Gasland- A Few Facts

Part of my research, and a major reason for my interest in hydraulic fracturing in the first place, is the documentary Gasland, by Josh Fox.  This film follows Fox journeying to discover more about the process of fracking, as a company approached him with an offer of $100,000 to drill on his property.  Fox soon discovers however, that the areas across the country that have already had hydraulic fracturing in their areas were experiencing extremely adverse effects.  After watching the film again and some condensed clips on YouTube, there are a few brief interesting facts that stand out from the documentary:

• The Haliburton Loophole to the Safe Drinking Water Act states that it “authorizes oil and gas drillers exclusively to inject known hazardous materials adjacent to underground drinking water supplies.”  This was passed as a part of the Bush administration's Energy Policy Act of 2005.  It essentially states that drillers did not have to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act to prevent contaminating groundwater.
• If for a moment one could disregard the potentially direct contamination to groundwater, it is important to consider that between 1 and 7 MILLION gallons of water are required for drilling ONE well.  And, each time it is fracked (which can be up to 18 times), the well is expected to use an additional 1 to 7 million gallons of water.  This estimates 40 trillion gallons of water with the current wells, all infused with toxic chemicals.

The film addresses a large multitude more of facts that make it seemingly impossible to deny issues involved with fracking and its current regulations.  

American Petroleum Institute and "Clean" Fracking Technology

In these early stages of my research, I find myself rapidly forming a strong opinion on fracking, and I fear I am lacking proper evidence to do so.  I have mainly found evidence that I believe to shed a negative light on fracking.  Thus, I had to make attempts to view the other side of the argument and see what the supporters of hydraulic fracturing were in favor of in their support.  For this information, I turned to the American Petroleum Institute (API) to examine their work.  (To look at their mission statement and some of their research and statistics, you can follow this link: http://energytomorrow.org/who-we-are).  The API hails fracking as "clean technology" that can be greatly beneficial in providing the country with an energy source.  They claim that in over 60 years, there has been "spotty, unconvincing, and contradictory" evidence supporting that hydraulic fracturing contaminates groundwater.  Some other claims that API makes are:

• We know that hydraulic fracturing has been used safely for over 60 years. 
• We know that producing energy from shale promises jobs and security. 
• We know that America's oil and natural gas industry are committed to working with community leaders and regulators to ensure the safe and responsible development of this energy.

After reading further into some of the American Petroleum Institutes' claims of why fracking is indeed a safe practice, their main defense is that there have been no proven, documented cases that prove that fracking is the direct cause of contaminated groundwater is areas where fracking occurs.  

This video from ExxonMobile is one that tries to shed a positive light on fracking- http://www.youtube.com/exxonmobil?x=us_showcase_57

Is It Worth the Damage?

For this week, I was able to locate an article from Discover Magazine on hydraulic fracturing, written by Linda Marsa- an accredited scientific reporter.  Something interesting about this particular article was that it was able to expose even greater conflict between those in favor of fracking and those against it by revealing some startling facts.  One major argument for those in favor of drilling is that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled in 2004 that hydraulic fracturing posed "little or no threat to underground drinking water,"a claim they are now reconsidering after thousands of water supplies have been polluted after natural gas drilling began in the area.  Also, if we could hypothetically disregard the direct impact of fracking on an area for a moment, this article addresses the multitude of less obvious environmental outcomes from drilling.  For example, fracking releases immense amounts of methane, which in small doses is not considered harmful, but when concentrated in small areas, it is highly dangerous and explosive.  Additionally, methane is a greenhouse gas that is a staggering twenty times more damaging than carbon dioxide (released from fossil fuel burning).  Another point that is discussed in the source is the incredible amounts of water that are required for the process and consequently the mass amounts of waste water it produces.  One single well (and there can be up to 16 in one pad and hundreds of pads in an area) can require 10 million gallons of water combined with chemicals and sand to release the gas.  Lastly, the article addresses minimal practices that are being attempted to fix or minimize the effects of fracking through researching alternatives and providing incentives for companies who practice clean drilling techniques.

With these facts and the consideration of the perhaps less obvious environmental impacts, I have a difficult time comprehending how this process evades more direct scrutiny from both the EPA and the public.  I believe that with great risk comes great reward, but do the benefits outweigh the damages in this circumstance? With fracking we can supply millions of people's homes with an energy supply, but is that trade off enough to compensate for the other immense amounts of damage being done to the environment through fracking?  Thus far in my research, I do not feel I have found substantial evidence to support the practice of hydraulic fracturing.

So Much Confusion

     A recent article that I found on nytimes.com is bringing to light some more common questions about the process of hydraulic fracturing.  The article discusses the definition of fracking and how the common misinterpretations of the meaning allow opposing forces to "talk past one another when discussing the environmental consequences of oil and gas production from shale formations" (Soraghan).  This lack of shared assumptions by opposite sides is making any progress or advancement over the concern of fracking highly difficult.  To many- industry critics included- fracking is a term used to lump together the entire drilling process with the process of shooting highly pressurized water and chemical mixtures into the wells to release the natural gas.  Others however claim that this is not accurate.  They claim that fracking and drilling are two separate processes and should be considered as such.  The "word games" between the industry and critics make it very difficult to address the issue.  With the disagreement of terms, it becomes increasingly hard for those affected by fracking in their area to prove that fracking is the cause of the problem. 
     The article also addresses the little work research that has been done to study the affects of fracking. 




http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/05/13/13greenwire-baffled-about-fracking-youre-not-alone-44383.html?pagewanted=all

Why Fracking?

For my topic for our class blog, I have chosen to focus on fracking.  I selected this topic because it is something that interests me and offers a lot of exploration.  Although environmental science is not one of my passions or primary interests, this specific environmental issue directly affects so many people while still evading much public discussion or concern and is the cause of much controversy.  Thus, I want to investigate this topic further and uncover some of the mystery surrounding fracking.  


In preliminary discussion, I feel an important question to address would be what exactly is fracking? Fracking is a the term used to describe the process of hydraulic fracturing which, according to an article from Businessweek, is "the process that makes it economical for energy companies to tunnel 5,000 feet below ground and remove the gas—but also poses environmental risks."  Essentially, the process involves pumping streams of water thousands of feet underground to releases the natural gasses trapped beneath the Earth's surface.  The problem is that the liquid being shot into the ground is not simply water, but a combination of hundreds of chemicals, some of which are proven harmful to life.  This "water" can then potentially contaminate groundwater which in turn affects the drinking supply in the surrounding areas.  This article describes some of the controversies surrounding fracking because this process is good for the economy but harmful to the environment; it supplied over 44,000 jobs and created more than $389 million in tax revenue in 2009 according to the article, and although natural gas emits less than half of the carbon emissions than oil, the hydraulic fracturing process contaminates countless amounts of water supplies and creates vast amounts of toxic waste.  So, should the primary concern be regulation or politics? 




http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_11/b4219025777026.htm