Will fracking destroy our countryside... or prove a cheap energy goldmine?

THE environmental concerns about fracking have to be considered but the technique has been used in the United States for decades. It arguably has less impact than swathes of ugly wind turbines (which have a limited lifespan — how long before we have a major decommissioning headache as we retire thousands of them?). The reality is that Scotland is sitting on an energy goldmine but we cannot exploit it as the SNP are beholden to trendy green thinking and not proper science. The infamous video of tapwater being set on fire is not, as Jonathan Brocklebank (Mail) wrote some time ago, anything to do with fracking but rather naturally occurring methane. ROBERT WALKER, Edinburgh.

CONCERNED reader Kathryn

McWhirter should be made aware that though the drilling and building of a fracking well takes 18 months, thereafter the completed well-head is low rise, generates steady output, requires little maintenance and covers an area about the size of a football pitch, which can be easily hidden by a skirting of trees and shrubs. That’s surely better than armies of noisy giant turbines that are visible for miles around despoiling her treasured countryside. PHIL WESTWOOD, Flamstead, Herts.

KATHRYN McWHIRTER, who opposes fracking, likely leads a 21st-century lifestyle that is dependent on energy. Where does she think this comes from? Resources in the form of coal, gas and oil are found throughout the UK. These can be extracted only by drilling and fracking. By their nature such processes are disruptive. In the past, people living in such areas welcomed the extraction of coal, clay, sand, gravel, tin, copper and gold because it provided jobs and created prosperity. Admittedly, the mining changed landscapes. However, this fact of life was accepted by those who lived there. It is the turn of other parts of the country, including Sussex and Surrey, to supply the energy needs of the country. ROBERT J. EVANS, Birmingham.

INCREDIBLE that the land of James ‘Paraffin’ young refuses to use fracking to tap a bountiful supply of cheap, clean energy. Worse, we are doing so because of little more than hearsay and superstition. JIM HAMILTON, Bathgate, West Lothian.