Polish researchers find shale gas fracking 'environmentally safe'

Shale gas mining will not damage the water supply or increase carbon emissions, finds an as yet unpublished report by the Polish Geological Institute.

The Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily says it has seen the report prepared for the Ministry of Environment which concludes that apart from the noise from drilling, 'fracking' shale gas in Poland will not have negative environmental consequences.

A drilling rig is seen at sunset at Grabowiec 6 near the village of Lesniowice, southeast Poland, home to U.S. giant Chevron’s first shale gas well in the country, Nov. 28, 2011

Experts studied the environmental impact of the so-called fracking process performed in 2011 on one of the boreholes in the village Łebień in Pomerania, northern Poland.

From 2014, Warsaw wants to tap an estimated 5.3 trillion cubic meters of shale gas reserves. According to the US Energy Information Administration, Poland is sitting on more than 300 years of its domestic energy needs.

But environmentalists, and researchers at Cornell University in the Us have raised the alarm that the fracking process of retrieving the energy supply could increase greenhouse has emissions.

France has already banned the process.

A poll taken in late 2011 found however that 73 percent of Poles backed developing shale gas mining.