FT: Don’t pay too much attention to the shale gas Cassandras

Sir, Martin Wolf rightly tells us to “Prepare for a golden age of gas” (February 22). The North American shale gas revolution has gone global via lower prices and displaced gas shipments, and exploration is under way or planned on four more continents. But in urging caution he may be listening too much to would-be Cassandras with extreme political and environmental agendas.

Hydraulic fracturing is a seasoned technology used in more than 1.2m wells since 1947, principally in Canada and the US, and for 30 years in Europe (latterly in Germany, Poland, Sweden and the UK). The banal truth (“settled science”) is that no reputable source worldwide has, in all these years, demonstrated any systematic connection between fracturing and human or animal health.    MORE