WILL oil always be cheaper? Is fracking the answer? The man who has become the BBC’s face of geology, Professor Iain Stewart, will attempt to answer these questions when he visits Darlington next week as well as and on his new TV series on BBC2.

“I saw something the other day that said that the future is very clear: oil prices are going to go up or else they are going to do down. This to some extent is new territory. We’ve had oil shocks before and this is an oil shock at a time when there is more political leverage on climate change and regulation. I think it’s a perfect time to take stock,” says the Central Hall speaker, who admits he’s keener on starting a debate to get around the argument.

“The real problem is that we don’t talk about energy and, in fact, oil and gas is more than energy. It is everything else... the fuel for heating our homes, what we put in the car and runs our transportation system. What people forget about is the plastics, chemicals and fertilisers. This notion that we can say, ‘I don’t really like oil and gas, so we’ll build a few wind turbines and we’ll get away from this’, is quite fanciful,” he says.

Stewart points out that our society is addicted to hydrocarbons and has to face up to the hard truths of how to proceed. “Everyone recognises that this renewable feature is coming, but how do we get there?” he says. “I don’t want to be an apologist for the big oil companies, but we can’t hide our heads in the sand about being the ones that demand we get more stuff from them.”

His BBC series will say, ‘What now?’ "I don’t really want to be coming to that with answers, but rather highlighting the complexity and messiness of the debate. No one is going to get what they want. The future scenario of energy and hydrocarbons are unpalatable to some degree," Stewart says.

“It’s about encouraging our politicians to have that debate, rather than saying it’s black and white,” he says. “There’s this big debate about fracking. But if you take the amount of energy that a frack pad uses and you put it into wind turbines, and how much energy is required to make the turbines, you can make any argument you like. It’s about the future we want and the consequences and casualties of how we get there. It is going to be a painful exercise.”

Higher energy bills and conflicts of interest are part of the debate. “Do we get our gas from halfway around the world (from Qatar) or our own doorstep? My experience is that the question and answer session of my show is the most interesting. I’m sure there will be people in the audience who are green and environmental and ones that are for industrial legacy jobs plus low-energy and fuel poverty and energy security,” Stewart says.

And when a member of the audience asks him how he got to Darlington’s Central Hall that day?

“I answer, probably by train because I’m going on the Penrith for a school’s thing and a talk in Keswick. It could easily be a car, though, and I fly too much. I’d love to be able to say that my personal jet is methane-powered,” he jokes.

Stewart doesn’t quite know when Planet Oil is going out on BBC2, but the iplayer is likely to offer the series because it is already running on BBC Scotland.

“I’m stressed up to my eyeballs about fracking and what’s happening in the sub-surface, although it was mining in the North-East which helped society build the industrial revolution. I’m kind of in the middle about fracking. I’m not sure it’s the answer to the big picture, but equally I’m not worried about the technical issues that people throw up about earthquakes and contamination. I suspect fracking will be more specific to providing the gas to big chemical companies than for energy,” he says.

Stewart came into geology by an unusual route, having acted first with East Kilbride Repertory Theatre, alongside John Hannah, before studying his way to TV recognition at Strathclyde University.

“Me lecturing is just a big piece of acting, but you’re doing it in front of 30 to 40 people. TV allows me to perform in front of millions,” says the presenter of Rise of the Continents, Volcano Live, How To Grow A Planet among a raft of science series, starting with the award-winning Journeys From the Centre of the Earth.

“I take it seriously, but not that it will define a career for me for the rest of my life. TV is quite a fickle business, which is why I keep one solid foot in the academic world,” says the man who has made history by becoming the world’s only Professor of Geoscience Communication (at the University of Plymouth in 2004).

“Wherever I go people are fascinated with that title, but communication is the barrier that is holding lots of stuff back. I think the title was a kind of mixture of thinking between me and the university, but is kind of what I do. It wasn’t rock science to come up with the title,” says the father-of-two who freely admits that he never visits a volcano without wanting it to erupt.

“Actually, I’ve been more in danger driving a car on some dodgy back road somewhere. All the things that look dangerous on screen have usually had a full health and safety test beforehand. It does happen with nature that the cameraman tells me what was going on behind me afterwards.”

The father of two daughters worries than neither of his children are going to follow him into geology. “My oldest one says certainly not and the younger one is taking geography, but I think it’s hard for children to follow in the shadow of their parents,” he says.

n Planet Oil – A Modern Addiction. The Royal Geographical Society with IBG presents Professor Iain Stewart, Central Hall, Dolphin Centre, Darlington, Monday March 16. Tickets £12. Box Office: 01325-486-555 or darlingtoncivic.co.uk