FOR more than a century, our homes have been kept warm, our schools and hospitals working and our factories producing wealth; thanks to our abundant supplies of coal and gas.

But there was a terrible cost. To mine the coal, more than a thousand Welsh and North Country miners were killed and many more died prematurely from injuries and lung disease. The toll continues. Men are still lost in the hazardous task of getting gas and oil from under our Northern Seas.

Now, as our supplies of coal and oil dwindle and affordable green energy in quantity is still a decade or two away, we discovered large supplies of shale gas. No one has to risk their life to get it. Only drills and pipes go beneath the earth.

As with any new venture there will be some risk and penalties. But these can be managed, for we have scientific knowledge and extraordinary exploratory tools that were not available to those who dug the coal mines. We are also better able to regulate industrial activities to ensure they are safe.

Shale gas is less polluting than coal or oil. The well head is far less conspicuous than the rows of wind turbines along the horizon. Nor are acres of good food producing fields covered with solar panels. Certainly, there will be no ugly and dangerous slag heaps to spoil the countryside? Who could ever forget Aberfan?

Shale gas can free us from expensive and insecure imports, give our children the opportunity to enjoy the benefits we had from coal, without the casualties and environmental damage.

It will tide Britain over until our engineers and scientists can produce affordable green energy.

H J MOULD

South Cerney