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Pros And Cons Of Hydraulic Fracturing

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Hydraulic Fracturing 2 What exactly is Hydraulic Fracturing? When a majority of people are asked, they will more than likely shrug their shoulders. Even fewer of these people could explain whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing. The US leads the world in producing natural gas from shale and twenty five percent of electricity provided in America comes from natural gas. With these figures only projected to increase, it is safe to say that fracking is definitely a topic worthy of discussion. “Used in over one million wells in the United States for more than sixty years, fracking has been successfully used to retrieve more than seven billion barrels of oil and over six hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas.” (Loris, 2012). …show more content…

There are at this time, over 1.1 million operating wells in the United States. While yes, fracking has a number of disadvantages, it does reap benefits. Whether or not a person is pro fracking, it does accumulate a large lump sum of money. It is stated that the 48 states should benefit from this and should receive an economic boost. “According to a report from analysts IHS, it is not only the 16 states with their own gas and oil production capacity that are set to benefit – all 48 of the contiguous states should receive an economic boost.” (Fracking Boost, 2013.) While many believe that it is does more damage than good, it is hard not to be “pro fracking” when it is substantial to the economy. “These energy sources already support more than 1.7m jobs, and this is predicted to rise to 3m by the end of the decade” (Fracking Boost, 2013.) This is crucial to the US because there are is a decent amount of people in this country that are unemployed. This opens a great number of jobs for these people. An incline in employment is an advantage to the unemployed as well as the government. The unemployed are benefiting as well as the government. Everyone wins right? Wrong. We need to take our environment into consideration too. Saying that this is a total mistake isn’t correct; benefits are something that needs to be examined as well. The US actually takes the lead in Hydraulic Fracturing, as in we …show more content…

A centralized water system is one idea that is gaining some momentum. This provides treatment and recycling of produced waste water for the full lifecycle of the wells. The facilities would handle the flowback and produced wastewater from wells in some fifty mile radius. Pipelines connect all well heads within the radius. This goes to a central treatment plant. Such facilities could also be integrated with alternative sources of water, to supplement and reduce our impact on fresh water rescources. This may not be a fulfilling solution for the long term that regards all issues it is a step in the right direction towards a viable

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