Controversial plans to start to operate coal bed methane drilling and production have been based by Trafford Council.
The twenty five year scheme to be operated by IG Gas was approved by the council’s planning committee on Thursday night by eleven votes to two.
The site is located to the west of the M60 Barton Bridge, between the motorway and the Davyhulme Waste Water Treatment Works.
Coal Bed Methane extraction is often described as the evil twin of shale gas fracking.
Coal Bed Methane is methane (natural gas) trapped in coal seams underground. To extract the gas, after drilling into the seam, it is necessary to pump large amounts of water out of the coal seam to lower the pressure. It is often also necessary to frack the seam to extract the gas. There are a similar catalogue of negative
The basic method (as with Shale Gas extraction) is to drill into the gas containing rock formation, though for CBM it is a coal seam rather than a layer of shale.
Manchester Friends of the Earth member and Trafford resident Pete Abel said,
“It is astonishing that Trafford Council planners have not required IGas to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment when EIAs are now being regularly required required of unconventional oil and gas activities submitted to local planning authorities in England.”
“Granting planning permission for 25 years’ worth of unconventional fossil fuel production without fully taking into account the environmental, climate change and air quality impacts would be a serious dereliction of
