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Disadvantages Of Fracking

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Hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking” is a reservoir stimulation technique. In other words, it can be defined as a process of deeply drilling down into the Earth and injecting high-pressurized water mixture, which contains water, sand and other chemicals into the ground. After having been pumped into the ground, the fracking fluid creates cracks in deep-rock formations, allowing oil and gas to flow out of the well. The phrase “gas shale” refers to natural gas that is extracted from deep hard rock formations by using fracking. The shale gas production nowadays involves six steps: seismic exploration, pad construction, vertical and horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, sustained production and waste disposal. It is obvious that …show more content…

Recently, there have been a lot of studies on how shale gas production impacts water aquifers. According to credible sources, the amount of water involved in hydraulic fracturing could be up to 4 million gallons per well. This water, however, is injected back into the wells after being used without going through any treatments. With the explosion of shale gas production, billions of wells have been drilled over the past 50 years led to the consumption of an enormous amount of water, resulted in water scarcity around the world. It is reported that the majority water sources of the world are being threaten and about 1.7 billion people would suffer from clean water scarcity. Along with the degradation of water availability, fracking fluids involve the use of hazardous chemicals which can contaminate underground water sources if lack of proper treatments. Published reports have point out that about 700 hazardous chemicals were found in the pressurized liquid including strontium, uranium, radon and other radioactive materials might leak out of the drilling wells and contaminate aquifers. These chemicals are believed to be carcinogenic and causes other health problems such as blood disorders and respiratory problems. In Wyoming, hazardous compounds in fracking fluids were reported to exist in drinking wells near fracking sites. Another study of drinking water wells in Pennsylvania was conducted, giving the result that methane contamination in drinking water has grown rapidly with the increasing production of shale gas. In his published article, Myers T. argued that “there is substantial geologic evidence that fracking will greatly shorten the transportation time that most toxic contaminants cycle toward the surface, reducing what would ordinarily take tens of

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