Fracking

More questions have been raised over the use of fracking in the UK. After earthquakes in Blackpool, that were a direct result of fracking all plants were suspended until a government investigation was completed.

But what are the dangers of fracking? In the USA, the only place in which fracking is occurring on a commercial scale, has seen huge problems. There has been gas leaking out of people’s taps, water supplies have been poisoned and dozens of earthquakes near fracking stations where there are no natural fault lines. The water used in fracking can be 10-90 times more radioactive than the maximum that is safe for humans to be in contact with and approximately half the water put into the ground due to fracking is simply lost and no-one knows where it goes. It is therefore sensible to assume that some may end up in drinking water, putting human lives at risk.

So why is the government even considering allowing fracking to commence in the UK? After all other nations, including France, have already decided it’s too dangerous. The reason is that there are huge amounts of gas that could be retrieved by fracking. This would help to push prices down and could be worth ten North Seas to the UK economy. One major difference between the North Sea gas and gas on the mainland is that people don’t live on the sea, but people do live on land. The UK is very densely populated and so any complication could, potentially, put thousands, maybe even millions, of lives at risk. This is something we do not want to happen.

I would oppose fracking due to the dangers it represents, I believe that we should be paying more attention to green sources of energy. The UK has a massive potential for the use of wind farms, huge ones taking up millions of square kilometres of area could be built in the North Sea without public opposition. This is what we need to be looking at, not projects that put lives at risk.