Fuel prosperity

Harry Lawrie is right to highlight the importance of shale gas as an energy source (Letters, 27 September). Indeed, the discovery of at least 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in Lancashire is one of the best bits of news Britain has had in many years.

These Lancashire deposits hold out the prospect of a measure of energy security for Britain in the coming decades. They will have a beneficial effect on our balance of payments, too. Even better news is that there are likely to be very substantial further deposits elsewhere under Britain and our seas.

The wider shale gas revolution is of geopolitical significance, as it will undermine the West’s dependence on oil and gas from the unstable Middle East. As Sheikh Yamani, a former Saudi oil minister, said nearly 40 years ago: “The Stone Age did not end because they ran out of stone.”

For far too long, the SNP has traded on the “our oil argument”. Now that England has been found to have vast hydrocarbon reserves too, this argument falls flat. The only shadow over all of this is that the eco-lunatic Greens and their fellow travellers, such as the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, will fight tooth and nail to deny us this future of economic prosperity. For them, it is better that we all endure a future of cold, poverty and national economic collapse.

Otto Inglis

Inveralmond Grove

Edinburgh