Hydraulic Fracturing In today’s world hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a means to get the Earth to release some of its natural resources. The natural resources we are after are water, oil, geo-thermal energy, and natural gas. Petroleum companies basically create fractures far below the Earth’s surface to force out the resources they are seeking. There are subsurface fracture systems already in place. Water and other chemicals are forced into the fractures underground causing them to separate and release the gas and oils that are trapped in the rock pores, thus letting the resources flow out of the well that has been drilled before the fracking begins. Hydraulic fracturing may reach up to six thousand feet laterally, and may extend hundreds …show more content…
Some positive things are economic in nature. Because of fracking, many new jobs are created. In 2011, an article in the Financial Times stated, “Oil shale boom boosts U.S. jobs market”. The Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association called hydraulic fracturing the cornerstone of the state’s economy (Energyindepth.org). One area of growth that is significant is in the oilfield heavy equipment and well drilling industry. This type of equipment costs millions of dollars per well to buy, and replacement parts and servicemen to repair equipment at the jobsite is very costly. Hiring new staff to deal with demand creates jobs where there were none in this field. According to Brian Davidson, a U.S. Bureau of Labor economist, “The rate of job growth is noteworthy”, while the non-farm employment rose only slightly at the same time. Another statistic the is on the positive side is that there are many thousands of wells drilled across the United States each year, and about an average of two hundred people are involved with each one. That is thousands of new jobs annually. These jobs are high paying and put a lot of money back into local …show more content…
As of March of 2014, over one million gas and oil wells are using the hydraulic fracturing method in the United States (fractracker.org). On an estimation of five hundred thousand wells being fracked in the U.S., four hundred tankers are needed to haul supplies and water to do one jobsite. The fraturing of one well uses one to eight million gallons of water, and forty thousand gallons of chemicals, of which six hundred of those chemicals are known to cause cancer in humans. If five hundred thousand wells use eight million gallons of water per frack, and a well is fracked eighteen times, the total amount of water used is seventy two trillion gallons of water. Then, the chemicals used equal about three hundred gallons. The frightening thing is what happens when the well has been fracked to its limit. What happens to the used fracking fluid and the chemicals? Only about three to five percent of fracking solution is recovered, and the rest is left underground. This solution is not biodegradable. Other spent solution is put in open air pits to be evaporated into the atmosphere. This, in turn causes ground level ozone, and acid rain. The solution that is left in the ground contains methane gas and toxic chemicals that leach outward and contaminates groundwater. Levels have been reported to be seventeen times higher than normal wells in wells that are near frack sites.