What is Fracking?
Fracking or hydraulic fracturing is a
process to extract natural gas from Shale rock layers that involves injecting
chemicals, often toxic, and gallons of water under high pressure. Hydraulic
fracturing is different than just drilling as it is injecting fluid in the
veins of a rock and expanding them. With such a great amount of pressure and
chemicals, the rock shatters releasing the gas flow.
By doing this it creates new channels in
which the natural gases can be extracted from the rock. Unlike oil, cases that
use this method are doing so because putting any type of drill into the rock
instantly creates enough friction to produce sparks which could easily light
the natural gases on fire. Send the whole project exploding. This is why the
men are required to keep a constant vigil on the equipment and materials they
use.
Use of Fracking
Fracking was started in 1947, now it is
used extensively for extracting natural gas. Britain's government welcomes the
resumption of fracking. Lancashire signals green to the company Cuadrilla
resources. Government of Northern Ireland is considering fracking by an
Australian company, Tamboran which has a license to explore the method of gas
extraction in County Fermangh. In the US, California has yet to begin fracking
in earnest. In Montery County, the Denver based Oil Company Venoco has been
given a green signal. Fracking, though is yet to be used in many parts of the
world, yet we come across many such massive uses of fracking globally.
Induced hydraulic fracturing is commonly
used to either increase the flow or restore the flow of fluids in a rock like
petroleum, water, and natural gas. Typically these are used on porous
sandstone, lime stones or dolomite rocks and sometimes include shale or coal
beds. Also, this tends to be used for rocks that are 1,000 – 6,000 miles below
the surface as the depth may cause there to not be enough pressure to allow
natural gas and oil to flow from the rocks into the well bore at the rates of
the current economy. This method can cause super fracking which provides a
wealthy yield of gases for about a year or two and then drops off at an extreme
rate.
The way that this fluid is applied is it
is poured down a hole and into the rocks below, spreading it to the rock bed
below to make it exceed the pressure rate of the rock. Once the crack forms the
fluid seeps further in to the rock and does not stop. The operator uses
prop-pant to slow the rate of fracturing so that when the fluid stops the
prop-pant stops the cracks from refilling and stopping the rate of fluid. Once
the fluid begins to stop it needs to be controlled before it begins to change
the geometry of the cracks of other rock beds and materials beside it,
otherwise it could damage that areas fracture rate which would decrease product
efficiency.
The equipment used with oils and natural
gas is a more slurry blender with a high pressure fracturing pump with a
monitor to watch it all.
Prop-pants consists of many things as
prop-pant is just a generalized name including several different materials.
These could be silica sand, resin-coated sand, or man-made ceramics. The type
of prop-pant depends on the gradient that they are working with and the
strength that is needed. While the most common is the silica sand, the man-made
ceramics are more efficient in doing the job. Due to higher porosity of the
fracture, more gases flow through and are collected.
Fracking Controversy
So, now that we know about what fracking,
and what it is used for, let's talk about controversy. The controversy has been
running since fracking was first implemented in 1947. There is always a chance
of the chemicals escaping into under ground water sources. There are many
diseases that can result from this because when it happens the contaminated
water is left in a severely unhealthy state.
That being said, the news of the world
has had a massive amount of coverage on this controversy lately. In the UK last
year, fracking was put on hold due to the gas explorer Cuadrilla Resources being
linked to a series of strong earthquakes. Now, the UK has given the go ahead
for fracking to resume but only under super strict regulations. In the USA,
there have been numerous displays of fracking gone bad. In Michigan, many gas
explorer companies are renewing interest in the deposits there. California is
still on hold to start fracking projects of their own.
Multiple states including Colorado,
Wyoming, Utah, and Texas have had massive fracking projects run to.Sadly, in
every place that has been listed, there have been multiple cases of chronic
health problems due to the mishandling of waste, contamination of drinking
water, and even the air. The off set of viable energy, money, and so forth is
not a viable reason to me and certainly not to the people who actually have
received health problems from this energy “boon”.
Look at the study done by professor
Robert W. Howarth of Cornell University, in it he quotes that 3.6% to 7.9% of
the methane escaping from shale-gas productions happens of the lifetime of the
well. Breathing methane in small amounts is not very detrimental to the health
of a person. However, at these rates the concentration is enough to cause many
health problems like unstable emotions, nausea, vomiting, respiratory collapse,
and in extreme cases death. I mention this because methane is a main ingredient
in natural gas production. Many places that use fracking inversely effect the
surrounding cities, towns, and landscapes because of this and the amount of
chemicals and water being forced into places it was never meant to go.
In 2010, Josh Fox released the movie “Gas-Land” depicting the effects of fracking on different communities in the
USA. Because the U.S. Created this
method, almost all the environmental impact studies have been based here. The
is also a final concern about water consumption is arid places where it can
affect water supplies. Here an average well's requirement is 3 to 8 million US
gallons (11,000 to 30,000 m3) of water, typically within one week.
Conclusion
It is still an issue of debate whether
using fracking is safe and should be allowed or not, yet the ever growing
demand and pressing price of oil makes it nearly impossible to deny its use.
There have been many conventions coming to argue that it is unsafe, and though
it is, almost all of them are area based. Some areas experience more health
issues than others, some have to repair the environment that they're in, but
other areas are not even effected or phased by the fluid. The fact that the
damage is so dependent on the area in which the fracking takes place makes it
difficult to determine whether the whole of the regime is safe or not. However,
with how unstable our world is becoming, it is time for us as people to find a
better way of doing things for our future. We have the technology. So, why
don't we use it wisely.
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