Sir – Keith Taylor, Green MEP representing Oxfordshire, writes about several problems with fracking, but does not mention another problem associated with this method of fossil fuel extraction.
Apparently methane gas is released into the air from fracking operations.
Methane is 2000 per cent more active as a climate-changing gas than carbon dioxide over each molecule’s lifetime in the atmosphere and it has been estimated by a research group at Cornell University that a 4-5 per cent release of methane from fracking sites will make them as bad as coal mining for climate change.
We should be asking the private companies bidding to extract this gas from our land how much methane they expect to release, and to halt their operations if they exceed them, otherwise we might as well go back to coal extraction.
Bob Summers, Oxford
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