The benefits of Fracking, or the process of hydraulic fracturing of rocks to recover gas, is being promoted heavily by the Government to the concern of anti fracking lobbyists all over the country. Councils who grant drilling licences for shale gas exploration in their region will, through various Government support schemes, receive up to £1.7 million if gas is found and will receive licence fees for allowing exploratory drilling even if it isn't.

On the one hand the Government sees the growth of this young industry as partially solving the UK's growing energy problems, putting more money in the tax coffers and creating up to 74,000 jobs. The anti fracking campaigners see villages with convoys of large trucks going through them, beautiful countryside spoiled, the water table potentially polluted and the whole process having the ability to cause a higher incidence of earthquakes, through the manner in which huge quantites of rock are fractured, with millions of gallons of water required in the recovery of gas found.

Where do you sit on this?

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