Monday, 12 August 2013

Cameron urges UK public to support fracking

The whole of the country must "get behind fracking", which ought to get “real public support” once its benefits are explained, David Cameron has said.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said he wanted all of the UK to benefit from shale gas drilling – “north or south”.

The prime minister moved to allay concerns about the technique, insisting it was safe if properly regulated.

I think Cameron is right, we should be getting behind fracking because of there is over a trillion cubic feet of shale gas in Britain, and those figures account for just 11 counties.

Even if only 10% of that is extracted that equates to around 50 years gas supply, with this in mind it would be stupid to just leave it there and continue to import gas from elsewhere and pay a fortune for the privilege.

Obviously those opposed to fracking say it will damage the environment, cause small tremors and contaminate the water supply, but I watched a Horizon programme about fracking and the only way these things will happen is human error, basically the company in charge of a fracking site becoming complacent and not doing their job properly.

While that is entirely possible are the downsides of fracking any worse than the downsides to any other method of power currently in use, for example, is a small tremor any worse than when an oil rig or oil tanker leaks millions of gallons of oil into the sea, or when a nuclear reactor malfunctions and requires whole areas to be evacuated, I don’t think so.

As long as fracking is rigorously regulated then everyone should get behind it.


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