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The Pros And Cons Of Fracking

998 Words4 Pages

Imagine it’s 8 o’clock Saturday morning, and you and your family are awakened by the sounds of trucks in both your front and back yards. You hear a loud rapping at your front door. You rush to the door, once you open it, there is a man standing there. As you open the door he hands you a binder, and begins to explain who he is, and why he is there. With all the commotion going on, you cannot hear anything he has just said except for, “You have 48 hours till we start to drill. Have a good day” as he turns away and leaves. You’re left standing there confused and angry so you browse through the binder. The very last page of the binder states: you have 48 hours until the big oil and gas companies begin the drilling process. It is unfair that oil …show more content…

Fracking, in short terms, is the way that energy companies extract oil and gas from the Earth. Companies prefer fracking, because fracking is the easiest and most cost-efficient way to extract oil and gas from the Earth. The Lansing State Journal reports that “Michigan started fracking in the 1960s, and by far the state has done a great job at making sure the process does not hurt the residents of the state or their property (“Exposing Myths…” par.18).” Michigan has done a great job so far making sure all the regulations concerning hydraulic fracturing are followed, but who’s to say that the energy companies will continue to follow …show more content…

Many things could go wrong, and sometimes they do. The documentary Gasland does a really great job explaining what hydraulic fracturing is, and shows both the good and the bad sides of the process. Companies come in with drills, trucks, storage containers, and lots of workers. The workers prep the drill for drilling, set up storage containers, and build the backflow pits. Backflow pits are designed to collect any leftover oil or gas that may come back up. After the prep steps are completed, the drilling process begins. A drill begins to drill 5,000 feet into the ground. Next, seven million gallons of water infused with 596 chemicals are blasted into the hole. Once the hole is drilled, a different drill begins to extract the oil or gas from the Earth. The next step is the storage and delivery process. Companies store some of the product at the drilling site in storage containers.. The director of the documentary, Jeff Fox, noted that the storage containers are not fit to store these chemicals. Because of the poor quality of the containers, some of the gases leak out and evaporate into the air. The chemicals released are very harmful (gasland.com). Companies need to find alternative solutions to store their leftover chemicals. Individuals living in communities where fracking is done have the right to breath in safe

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Every year about 13,000 new hydraulic fracturing wells are made in the United States alone (Lallanilla 2015). So what is hydraulic fracturing , also known as “fracking”, and why are so many of these wells popping up? Hydraulic fracturing is a process that recovers natural gases and oil from shale rock. The shale rock or sometimes coalbed methane formations are then drilled and a well is made as deep as 10,000 feet below the surface. After a well has been drilled the actual fracking process begins.

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The second step, after reaching the shale rock formations, is to turn the drill bit horizontally and keep drilling. The lateral part of the borehole can be drilled as far as a mile, sometimes two. The third step is to ensure the borehole does not leak gas or wastewater into nearby groundwater. To do this, one lines the borehole with a steel casing, and then cement it in place so that it doesn’t move while hydrofracking. The fourth step is to use small explosives on the lateral section of the steel casing in order to punch small holes in it.

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While the spill of chemicals and large gas emissions poses a greater threat to the public due to higher concentrations of toxins, chemicals such as hydrochloric acid; muriatic acid; hydroxyethyl cellulose; glutaraldehyde; petroleum distillate; ammonium bisulfate; 2-hydroxy-1,2,3-propanetricarboxylic acid; N Dimethylformamide; ethylene glycol; 2-butoxyethanol; fluorocarbons; naphthalene; butanol; or formaldehyde are often released to the surface. (law) The chemical 2-butoxyethanol ("EGBE") is a major of concern to human health. Millions of gallons of EGBE are released in waste products over the years and are absorbed by inhalation, ingestion, or dermal exposure. “Numerous toxicity concerns are associated with EGBE, including nose and eye irritations, headaches, vomiting, breathing problems, low blood pressure, lowered levels of hemoglobin, blood in urine, and metabolic acidosis.”

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General Concerns Finally, as with any mining or intensive industry, hydraulic fracturing has the potential for noise and light pollution, and environmental degradation from the construction of the site itself and access roads into increasingly remote areas, amplified erosion from land clearing, and habitat disturbance through the means above or the accidental introduction of invasive species though equipment or soil movement (Rahm and Riha, 2012). Political, Economic, and Social Dimensions Political Dimensions Fracking in Colorado has been the source of much legislation and litigation in recent years. Although, “Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper describes the state’s [fracking] regulation as ‘the most comprehensive and stringent’ in

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Fracking is the hydraulic fracturing of the Earth. A giant drill bit is drilled down into the Earth before a high pressure water mixture is directed onto the Earth’s sediment. When the Earth’s rock is drilled away at natural gas is released. When the drill is drilling water, sand, and chemicals are injected into Earth at high pressures. This will allow the gas in the Earth to flow out.

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The greatest issue about hydraulic fracturing, in my opinion, is that government is careless about people and the wildlife. As it is mentioned in the documentaries and the movie Gasland,

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It involves high-pressure injections of water and chemicals into rock formations, which in turn release natural gas (Thompson, “Hydraulic Fracturing Should Be Banned”). However, fracking can result in many negative outcomes. For instance, scientists who conducted the earthquake study for Geology discovered that not only did fracking cause the biggest earthquake in Oklahoma, but it also caused more earthquakes in states that hardly experienced any seismic activity (“Wastewater Injection Spurred Biggest Earthquake Yet, Says Study,” The Earth Institute Columbia University). In fact, quakes have hit so frequently in Oklahoma, that state and oil regulators decided to shut down five disposal wells due to the increasing number of earthquakes in a city named Cushing (“Oil Regulators Shut Down Two Disposal Wells After Earthquakes Near Cushing”, State Impact: NPR).

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Fracking is a phenomenon that has taken the world by storm! Hydraulic Fracturing is the procedure of creating fractures in rocks and rock formations by injecting fluid into cracks to force them further open, releasing oil and natural gas. Even though fracking can be very beneficial it also comes with cons. Fracking is a innovative way to get to those fossil fuels from deep down inside the earth that we use on a day to day basis. In source C (Fracking Explained) it describes how energy consumption in the U.S. has risen with no signs of stopping every since the industrial revolution.

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Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is a drilling technique used for extracting oil or natural gas from deep underground. 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 and contribute to the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. How fracking works Most fracking wells in use today rely on two technologies: hydraulic fracturing, which has been in use since the 1940s, and horizontal drilling, a technique that first became widespread in the 1990s. In simplified terms, the fracking process starts with a well that is drilled vertically or at an angle from the

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Hydraulic Fracturing Hydraulic fracturing is a process to extract oil or gas from a well. This drilling process has been used for approximately sixty-five years. It first began in the 1940’s. Hydraulic fracturing is also known as Fracking, where millions of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground to break apart the rock, which releases natural gas (Schmidt).

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Fracking, a method is known as a way to generate less harmful impact on our environment is actually a method that might lower the amounts of Carbon in the air but greatly does much damage to the communities in which Fracking takes place. Developed in 1947, the idea of Fracking became popular in use by the end of the 1990’s and then became an adopted use under the Obama administration and other countries(Hydraulic Fracturing, J. Mcbride). Hydraulic Fracturing or what is known as Fracking is a process in which huge amounts of water, sand, chemicals, and other materials are packed in shale formation and infused into the ground. The pressure from the combination is able to fracture rocks below the earth's surface which frees the gas confined inside.

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