Public Discourse and Energy Developments: A ‘Can-do’ Attitude

At the Unconventional Gas Forum in Barcelona, Spain, Chairman Richard Moorman of Tamboran Resources opened the final session by asking whether it was actually possible to succeed in communicating with the public in Europe. “Why or why not?”

Complimenting Tamboran’s efforts to engage with the public in Ireland one delegate in attendance from a geologic survey asked how it was possible to get public on the side of the industry. “If I’m a concerned public, I would ask ‘How can I trust you?’ And of course you’d say ‘Yes, you can.’ But you need someone in between, who’s an objective adviser that can be seen by the public as being objective and not in the pocket of the industry. This is where I think you could use the geologic surveys; they are there, are government advisers. They are research institutions, not universities. They should know what they’re talking about.”

He added that support should be built within the EU system, which focused more long term than state governments because they could be focused on the next elections.

Mr. Moorman agreed, commenting that the geologic survey in Northern Ireland had been very helpful for him. “At the same time, some communities are a long ways away from government and it is a challenge to find people within a community who can speak as independent advocates, but take the time to understand the project and us.”

“Government or think tanks would be a natural intermediary between the public and the industry,” said Nick Greely of No Hot Air, “but public doesn’t trust anyone anymore: governments, scientists, priests… anyone. It’s always in the UK where I occasionally try to engage with some of the more extreme green opponents. For example, when the British Geological Survey, whose funding comes 90% from the taxpayer, BGS says earthquakes aren’t an issue, people respond: ‘They would say that, they’re geologists.’

Mr. Moorman added, “Agreed, I think there has been a serious loss of confidence since 2008 in a lot of governments. Are the universities appropriate? I think that’s a good way forward as well. Are there other people that would make sensible intermediaries for building trust, either in government, regulators?”

An audience participant gave the example of an energy project in the Netherlands, which was on a coastal offshore marshland.

“There was a moratorium for 10 years, and it continued for a long while,” he recalled. “And then there was a guy from the Club of Rome, an independent think tank. They came up with a solution which is not only gas, it was a broader solution for the area: there is gas, jobs, and safe operations. Bringing all these together, the broader public also thinks that gas is not the issue. If you bring things together in a broader picture and convey trust, and also distributional and procedural justice, then you are able to arrive at a solution. You can take that example and use it in unconventional gas as well.”

Halliburton Energy Service’s Product Manager, Pete. E. Smith, said: “There are two classic drivers for human behavior: fear and greed. I think a lot of the negativity that we hear is driven by the fear part. I see the local campaigners in my area – I live in the highlands of Scotland – the windfarm campaigners win their battle against the fear by feeding into the community. There’s a direct benefit. There may be a lesson in there for the oil and gas industry.”

Another delegate from the audience said he had “nuclear industry déjà vu,” having formerly worked in the nuclear industry.

He explained: “About four years ago, we had a panel asking ‘How do we communicate the renaissance of the nuclear industry?’ And we all know how that turned out.

“Drawing on my experience with the nuclear industry, I would say that there were definitely downsides connected with the involvement of research institutions into the narrative, because the discourse they produced was extremely complex. People didn’t understand what they were on about. Sitting here as a layman, I didn’t get a large percentage of what was presented at this conference, coming here more or less unprepared. This is what you, as an industry, are currently facing. You have extremely complex, technical issues which you need to portray to the public in a rather simplistic way, without omitting any of the complexity that could turn some of your points around in a negative way against you. So the ivory tower is not necessarily the best place to turn to; the nuclear industry has definitely made that mistake of getting entrenched into a defensive narrative which was overloaded with  technical language, and that didn’t help anyone.”

Pete Smith queried those in attendance what they thought the industry would look like in 10 years.

Professor Azra Tutuncu, Director, Unconventional Natural Gas and Oil Institute at the Colorado School of Mines, offered her insights.

“We are grappling with the water issues,” she said. “There is going to be continuing production from unconventional resources, but out-of-the-box, new technologies to do hydraulic fracturing will emerge. Everyone’s working on novel technologies to connect the conductivity path between the existing fractures and induced fracture. New technologies will come forward and existing technologies will be improved,” she said.

“I see a big role for universities as well as major oil companies, because they have a huge stake in this as we move to the increasing production of unconventionals. We cannot afford to have the public on the other side of the fence, continuing to produce negative campaigns against unconventionals. So there is a huge role there to educate the public and educate governments opposing these resources, reinforcing training and education efforts.”

Prof. Tutuncu added, “It’s about thinking from scratch. Telling the truth, if there are potentially dangerous products we are applying, we won’t hide but bring the facts to the public’s attention and try to resolve whatever the negativity is by introducing better methods of minimizing the negative impacts and using better techniques to make this happen.”

Another audience participant from Poland complimented the Polish government’s efforts to support unconventional gas development. He said, “The public’s approach is also different, because unconventional gas basins in Poland are located in areas which are not industrialized, have high unemployment and low living standards. For these people, shale gas provides hope: for development, workplaces and also for life in the future.”

He continued: “If the industry were able to show people that they and the local area would benefit from unconventional gas exploration, the industry is going to win. The industry must also show them that it will not have a bad impact on the surroundings or the environment. In Poland the situation for the industry is better than in Western Europe, where the concerns are much stronger.”

The man with the last word held up his mobile telephone to the delegates as a sign of what was to come, in unconventional gas as well.

“In 1905 there was tremendous opposition to putting telephones in homes,” recalled John Underwood, Head of Exploration at HEYCO Energy Group. “Now there’s tremendous opposition to putting a phone down. At the same time, did anyone notice the distinct change in technology while it was happening? The oil industry’s got to do the exact same thing. There will be incremental changes to what we do, there will be new things developed that we will do differently.

“Twenty years from now, we’ll look back with a little less hair, and say ‘My god, look at the changes we’ve seen.’”

He said the acceptance of the industry was going to go the same way, when people realized that what the energy industry did for them was a benefit to them. “Our challenge is to make them see the benefit and not just the activity.”