Let’s talk about shale

First published Monday 30 June 2014 in Oxford times letter pag

LeSir – The letter (High cost of shale gas, June 19) from your correspondent Susan Thomas just goes to illustrate how little general understanding there is about shale gas and its extraction.
Firstly, shale gas is not ‘mined’ — it is produced from wells in exactly the same way as ‘ordinary’ natural gas — which is, of course, precisely what it is.
Ordinary natural gas (methane).
The only difference is that it was difficult to extract until the transfer of already well-established technology (fracking) from the oil industry to the gas industry a few years ago.
Secondly, there is no reason — apart from bad practice — why shale-gas production should ‘irreparably pollute our water table’. We draw drinking water from very shallow sources (a couple of hundred metres at most) compared to the two or three thousand metres (sometimes more) depth where shale-gas host rocks may lie. The two are not connected in any way.
Breathe again, British beer drinkers!
In reality, one of the biggest bugbears facing a rational debate about shale gas is the complete lack of any impartial source of verifiable information. All the proponents, for and against, have their own agendas and their own axes to grind. Scaremongering is rife.

The hard truth is this: if we want to carry on reaching out for that little white switch on the wall, and enjoying our lights/computers/ fridges/TVs and the rest, we are going to need to produce energy.
Solar and wind generation are options, but we can only rely on them for a small proportion of our needs.
Shale gas has transformed the US economy in the space of five years. It may not be the magic bullet for Britain’s future energy needs, but at least let’s have a rational, informed discussion about including it in the available options.
Simon Walker, Charlbury