls, Lockleaze, Eastville, Easton, Ashley Down, St Werburgh’s, Knowle, Hartcliffe, Fishponds etc.

Thanks to securing both government funding and local bargaining power, the not-for-profit community group, Ashley Vale Action Group (AVAG), has cut the typical cost of installing solar-powered hot water heating from around £5,000 to approximately £2,500.

Ashley Vale Action Group was one of 38 UK-wide groups, and the only Bristol group, to successfully bid for a share of £3 million from the UK government. The government scheme aims to make renewable technologies accessible to more people in its effort to help reduce the UK’s overall carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, Let’s Go Solar has cut the costs even further by negotiating with nine local solar installers to use their collective power to buy hot water heating kits in bulk.

We should receive expressions of interest by the 28th February, with the majority of systems installed by the end of March so contact us today to check your eligibility and to arrange a free and non-binding survey of your home.

From fracking to opencast, biofuels to nuclear, energy companies are turning to more and more extreme ways to extract energy. Despite their nightmarish variety, these tecnologies are connected by their disastrous impacts, and by the corporate agendas driving them.

How do we make our resistance to all these forms of extreme energy just as connected?

As part of the Frack Free February month of action, local coalition, Frack Free Somerset in collaboration with Frack Off and Bristol Rising Tide are leading a workshop on community resistance to extreme energy.

The workshop will look at what 'extreme energy' is and place these developments in the context of the bigger picture before looking at models of resistance around the world. There will be the chance to hear activists from:

Rising Tide Australia, involved in the 'Lock the Gate' & Coal Seam Gas Free Communities. The Copenhagen (Denmark) based network The Climate Collective, who are mobilising against shale gas extraction and fracking in Denmark with the initiative Skifergas - Nej tak! (shalegas no thanks!) Biofuel Watch Stop New Nuclear and the campaign against Hinkley Point C and the local resistance to fracking and coal bed methane in Somerset

Community resistance in the UK will then be explored as well as next steps for Somerset & the South West. http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

http://frack-off.org.uk

UK Methane have applied for planning permission for a test drill in the Hicks Gate area of Keynsham. This application could be a stepping stone to full-scale Coal Bed Methane production.

Coal Bed Methane (CBM) is methane (natural gas) trapped in coal seams underground. To extract the gas, the basic method is to drill into the coal seam. Then, if the seam is permeable enough, pumping water out of the seam will be enough to start gas flowing from the well. If not, it is often also necessary to frack the seam to extract the gas.

An even more extreme technique called cavitation can be used, which involves pumping water and air or foam into the well at a very high pressure, before suddenly releasing the pressure (sometimes likened to opening a shaken fizzy drink). This causes gas, water, coal and rock fragments to explode out of the well. Cavitation can be repeated dozens of times, resulting in an enlargement of the well bore by as much as 16 feet in diameter in the coal seam, as well as producing fractures that extend from the well bore. Even if it isn’t necessary at first, wells are often cavitated later on once the gas that is easier to get at runs out.