Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it�s more commonly referred to, is used to
stimulate the production of oil and gas from unconventional oil and gas
deposits - shales, coalbeds,
and tight sands. These types of deposits need to be stimulated because they
have a lower permeability than conventional reservoirs and require the
additional stimulation for production.
Hydraulic fracturing
involves drilling a well then injecting it with a slurry
of water, chemical additives and proppants. Wells
are drilled and lined with a steel pipe that�s cemented into place. A
perforating gun is used to shoot small holes through the steel and cement
into the shale. The highly pressurized fluid and proppant
mixture injected into the well escapes and create cracks and fractures in the
surrounding shale layers and that stimulates the flow of natural gas or oil.
The proppants (grains of sand, ceramic beads, or
sintered bauxite) prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is
stopped and the pressure of the fluid is removed.
Proponents of hydraulic
fracturing argue that fracking:
- Creates cheap domestic energy
- Replaces
dirty coal-fired power plants
- Makes
it easier to meet federal air and water quality standards
- Reduces
our dependence on foreign supplied oil
�Fracture stimulation
is a safe and environmentally sound practice based on the industry�s
decades-long track record, as well as the conclusions of government and
industry studies and surveys.� Halliburton, a major corporate proponent of fracking
Opponents of hydraulic
fracturing have some serious concerns regarding:
- Contamination of the environment
- Threats to human health
- False
promises of long-term economic benefits
Over the last several
years there�s been a dramatic rise in the use of hydraulic fracturing. As use
of this technology has increased worries are growing about fracking�s effect on our fresh water supply, it�s easy to see why:
- Fracking just one well can use two to
eight million gallons of water with the major components being water
(90%), sand or proppants (8-9.5%), and
chemicals (0.5-2%). One four million gallon fracturing operation
would use from 80 to 330 tons of chemicals and each well will be fracked numerous times. Many of these
chemicals have been linked to cancer, developmental defects, hormone
disruption, and other conditions
- Cracked
wells and rock movement frequently leak fracking
fluid and gases into nearby groundwater supplies. Fracturing fluid leakoff (loss of fracturing fluid from the fracture
channel into the surrounding permeable rock) can exceed 70% of injected
volume
- Methane
concentrations are 17x higher in drinking-water
wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells. Hydraulic fracturing increases
the permeability of shale beds, creating new flow paths and enhancing
natural flow paths for gas leakage into aquifers
Here are a few excerpts
from �Myths Versus Realities�Getting the facts about Fracking�
published by The Council of Canadians.
- Research
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Endocrine
Disruption Exchange Inc. has demonstrated that fracking
fluids contain toxic substances known to cause seri�ous health impacts
such as cancer and organ damage, and can have negative impacts on
neurological, reproductive and endocrine systems.
- A
2011 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency confirmed the
clear link between fracking and water
contamination.
- Contamination
of fracking fluids from one well to another �
�fracturing communication incidents� - has been documented in British
Columbia. On May 20, 2010, the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission
(BC OGC) issued a safety ad�visory stating that they were aware of 18
fracturing communication incidents. The BC OGC�s advisory also confirmed
that fracking fluids can return to the ground
surface, which poses a significant threat to water sources as chemicals
could leach into nearby watersheds.
- One
study published in an academic journal by a professor at Cornell
University suggests that fracked gas emissions
may be worse than those associated with oil and coal.
- In
a recent briefing titled Health Implica�tions of Fracking
for Natural Gas in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin, Dr.
Theo Colborne noted that some workers were re�quired to sign contracts
preventing them from ever revealing their hourly wage or health
problems. They were not even allowed to call 911 in case of an accident
or a spill. Workers who suffered from hypertension, fibromyalgia,
chemical sensitivity, memory loss and depression could not get worker�s
compensation because they could not prove their medical conditions were
a result of chemical exposure.
As of 2010, it was
estimated that 60 percent of all new oil and gas wells worldwide were being
hydraulically fractured. As of 2012, 2.5 million hydraulic fracturing jobs
have been performed on oil and gas wells worldwide, more than one million of
them in the United States � Wikipedia.
