FOR

THERE has been a lot of hot air from tree-huggers and climate change zealots and fraudsters about fracking.

They scream about earthquakes, water pollution, gas coming out of water taps and plagues of locusts.

However, out of tens of thousands of wells in the US, only eight have suffered “earthquakes” most of which were too weak to feel and none caused substantial damage.

The methane and surface water pollution was caused by waste water leaking or spilling, or by leaking well casing joints at aquifer level. This happened mainly due to unregulated companies which operated with the cavalier attitude of Wild West settlers in the early days. These problems will be eliminated by engineers improving the designs of well joints just as they improved the design of the first steam engines of the 19th Century which tended to blow up. That’s what engineers do – improve things.

Waste water from the fracking process contains some nasty chemical additives, like benzene, naphthalene and toluene. Some of the waste water is disposed of by reinjection into the wells, or it is pumped into settlement ponds or treated for reuse.

One of the conditions for the granting of any fracking licence to an operator should be that any surplus waste water should not be released unless it is treated to acceptable levels of purity. If any operator cannot guarantee this, then no fracking licence.

Any claims that surface water is polluted from the fracking of the gas-containing shale are absurd. Aquifers are typically a few hundred feet below the surface while gas-bearing shale is at a depth of between one and two miles. The rock between the shale and aquifers is too thick and dense to allow gas to leak to the surface.

Furthermore, claims by American farmers that methane was coming out of water taps due to local fracking have proved to be without substance – it was found that the farmers’ water borehole had drilled through a pocket of naturally formed methane.

Due to the reduction in North Sea gas, the UK imports 40 per cent of its gas resulting in high prices. A substantial amount of this gas comes from Russia, a country controlled by a Mr Putin – need I say more!

High energy prices caused the closure of the Alcan aluminium smelter in Northumberland with the loss of 700 jobs. This loss is replicated in high energy consuming industries like glass and brick manufacture, chemicals and steel.

By fracking, UK gas prices will tumble and our reserves will secure our gas needs for 100 years.

I lay down a challenge to the tree-huggers and climate change fanatics to carry out a poll among UK householders asking: “Would you like your gas bills to be halved?”

Fracking will also create thousands of much needed jobs and when the gas is used to generate electricity, it will produce 50 per cent of the CO2 generated by coal burning power stations.

The notion that we can build enough wind farms to replace all fossil fuel power stations is like something from Alice and Wonderland.

In conclusion, fracking is not a picnic, but Britain can learn a lot from the experience of places like Pennsylvania.

With strict regulation and fit-for-purpose engineering design, any inconveniences experienced by a few small villages are worth it in the national interest.

Trevor Nicholson, Leeming


AGAINST

THE pattern of behaviour on fossil fuel policy displayed by our Government is remarkably similar to that on alcohol and other addictive substances – it knows we have to give them up, but like so many individuals trapped in addiction, it keeps putting it off.

Those who push addictive substances, legal or otherwise, develop a commercial hold over their victims, binding them ever more fatally into dependency. In the case of fossil fuels (as with alcohol) it is big corporations who do the pushing or lobbying.

The Government is doing the deals and we are the victims.

Our Government is supposedly ready to sign up to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change brokered by the United Nations (already signed up to by China, the US and India). It is already committed by the Climate Change Act of 2008 to ensure that the net UK carbon account for all greenhouse gases for the year 2050 is at least 80 per cent lower than the 1990 baseline. Instead it acts like an addict in promoting fracking for shale gas, overturning the democratic decision of Lancashire County Council to defend its people from this addiction.

The Green Parties of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, are now formally allied with the SNP and Plaid Cymru against toxic politics. Addictions are toxic and we, as potential victims, need to be set free from their effects.

Friends of the Earth are making a legal challenge against the decision by North Yorkshire County Council to authorise fracking at Kirby Misperton, which will be heard on November 22. Our hope must be that this may bring a turning point. We then need courage from the Government to give consistent support to businesses and to households who are ready to develop and to embrace renewable sources of energy. Only then will we be clean from this substance abuse.

We all know that the development of renewable energy is the way ahead and needs serious investment.

The capital investment in fracking (even greater in nuclear power) would be so much better spent in developing the facility for storing the growing amount of energy being generated by renewable sources. That is the way to achieve our goal of being free from addiction to fossil fuels and their carbon emissions that are already causing devastating effects and multiplying victims of extreme weather events all over the place.

It is achievable but needs consistent political will.

Lisle Ryder, Richmond Constituency Green Party