IT WAS with amusement that I read the letter from Mr Whittaker (chairman of Frack-Free Cotswolds) in the Standard last week.

It sounded like a good sci-fi plot, full of scaremongering and hearsay, but no real facts.

Apparently we are “under threat” and they will “be massed in concentration on our borders.” Has World War Three started?

No, just some information on fracking has been released. Even then Mr Whittaker is misleading, as the nearest site where it might take place is 40 miles from here in the Forest of Dean. Check it out on their web site.

True, fracking uses large amounts of energy at the start, but then the usage is minimal, just a few unobtrusive pumps.

Renewables also use large amounts in infrastructure, construction and road access, but the main difference is we all have to pay to subsidise this green energy through our bills.

Other scare tactics used by Mr Whittaker and his supporters from Stroud is about escaping methane gas flames from taps etc. due to fracking.

This has been documented since 1932, before fracking was thought of, and called “will-o-wisp” in this country for centuries.

Water contamination – with British regulations and strict guidelines, which are completely different to those in the USA, and with about two kilometres of rock between the water aquifers and the fracturing rock, there is very little chance of this happening.

The EU has also issued an approval for hydraulic fracturing under certain conditions, and, according to the Committee on Climate Change, if production is well regulated, shale gas can have lower emissions than imported liquefied natural gas (LNG).

A recent report for the European Commission, from January 2014, also reached the same conclusion.

Finally, Mr Whittaker might be interested to know that The Eden Project in Cornwall is in the process of drilling and hydraulically fracturing two geothermal wells for utilisation of geothermal energy.

PAUL BLANNIN

Cirencester