The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa may contain the world’s fifth largest reserves of shale gas. Yet there remain critical questions that have neither been raised nor addressed regarding the exploitation of this and other regional gas reserves. The fact is that the full implications of this potentially game-changing proportion of energy supply have not yet been properly examined or analysed. We need to carefully consider how to integrate them into our national and regional energy mix.
The Karoo could...
Glenn Ashton -
The potential presence of natural gas deep beneath the surface of the Karoo has triggered a national hullabaloo. It is not the gas itself that is controversial; it is the proposed method of liberating it in commercially viable quantities, which has everybody up in arms.
If you asked most South Africans around the Xmas table last year what fracking was, you would probably have been met with blank stares. Now, because of applications by Shell Exploration, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, for...
When filmmaker Josh Fox was offered a hundred thousand dollars to lease his land for natural gas drilling, he embarked on a cross-country journey across the US to find out more about the practice of hydraulic fracturing. He discovered communities devastated by fracking.
Fox documented his findings in the Oscar nominated documentary Gasland, which also won the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.
It's been reported that the industry aggressively attacked the...
Democracy Now -
Editor's Note: Shell South Africa has submitted three separate exploration applications to the Petroleum Agency of South Africa for the right to explore the Karoo for natural gas by hydraulic drilling, via a process also known as "fracking."
Shell's exploration plan for gas in the Karoo is widely opposed by the local community and environmentalists alike for the damage that it will cause to the areas scarce water resources, as fracking for gas is a very water intensive process....
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country has been infiltrated by oil company, Shell, the leaked WikiLeaks diplomatic cables reveal.
According to cables from the US State Department, an American diplomat documents a meeting with a top executive from Royal Dutch Shell who states that the company had access to everything that was being done in the country. Shell has seconded staff to every relevant oil ministry giving them unparalleled access to government decision making in Nigeria.
In the...