The fracturing fluids job
is to create the fractures, hold them open, place the proppants,
and then lose viscosity to flow back up the wellbore. It has to do all that
without damaging the reservoir. Typical fluid types are:
- Conventional
linear gels. These gels are cellulose derivatives or guar (and its
derivatives) based.
- Borate-crosslinked fluids are guar-based fluids
cross-linked with boron ions. These gels are used to carry proppants.
- Organometallic-crosslinked fluids use zirconium, chromium, antimony, titanium salts to crosslink guar based
gels. Gels
are broken down with
appropriate breakers.
- Aluminium phosphate-ester oil gels. Aluminium phosphate and ester oils are slurried to form cross-linked gel.
Fracturing fluid
additives include: proppants, acids, gelling agents
to thicken the fracturing fluid, gel breakers which allow fracturing fluid
and gas to flow easily back to surface, bactericides, biocides, clay
stabilizers, corrosion inhibitors, crosslinkers
which help maintain viscosity of fracturing fluid, friction reducers, iron
controls, scale inhibitors, and surfactants. The fracturing fluid will vary
in composition depending on the type of fracturing used, the conditions of
the specific well being fractured, and the water
characteristics.
A typical fracture
treatment uses up to 12 additive chemicals to the fracturing fluid. The most
often used chemical additives would include one or more of the following:
- Hydrochloric
acid helps dissolve minerals and initiate cracks in the rock and is the
single largest liquid component used in a fracturing fluid aside from
water.
- Acetic
acid is used in the pre-fracturing stage for cleaning the perforations
and initiating fissures in the near-wellbore rock.
- Sodium
chloride (salt) delays breakdown of the gel polymer chains.
- Polyacrylamide
and other friction reducers minimize the friction between fluid and
pipe.
- Ethylene
glycol prevents formation of scale deposits in the pipe.
- Borate
salts are used for maintaining fluid viscosity.
- Tetramethyl ammonium chloride prevents
clays from swelling and shifting
- Sodium
and potassium carbonates are used for maintaining effectiveness of the crosslinkers.
- Glutaraldehyde is used as a disinfectant of
the water (bacteria elimination).
- Guar
gum and other water-soluble gelling agents increases
the viscosity of the fracturing fluid to more efficiently deliver the proppant into the formation.
- Formic
acid and acetaldehyde are used for corrosion prevention.
- Isopropanol
increases the viscosity of the fracture fluid.
- Methanol
is a winterizing agent and product stabilizer
British Columbia�s
Vancouver Sun newspaper reported a well in Peace River North, British
Columbia, Canada used more than 30 ingredients.
These ingredients included hydrochloric acid, xylene (a central nervous
system depressant), naphtha, polyethylene glycol and kerosene.
FracFocus.com
Each well uses between
two and eight million gallons of locally-sourced freshwater which will be
permanently contaminated by toxic chemicals contained in the fracking fluid, in ground contaminants and the mixing of
the two to create new toxic substances.
Hydraulic fracturing flowback not only contains chemicals added during well
stimulation, but the fluid that flows out of the well as the gas is produced
will contain a variety of toxic and carcinogenic substances, many of which
were not present in the fracturing additives. This is because chemicals and
minerals are present in the shale zone formation water and they may be
released during the hydraulic fracturing process. This release results in
additional contaminates formed in the wastewater, ie
bronopol is a biocide with low human toxicity that
can release nitrite, which in alkaline medium reacts with secondary amines to
produce the potent nitrosamine carcinogens.
The recovered waste fluid
- water contaminated with chemicals and anything that water has come in
contact with, meaning heavy metals and minerals - is often left in open air
pits to evaporate, releasing harmful volatile organic compounds (VOC) into
the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain, and ground level ozone.
Some of the recovered
waste water is injected deep underground in oil and gas waste wells or even
in saline aquifers, there are serious concerns about the ability of these
caverns and aquifers to handle the increased pressure and in the U.S.,
evidence is showing that deep-well injecting is linked to the occurrence of
earthquakes.
According to the
industry�s own numbers just60-70% of the fracturing fluid is recovered, the
remaining 30 to 40% of the toxic fluid stays in the ground and is not
biodegradable.
