IN reply to J Kitching’s letter (Gazette & Herald, October 1), we need to make a distinction. Yes, energy security is a serious, possibly paramount issue, but what is the best way to achieve it?

Fracking for gas would give us security of energy supply for a limited number of years, but at what cost? The trouble is we don’t know whether advances in technology might enable us to escape more lightly.

But if American experience is any guide, we would have to pay dearly in destroyed landscapes, polluted air and water, the diminishing if not the end of tourism, impoverished agriculture and undermined property values. For myself, I am not very optimistic.

What other options are open to us? I am surprised at J Kitching’s bracketing together “fracking, wind turbine farms, solar panel farms or nuclear generation”.

Some of us may have aesthetic reservations about wind turbines and solar panels – personally I think wind turbines are rather beautiful – but they are greatly to be preferred to the potential landscape destruction which might be brought about by fracking.

If we take a realistic view of the world and of the government’s obligations to reduce carbon emissions, renewable energy is the way we shall have to go sooner or later.

If we make a start now, we shall be able to take a big share in the development of renewables, including wave and tidal generation, and perhaps have a chance to rebuild our industrial capacity.

Christopher Pickles, Gilling East