Thank you for your coverage of the Lancashire fracking decision (Fracking given green light as Javid overrules local protests, 7 October). So, a substantial majority of those who have decided (possibly those who have informed themselves) oppose fracking, while half of those polled are undecided (Commentary: Decision reflects rank hypocrisy of senseless policy, 7 October). Regrettably you leave unexplored the question of why the Conservative government – who presumably possess the wherewithal to inform themselves – are so set on a course which peer-reviewed scientific literature over the last few years so decisively rejects, which the local democratic process has overwhelmingly opposed, and which will make it impossible for the UK to fulfil its climate commitments.
David Cragg-James
Stonegrave, North Yorkshire
• The anti-frackers take a high moral stance but, leaving aside the nimbyism, they do not explain how they think that we will continue to heat our/their homes. Non-fossil methods generate electricity but not gas; to convert our mostly gas-heated homes to electric heating would have an enormous ecological and cost impact, and the super-pylons required to carry the increased electricity load would have a far greater visual impact than the scattered fracking well sites. Talk of substantially reducing our energy usage by better insulation is no doubt academically sound but very much a pipe dream – even in my relatively well-insulated house I need to use my gas heating, sometimes even on a cool summer evening – and to upgrade the insulation of our whole housing stock by even a few percentage points is probably beyond the means of the country, quite apart again from the ecological impact of the production, transport and application of the materials involved.
Protest is no doubt good for the psyche but an ideal world too often comes up against the physical stuff of reality.
Malcolm Cohen
Stockport
• One of Brexit’s implications is that our country becomes more independent. This must be true of energy supplies. Should we frack for gas, or import it? We don’t just burn gas. The ethane component of North Sea gas has, for many years, been converted into ethylene, which is used in the production of a range of plastic products, solvents and antifreezes. To counter the drop-off in our North Sea production, ethane is now being imported from North America into Grangemouth refinery in Scotland. We can frack gas in this country. But the people protesting against fracking at the Grangemouth gate have a banner made of plastic. At the very least, opponents of fracking have to develop a case for a society without plastic. And much else.
Richard Trelfa
Gloucester
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