Pros And Cons Of Hydraulic Fracking

About a third of United State's electricity generation is fueled by natural gas, and since most of it is produced from the US itself, it’s not a surprise that some people are hailing it “the clean energy of the future”. But really, how clean is natural gas anyway? Hydraulic fracking is the process used to produce a third of the natural gas in the US. First, a well is drilled and a steel pipe casing is inserted into the well. Then, a mixture of water and other chemicals are pumped into the formation. This mixture can include a wide range of chemicals, such as proppants to help open up fractures within the rock and gases and acids to react and break formations in the rock. High-pressure pumping of the mixture into the formation fractures

First of all, hydraulic fracking requires a massive amount of water. According to the EPA, 70 to 140 billion gallons of water, the same amount required to provide for 40 to 80 cities annually, is used to frack in the US each year. In Texas, ranchers, who are already suffering from drought conditions, worry as fracking companies continue to pump millions of gallons of water from the aquifer beneath their feet. These ranchers worry that as the drilling continues to drain the aquifer, there will soon be no water left for them to irrigate their fields and provide for their livestock. Ranchers shouldn’t be the only ones who are worried, as groundwater is connected; pumping water from one aquifer can drain that of another, and the over-pumping of water can drain water sources in a larger radius than just the pumping site. Over-pumping of water creates weaknesses underneath the ground, which can lead to sinkholes, saltwater intrusion, and damage to ecosystems. We’re already experiencing severe droughts in places like California and Texas, where farmers struggle to keep their land as prices for water increases. Many farmers cannot keep up with the prices, and end up going jobless. As farmers lose their jobs, prices for food increases as well, and more people cannot afford to put food on their

In studies done on the Marcellus Shale region of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, the largest natural gas field in the US, it was found that more than 90% of the fracking fluid injected into wells were never removed. A common fracking chemical, benzene, is a human carcinogen known to cause cancer. Another chemical, volatile organic compounds (VOC), easily diffuses into the air, harming workers at the site who breathe in the air. VOCs have also been seen in water sources in percentages that exceeded drinking water standards. Chemicals used in fracking cause a range of problems, from nosebleeds and abnormal skin growth to cancer and birth