No one is entirely sure
what happens to the water that is not recovered from the fracking
process but since the water returned to the surface contains radium and
bromides we can be sure the lost water does as well.
�When bromide in the
wastewater mixes with chlorine (often used at drinking water treatment
plants), it produces trihalomethanes, chemicals
that cause cancer and increase the risk of reproductive or developmental
health problems.�
The use of the large
number of oxidants, particularly hydrogen peroxide, in the presence of
bromide can produce compounds that are potentially carcinogenic.
Radium is a radioactive
metal that can cause diseases like leukemia.
Benzene, toluene,
xylenes, ethyl benzene, and a variety of other aromatic compounds are
routinely used. Of these, benzene carries the greatest toxicity, due to its
well-known carcinogenicity. These five compounds will tend to remain in
water, and only be weakly absorbed.
From the Review of the
DRAFT �Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Oil, Gas
and Solution Mining Regulatory Program Toxicity and Exposure to Substances in
Fracturing Fluids and in the Wastewater Associated with the
Hydrocarbon-Bearing Shale� by Glenn Miller, Ph.D., Consulting Environmental
Toxicologist to the Natural Resources Defense Council we get the following�
�The DSGEIS does not demonstrate
that contaminants found in produced water and/or fracture treatment flowback water are safe for
environmental or human exposure.
Thus, if drinking water were contaminated with as little as 0.1% of
certain shale gas wastewater, it would constitute a violation of a drinking
water standard. The small percentage of wastewater that can cause serious
contamination supports an argument that effectively any contamination caused
by shale gas wastewater would be considered unacceptable�
The flowback water (containing both the shale
fracturing water and the produced water) that will carry contaminants from
the shale and the fracturing additives is likely to be highly contaminated
with metals, salts, and radioactivity that, in some cases, are greater than
1,000 times the drinking water standards. This level of contamination is
sufficiently high that any level of contamination of surface and groundwater
is unacceptable.�
In 2005 U.S. President Bush,
VP Dick Cheney and Congress used a 2004 study (it said fracking
posed no danger to drinking water, this study was conducted in an area where
coal beds were being fractured, and not shale beds) by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to justify legislation of the "Halliburton
loophole," which exempts hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking
Water Act.
�Fracking
for oil and gas embedded in shale rock basins across the country and world
involves the injection of a 99.5-percent cocktail of water and fine-grained sillica sand into a well that drops under the groundwater
table 6,000-10,000 feet and then another 6,000-10,000 feet horizontally. The
other .5 percent consists of a mixture of chemicals injected into the well,
proprietary information and a "trade secret" under the Energy
Policy Act of 2005, which current President Barack Obama voted
"yes" on as a Senator.
That loophole is
referred to by many as the "Halliburton Loophole" because Dick
Cheney had left his position as CEO of Halliburton - one of the largest oil
and gas services corporations in the world - to become Vice President and
convene the Energy Task Force. That Task Force consisted of the Secretaries
of State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation and
Energy. One of its key actions was opening the floodgates for unfettered fracking nationwide.
Between 2001 and the
bill's passage in 2005, the Task Force held over 300 meetings with oil and
gas industry lobbyists and upper-level executives. The result was a slew of give-aways to the industry in this omnibus piece of
legislation. On top of the "Halliburton Loophole," the bill also
contains an exemption for fracking from
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of the Clean Water Act and
the Safe Drinking Water Act.� Steve Horn, desmogblog.com
What they exempted are ticking time bombs�
�The technology to
recover natural gas depends on undisclosed types and amounts of toxic
chemicals. A list of 944 products containing 632 chemicals used during
natural gas operations was compiled. Literature searches were conducted to
determine potential health effects of the 353 chemicals identified by Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) numbers. More than 75% of the chemicals
could affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, and the respiratory
and gastrointestinal systems.
Flickr.com
Approximately 40-50%
could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and
the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause
cancer and mutations.
