New Book On Tight Oil And Fracking -- April 11, 2015

Shale Gas and Fracking: The science behind the controversy by Michael Stephenson, Elsevier, 2015. Michael Stephenson is Director of Science and Technology at the British Geological Survey.

A review is at this link. 

And it begins:

Anyone looking for a comprehensive review of the controversies associated with fracking is going to be disappointed by this short book.

After having ploughed almost all of its 170 pages I found, near the back, the following sentence:

“I won’t go through all of the contested issues, because the chapters in the book provide a basis to carve out your own analysis looking at some of the main peer reviewed papers”.

So the message is that if you want to make up your mind about shale then go to the peer reviewed literature. The implied message in this, made explicit at times, is that many opponents of the shale gas industry don’t do this and many members of the public rely too heavily on rumour and panicked reports leading to what Michael Stephenson claims is a low quality to the public policy debate. The public policy debate needs to be guided by academic scientists in peer reviewed papers…..like him.

Looks very, very interesting.

From a political point of view, it looks like "we" were lucky that fracking "took off" during the Barack Obama presidency. That's counter-intuitive but it's accurate.

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Women Of Will

Speaking of books. In this weekend's edition of The WSJ, page C12 in "The Review" section is a book review of Tina Packer's Women of Will. I have actually read this book, within the last six months I suppose. I got an advance copy (free) to review. I found the book pretty "awful." Here was my review over at Amazon:

I can't read any book on Shakespeare to its conclusion when the author fails to mention Brenda James, and when scholars opine that an 8th grade graduate of a rural school in the 16th century could have written these plays.

This author takes it to extremes, suggesting that WIlliam Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon might even have begun writing his first play ("Henry VI Part I") while still in (middle) school, as the play is "stuffed with fights, and the dialogue between the men is all bombast and pontificating..." -- p. 9.

The "real" Shakespeare did not marry at 18; did not marry a woman 8 years his senior; did not marry a woman who was illiterate; etc., etc.

Brenda James does a much better job discussing the women in Shakespeare's plays because ... hello! ... she identified the "real" Shakespeare about so much more was known.