Wind energy more popular than fracking — poll

Source: John Murray Brown, Financial Times • Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Wind farms are more popular in Britain than hydraulic fracturing, a new study shows.According to the YouGov poll, 62 percent of respondents said they would rather live next to a wind farm than a fracking site. Nineteen percent said they would prefer an oil or gas well near their home, according to the poll.

The government-backed survey of 2,000 adults was commissioned by Ecotricity, a private wind energy group run by the renewables advocate Dale Vince.

The results present an awkward reality for the ruling Conservative Party, which backs the use of fracking to extract trapped layers of oil and gas from underground shale deposits.

“The government’s own polling clearly shows they can’t be thinking about the general population,” Vince said (, April 14)