Fracking will destroy Britain as we know it
FRACKING won’t produce the results claimed. The UK is not america; it’s a small, crowded island, and we don’t have the same wide-open spaces to destroy.
If the whole country were fracked, it still wouldn’t produce enough oil or gas to lower prices significantly. There will be no economic bonanza, just environmental destruction.
The u.S. has 40 times the UK’s land area and one-eighth its population density. If it fracked a million acres, it wouldn’t affect that many people. on average each of us uses less oil than someone in the u.S., but we still use 3½ times more oil per square mile because our population is so much more dense.
We would have to frack proportionately 3½ times as much area to get the same economic impact. But as each square mile fracked affects eight times as many people as in the u.S., we would adversely affect 20 times as many people to get the same economic impact. at £10,000 per household, would this be economically viable?
Tidal power is the solution. Both moving at the same speed, a cubic metre of seawater has 1,000 times as much energy as a cubic metre of air. Tidal power is consistent, always available twice a day and doesn’t produce greenhouse gases. It will produce energy as long as the Moon circles earth.
We are surrounded by the sea and are experts in maritime engineering. We ought to be world leaders in tidal power. There are already tidal power systems in the Faroes and South Korea. New tidal power projects could employ the 1,000 dockers made redundant in portsmouth a year ago.
Instead of putting money into the nuclear plant at hinkley point, we could put a few billion into several tidal power companies. The Severn estuary could develop 8 per cent of the UK’s power requirement, about the same as hinkley point C, with no risk of radiation, no decommissioning costs and no terrorist risks.
RICHARD ELLIS, Bordon, Hants.