MS Reichlin (7 October), like ‘environmentalists’ in general, who have never produced evidence to back up their claims that ‘fracking’ pollutes water-tables, causes earthquakes and produces chemical pollution, has now picked another ‘dead-horse to flog’, in the name of the cause.

In seeking to gainsay the historic axiom which states that “there are lies, damned lies and statistics.” By her own token (statistics) Ms Reichlin aptly illustrates the fact that fracking is exponentially safer than the exhaust emissions of all the diesel engined road vehicles, driven by people who consider themselves to be ‘environmentalists’.

Mr Rowles (14 October) is totally inaccurate in claiming that ‘fracking’ is solely a legal issue, as given the energy void that the UK is likely to face. ‘Fracking’ is in both figurative and factual meaning of the term a vital national interest.

Reliable assessments indicate that by the year 2018 the ambient electricity demand in the UK will have risen to 58 GigaWatts, whilst, due to premature phasing-out of ‘older’ power stations, the capacity for electricity generation here will have fallen to 53 GW.

In the USA ‘shale gas’ has proven to be cheap, efficient and clean (low carbon) having reduced their electricity generations costs by 50% and the carbon ‘footprint’ to what it was in the 1970s.

The only viable long-term solution to electricity generation in the UK is a combination of nuclear power and the products of ‘fracking’ and it has been a serious mistake to have become so over-reliant in recent years on electricity generated by large, inefficient dynamo systems, powered by windmills and misnamed ‘wind turbines’.

An interesting similarity between the ‘anti-fracking’ and ‘anti-Brexit’ campaigns is that they both invoke similar tactics — dream up the most ‘gothic’, and highly unlikely worst-case scenarios, then promote them as fact.

Paddy Keenan, Ward Close, Andover.