Power struggle

The US economy is rebounding as cheap shale gas drives a manufacturing-led boom and decades of “off-shored” industrial production is now being repatriated from China.

It is beyond parody that the only European country in a position to compete in terms of cheap energy is Germany, though Poland and its neighbours have seen the danger. Germany filled the power gap created by the pre-emptory shutdown of its nuclear stations with coal at one-fifth the cost and eastern Europe wants all European Union emissions targets binned. Shale has changed the US game plan, not only by launching an economic recovery but also by giving the vulnerable protection from fuel poverty and it could do the same for Scotland.

Vast reserves of shale lie beneath some of our worst industrial black-spots, such as south Fife, and we need to get over our obsession with stratospherically expensive renewables.

Dr John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews, Fife