A natural gas well (Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”) is drilled near Canton, in Bradford County, Pennsylvania (Les Stone / Reuters)
FRACKING
Fracking is a hotly debated environmental and political issue. Advocates insist it is a safe and economical source of clean energy; critics, however, claim fracking can destroy drinking water supplies, pollute the air, contribute to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and trigger earthquakes.
It is often employed in the oil industry for exploratory missions but its primary use is the extraction of identifiable deposits of natural shale gas or oil. However, fracking has quickly become a controversial procedure due to concerns about its toxic impact on the environment and health.
The fracking procedure uses literally millions of gallons of water to fracture the shale deposits. It is estimated that up to 40% of the waste water laden with the chemicals, inevitably returns to the surrounding area’s ground water supply. Major causes of concern are the safety of drinking water and the irrigation of agricultural land which could lead to contaminated crops.
Water Supply Depletion.
Fracking consumes a massive amount of water. Anywhere between 1.5 million and 16 million gallons of water may be used to frack a single well, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Water used for hydraulic fracturing is typically fresh water taken from groundwater and surface water resources. The amount of water used per frack job has grown over time, exacerbating fracking’s impact on water supplies.
To manage the massive amounts of water necessary for the hydraulic fracturing process, drillers build large open air pits called impoundments next to the well pads, to store the water before it is used and after it returns to the surface.
There are two types of impoundments, those that hold drilling waste, used while drilling the well bore, and impoundments for the fracking fluid. The frack fluid pits are larger and contain toxic fracking fluid. These open pits have been linked to animal deaths and health effects in humans. (SOURCE NRDC – FRACKING 101)
Flaring is meant to convert gas into carbon dioxide instead of releasing methane. Unlit flares are the biggest source of methane emissions globally, preliminary data from GHGSat Inc. show. – Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
FLARING
In the U.S., flaring accounts for an estimated 9% of the greenhouse gas emissions of the oil and gas industry. In addition, the practice spews particulate matter, soot and toxins into the air that have been shown to be hazardous to humans.
WHY FLARE: Gas flaring is part of the exploration, production and processing of natural gas, liquids and oil from shale. A flare system consists of a flare stack and pipes that feed gas to the stack. During operation of a well, it can be that there are gases which are not economical to transport or capture, and so are flared or deliberately burn.
THE PROBLEM: Gas flaring globally emits more than 350 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in a year, according to the World Bank. That’s comparable to the carbon emissions of 90 coal-fired power plants. In the U.S., flaring accounts for an estimated 9% of the greenhouse gas emissions of the oil and gas industry. In addition, the practice spews particulate matter, soot and toxins into the air that have been shown to be hazardous to humans.
By Jonah M. Kessel and Hiroko Tabuchi – Dec 12, 2019 / New York Times READ NY TIMES ARTICLE
VENTING – METHANE
Its a Vast. Invisible Climate Menace. We Made It Visible.
Using a powerful infrared camera, The Times identified large-scale releases.
WHY VENT: Besides the practice of gas flaring, there is also that of gas venting. Gas venting is the discharge of unburned methane into the atmosphere, which is many times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Oil drillers tend to flare or vent gas when they lack pipelines to move it to market, or prices are too low to make transporting it worthwhile. It is vast and invisible to the naked eye. A stack can silently vent toxic gas into the atmosphere.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM: For starters, methane is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas, 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The U.S. drilling industry flared or vented more natural gas in 2019 for the third year in a row, as soaring production in Texas, New Mexico, and North Dakota overwhelmed regulatory efforts to curb the practice, according to state data and independent research estimates.
How Fracking Contaminates Water.
Fracking: Radioactive Waste in Water – Pennsylvania (Image via Environmental Science and Technology /Warner)
Pennsylvania – Testing of treated wastewater from fracking showed that it contained high levels of radioactive radium, along with chloride and bromide.
Fracking poisons water! Groundwater becomes contaminated by hydraulic fracturing in a number of ways, including leakage from liquid storage areas, leakage from injection wells, leakage during hydrofracking along faults or up abandoned wells, seepage into the ground when wastewater and residuals are applied to land.
Disposal of the toxic and sometimes radioactive frack fluid is a major logistical problem for fracking companies. When a well is hydraulically fractured, somewhere between 18 and 80 percent of the frack fluid injected into the well will return to the surface. This water, called “flowback” is heavily contaminated by the chemical mixtures that comprise the frack fluid, as well as dissolved salts and heavy metals from deep within the earth.
The GWPC estimates that the US oil and gas industry generates approximately 900 billion gallons (3,400 billion L) of produced wastewater each year. That number is based on data from nearly 1 million oil and gas wells.
Because of lax regulation, fracking companies commonly dispose of contaminated fracking water in the cheapest, easiest ways they can find, regardless of the consequences for communities, water treatment facilities, and the environment. This has led to abuses of waterways and communities close to frack sites.