I’D like to urge readers to take a closer look at the potential of fracking.

Long-term, we need all energy to be renewable, but this is still some way off being possible so for now we should look at what is practical.

Every industry carries risk with its operations yet nobody stopped filling up their car after Deepwater Horizon.

The upside to fracking is that it can provide a cheaper source of energy with the added bonus that a considerable slice of your income will go towards local, British businesses instead of places such as the Middle East; along with all the political baggage and conflict that comes with such arrangements.

We are short on jobs, affordable energy and have huge numbers of university graduates out of skilled work, something which fracking could help address.

The inconvenient truth, however, is that you have already benefited from fracking.

It is North American fracking operations that caused the collapse in oil price which in turn keeps global energy costs down as well as developing important future safety lessons.

And because the oil industry is determined to crush opposition to its monopoly, we should take comfort from the fact that the successes of fracking so far proves that any future renewable energy source that is economical and sustainable will in turn replace fossil fuels quite easily, no matter what the petroleum giants try to throw at it.

Dr Scott Marmion, Woodthorpe, York