These results
indicate that many chemicals used during the fracturing and drilling stages
of gas operations may have long-term health effects that are not immediately
expressed. In addition, an example was provided of waste evaporation pit
residuals that contained numerous chemicals on the CERCLA and EPCRA lists of
hazardous substances.� Natural Gas Operations From A Public Health Perspecvtive,
wv4mom.org
�The 14 leading
hydraulic fracturing companies in the U.S. injected 10.2 million gallons of
more than 650 products that contained chemicals that are known or possible
human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as
hazardous air pollutants.�2011 congressional report on the chemicals used in hydraulic fracking
Is the shale
revolution all it�s fracked
up to be?
�A New York Times
investigation first unearthed major cracks in the 'shale boom' narrative in
June 2011, finding that state geologists, industry lawyers and market
analysts 'privately' questioned 'whether companies are intentionally, and
even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of
their reserves.' According to the paper, 'the gas may not be as easy and
cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are
saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and
an analysis of data from thousands of wells.� Le Monde Diplomatique
�The economics of fracking are horrid. Drilling is destroying capital at an
astonishing rate, and drillers are left with a mountain of debt just when
decline rates are starting to wreak their havoc. To keep the decline rates
from mucking up income statements, companies had to drill more and more, with
new wells making up for the declining production of old wells. Alas, the
scheme hit a wall, namely reality.� US financial journalist Wolf
Richter, Business Insider
As companies pump out the
fracking fluids bubbles and �burps� of dissolved
gas are released. These early gases are usually vented into the atmosphere
for up to a month or more until the well hits full production, then it�s
hooked up to a pipeline.
Natural gas emits about
half as much carbon dioxide as coal per unit of energy when burned but a
report by Cornell University concluded that methane leakage was 3.6% to 7.9%
of gas produced.
Natural gas is mostly
methane (CH4), and methane is over 25 times (the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) says methane is 86 times more damaging than CO2 over a
20-year period) more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the
atmosphere over a 100 year period.
In August of 2013, a National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) led study measured a
stunning 6% to 12% methane leakage over one of the U.S.�s largest gas fields,
the Uintah Basin, which produces about 1% of U.S. natural gas. Releases of
those magnitudes could offset the environmental edge that natural gas is said
to enjoy over other fossil fuels.
�Unless leakage rates
for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an
effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change.�Major 2011 study by the Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
The new �Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences� study introduces the idea of
technology warming potentials (TWPs) to reveal time-dependent tradeoffs
inherent in a choice between alternative technologies.
In this new approach the
potent warming effect of methane emissions undercuts the value of fuel
switching. The switch from coal to gas, assuming a total methane leakage of
2.4%, would only reduce TWPs by about 25% over the first three decades � just
half the oft touted 50% drop in CO2 emissions from the switch. The study
found that if the total leakage exceeds 3.2%, gas becomes worse for
the climate than coal.
The decline rate of shale
gas wells is very steep. A year after coming on-stream production can drop to
20-40 percent of the original level. If the best prospects were developed
first, and they were, subsequent drilling will take place on increasingly
less favorable prospects. Try to imagine how much drilling is taking place
just to keep even with the existing production rate, how about increasing
production?
Here�s James Howard
Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency" and his take on the
situation;
�In order to keep
production up, the number of wells will have to continue increasing at a
faster rate than previously. This is referred to as "the Red Queen
syndrome" which alludes to the character in Alice in Wonderland who
famously declared that she had to run faster and faster just to stay where
she is.�
Conclusion
There�s no doubt
hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have tapped huge resources
previously thought unrecoverable. By the end of the year, the US will be
producing more oil and gas than any other country in the world. And it�s
almost all thanks to fracking.
But at what cost?
Hydraulic fracturing of
oil and gas wells is contaminating our fresh water supply. Wells are counted
by the hundreds of thousands in the U.S. and Canada, millions have been fracked worldwide and we�re drilling hundreds more per
day. Each and everyone a potential ticking time
bomb of human cancers and mutation. In the end, when the shale boom goes
bust, and it�ll be much sooner than most think, we�ll have to live with
what�s been done to our environment. In a few short years will we be able to
rationalize, to justify the short term benefits from poisoning our most
precious resource, our fresh water?
Hydraulic fracturing
should be on all our radar screens. Is it on
yours?
If not, maybe it should
be.
Richard is the owner of Aheadoftheherd.com and invests in the junior
resource/bio-tech sectors. His articles have been published on over 400
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