Fracking For Natural Gas: economically beneficial but is it safe?
To meet its immediate energy needs and perhaps stimulate a sluggish economic recovery, the United States is having to wrestle with several complex options. One is oil drilling in the Arctic regions – which was recently covered here in a guest post last month. And the other is natural gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Fracking is a high-tech method of drilling for natural gas – and sometimes oil – by drilling deep into a shale layer, then drilling horizontally and injecting high pressure water, sand and chemicals to actually fracture or crack the surrounding shale. Through those man-made fissures seeps the natural gas for extraction to the surface.
To reach the deep layers of shale, the wells may drill through freshwater aquifers that feed into groundwater supplies used by cities. And to ensure against leaks into the groundwater, the vertical drilling well will be encased in cement. The water that is used in the fracking process, some 50,000 to 350,000 gallons, is returned to the surface and cleaned of contaminants and, in some cases, reused in other wells for more fracking.
The oil companies currently involved in this process are seeing results and so they are rallying politicians for support as an expansion in the use of hydraulic fracturing wells can mean more jobs, an increase in domestic supplies, and a reduction in costs for the end user. Coming as no surprise, the energy companies claim that fracking is completely safe to the environment.
Two words: Deepwater Horizon.
I don’t mention the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an indictment of those involved in fracking. It’s more of a reminder that new technology can and often will backfire; it’s just part of the learning curve. But the consequences in these cases can be enormous.
The energy and oil industry, either through industry associations or directly from the companies themselves, are lining up their company-paid scientists and their reports that denounce the likelihood of fracking posing any risk to groundwater supplies. The opponents of fracking are also bringing their reports to the table, often in the form of geological studies and computer modeling that claim that fluids from hydraulic fracturing can migrate through the shale and reach groundwater supplies in as little as several years.
Politicians and other policy makers or regulators are caught between energy industry proponents and their cherry-picked studies and opponents, typically backed by environmental groups, and their contrary studies.
This past Wednesday, Bloomberg.com reported on a study that called into question the safety of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas.
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