* South Africa won rights to host bulk of radio telescope
* Plan involves sensitive receptors in Northern Cape
* Same area has gas reserves
* S. Africa has 485 trillion cubic feet of shale gas -US
data
By Jon Herskovitz
JOHANNESBURG, May 29 (Reuters) – South Africa’s winning the
rights to host the bulk of the world’s biggest radio telescope
looks set to clash with plans to use the high-pressure pumping
method fracking, which can cause earth tremors, to extract gas
from its vast shale deposits.
Last week, South Africa won the rights to locate about 70
percent of the “Square Kilometre Array” (SKA), a $2 billion
project capable of detecting signs of extraterrestrial life in
the far reaches of the universe.
The project will bring the construction of more than a
thousand highly sensitive receptors spread across hundreds of
kilometres of arid terrain in the Northern Cape province.
The area is subject to an astronomy law that prohibits
activity interfering with star gazing, which could include
hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” – where drillers blast large
amounts of sand and water laced with chemicals deep underground
to free natural gas and oil from shale deposits.
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