Fracking has been in the news a lot recently. Basically fracking is the process of injecting fluids into holes drilled into underground zones containing oil and natural gas. The purpose of this procedure is to fracture (hence the name) the rock strata to release the oil or natural gas which is then pumped to the surface. Primitive fracking began in the mid 1800s and was used to extract oil in a number of states. Pressurized fracking began in 1947 in the United States and eventually spread across the world. The modern technique called horizontal slickwater fracturing was developed in 1988 in the United States. Fracking requires huge quantities of water and a variety of proprietary chemical mixtures to aid the fracking process.
Hundreds of chemicals have been used in fracking including acids, alcohols, ammonium compounds, benzene compounds, formaldehyde, kerosene, nitrogen, potassium compounds, salt, salt, sodium compounds and many other chemicals currently labeled as toxic. These additives may be surfactants, friction reducers, emulsifiers and other things to help get the oil or gas out of the rock. Fracking fluid also contains substances called proppants that are used to keep the fractures in the rock open after the injection of pressurized fluid is stopped.
Proponents of fracking point to the huge deposits of oil and natural gas that are now available for exploitation in the United States. The supply of natural gas has rise and the cost has fallen due to fracking. Many people in rural areas are receiving income from fracking operations on their land, bringing much needed economic development to their areas.
Opponents of fracking point to the environmental and health impacts of the process. The huge amounts of water drawn from the aquifers and rivers to feed the fracking operations are contaminated and cannot be used for consumption and irrigation. Despite efforts to contain and isolate this contaminated water, some of it still leaks out into the environment. Ground water and surface soil is contaminated when the fracking fluid leaks out of the wells. People living in the areas where fracking is taking place are reporting serious health impacts from drinking well water. There is some evidence that large scale fracking operations can aggravate faults in the earth and trigger earthquakes which can expel water from the fracking into the environment. Recently, in Pennsylvania, the issue of radium and radon gas injected into drinking water by fracking has been raised and efforts are underway to measure public exposure.
The main use of fracking is for gas and oil productions. However, there are a number of other uses such as stimulating groundwater wells, preconditioning rock strata for mining, disposing of waste water and other fluids by injecting them into deep rock strata, measuring stresses in the earth, geothermal generation of electricity and the sequestration of carbon dioxide to reduce global warming.
Back during the Soviet Union’s flirtation with the peaceful use of nuclear explosions, there were plans put forward that were later abandoned to use nuclear bombs for natural gas fracking.
Recently a United States company, Uranium Energy Corporation (UEC) in Texas, has announced that it is exploring a solution to the uranium supply problem in the U.S. Domestic production of uranium is down in the U.S. The uranium and plutonium that we have been getting from dismantling Russian nuclear weapons will no longer be available for conversion into reactor fuel. Other countries are competing for uranium on the international market. UEC wants to use fracking to dissolve uranium in rock strata and pump it to the surface for extraction and refinement. Opponents of the plan point out that while oil and natural gas fracking takes place miles down, below the aquifers that supply water to Texans, the uranium fracking would be less than one thousand feet below the surface and would pollute the ground water with uranium and other substances lock in the rock. UEC has responded that it is doing everyone a favor by pumping out water that is already contaminated and injectioning cleaner water into the aquifer. Critics are not comforted by this claim.
Hydraulic fracking diagram from Mike Norton:
