Fracking go-ahead despite new fears Plans to extract gas using a controversial method linked to an increase in earthquakes have been given the go-ahead in Scotland for the first time.
The practice of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, involves pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into shale rock, to release the gas it holds.
An independent geological report recently found that fracking had triggered two minor earthquakes on the Lancashire coast earlier this year.
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency has granted a licence to Greenpark Energy to extract gas trapped in coal near the mining village of Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway.
The news comes as the US state of Oklahoma is investigating whether a more-than-20-fold jump in the number of earthquakes in the past two years is connected to a surge in fracking there, The Independent has learnt. The number of earthquakes recorded in the state soared from its average of about 50 a year to 1,047 last year and is likely to match or break that this year, said Austin Holland, a seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
Read more here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fracking-goahead-despite-new-fears-6258781.html
