THEIR enterprise in fracking for shale gas has resolved the US energy crisis.

It has done much more. It has transformed the economy, helped lift the US out of prolonged recession and contributed to worldwide recovery.

Even these remarkable achievements are only side issues. The US is almost wholly independent in energy supply, so no longer captive to oil from increasingly unstable regimes in the Middle East. This is the truly revolutionary development which has radically altered the balance of political interests throughout the world.

In our smaller, but by no means inconsiderable way, we in Britain have the opportunity to follow the US example, prevent the lights going out, cut energy bills dramatically and provide much-needed employment for hundreds of thousands – directly through the fracking industry and indirectly through the massive spin-offs generated by the galvanised economy.

It is only to be expected therefore that the environmentalist ideologues and their allies at the BBC – really they are political fanatics – are spreading scare stories about the alleged dangers of the fracking process. For do remember that when it comes to environmental issues, Green is the new Red.

These latter day Luddites are against coal, gas, oil and nuclear. In fact it seems they’re against almost everything except the useless windmills. How odd that people who claim to care for our environment should be so keen to deface it by these unsightly and unprofitable structures.

There have been no cases in countless thousands of fracks of any pollution to aquifers or groundwater in the US, as drilling goes down more than a mile, well below any water relevant geology.

The film-clips of flaming taps have nothing to do with fracking. Such a phenomenon has been noted in the US in a few areas since at least the 1920s. Water reservoirs and bore holes can indeed have pockets of methane from decaying algae and bacteria or from seepage of gas from below – but this is a natural process.

The Greens threaten earthquakes. Well, fracking is an explosive process (and has been used in oil wells for 70 years, though the refined technique for fracking shale is much more recent and even less disruptive) and generates tiny earth tremors of the order of -1 or less on the Richter scale. The Blackpool “earthquake” was about +1 on that scale – like a lorry passing your house. Your headboard wouldn’t even move.

The whole fracking process need take no more than eight or nine weeks, then all the kit can be removed, the area re-landscaped, and all that remains is a tap.

Compare that to the horrors of wind-farms with their monstrous eco-crucifixes..

Drilling into shale bedrock is going to release more gas and oil than the world has ever seen. The UK has vast reserves. In the US, extracting more shale gas is becoming uneconomic – it is just too cheap.

So now fracking is reverting to extracting oil from the shales. The Chancellor has announced a cut in the rate of tax on shale profits from 60 per cent to a “mere” 30 per cent.

Of course, taxes at that level on creative enterprise tell you all you need to know about why Britain is economically depressed. So he’s going to tax profits. Wind-farms, by contrast, absorb our taxes by the billions we pay in subsidies. You’re waiting for the joke?

Here it is: when did you ever hear of a windmill making a profit?