Fracking: Causing More Harm Than Good Essay

Oil and natural gas companies have developed a way to drill for natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Natural gas is a flammable gas mixture consisting of methane and several other hydrocarbons that occur naturally underground. Natural gas is used as fuel for heating, cooking, and even in some automobiles like the “RideOn” buses. This technique has only recently become economically feasible with the rising prices of fossil fuels, and there is much potential for recovering natural gas through fracking. However, fracking has many waste products and unusual side effects caused by the unnatural forces and materials used. Fracking has a detrimental effect on the surrounding environment through

Fracking is a highly controversial practice that utilizes the injection of water, chemicals and abrasives to extract relatively inaccessible pockets of natural resources. Although fracking has the potential to benefit the domestic economy, the practice of hydraulic fracturing, if left unregulated and mismanaged poses significant risks to the environment, the ecosystem and safety.

We need fossil fuels to power up our automobile, heating our homes, and lighting our streets throughout the night. Fracking is an innovation developed by the Halliburton corporation in the 1940s. It is an innovation that extract natural gases by injecting water mixed with sand and chemical additives. Hydraulic fracturing led the energy industry in the United States increased dramatically. How fracking works is drilling holes vertically or horizontally breaking the subsurface spewing chemical-laced water into the ground. This will widen the shale rock and force the gas to be released where we can collect it (What is Fracking?). Now, hydraulic fracturing is a worldwide controversial issue. It is in constant controversial debate about the water system and the chances of earthquake activity.

With the age of constant industrial and technological growth has come the necessity for not only cost effective and efficient methods for industry, but also the need for obtaining fuel for the machines that make the modern world possible. Oil has become as precious a commodity as gold, if not more so; its attainments constantly driving the world's largest businesses and governments across the world into action. Naturally, a "quick-fix" solution to this problem is constantly sought after by oil companies wishing to provide oil on a massive scale. One of these drilling methods is known as induced hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking).

An Analysis of State of Wyoming, et al. v. United States Dept. of the Interior

America has one of the highest energy consumption rates in the world. This demand has led to the popularization of the hydraulic fracturing industry. First introduced in the 1940s, hydraulic fracturing is method by which a well is drilled one to two miles below the Earth’s surface. The well then injects water and chemicals in the Earth that create fractures through which gas can flow through. Hydraulic fracturing, which is also known as fracking, became popular because of horizontal drilling in fracking is more efficient at extracting gas. As a result, a fracking boom ensued in which over a million wells were drilled in the United States in the past decade. However,

Fracking promoters say safe hydraulic fracking doesn’t threaten drinking water. They also disprove that the water used in hydraulic fracturing ends up as surface spills. There are three ways reported for waste water disposal including “injecting in permitted disposal wells in accordance with Underground Injection Control Regulations, delivered to water treatment facilities depending on permitting, and reused/recycled” (“Pioneering America’s Energy Future”). These three types of disposals are considered safe as long as agencies are regulating hydraulic fracturing companies carefully. The Oil and Gas Conservation Act makes oil and gas a state priority, allowing companies the legal right to fracture. It is harder to judge whether regulations are actually set in place when government wants to favor the creation of jobs and economic boost rather than worrying about the health of communities affected by

To define fracking in latent terms, it’s the process of injecting liquids into rock at high pressures in order to extract oil and gas. The biggest concern looming over this growing industry is the environmental risks that it poses. Everyone wants oil, but no one wants it in their backyard. The cities of Texas are taking the position that fracking has more disadvantages environmentally than it has benefits that outweigh those costs. Not only is clean air in danger, but water sources are vulnerable to this environmentally-unfriendly commerce. The most common liquid used for fracking is water, and very large amounts of water are consistently required, but where is all of this water coming from? Other concerns that fracking causes such as contamination, “methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the system and contaminate nearby groundwater. Methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells”

Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is a drilling method used for extracting oil or natural gas from deep underground. Fracking is a problem that not many see as controversial. Each human being depends on daily energy, as long as they see the cost for use of energy is cheap they won't question the actual effects it may present to the environment. The energy sources can be mined or pumped from locations worldwide. Each technique for extraction of the resource is having serious impacts on wildlife. Even worse is that fracking can have a serious impact on our water supply. Large amounts of gas now is available due to high use amount of fracking. Though fracking is used worldwide to extract gas and oil, a fracking boom has occurred

The water mixture used to break the shale rock contains sand as well as over 600 different chemicals. The amount of water needed just for one gas well to take place is over eight million gallons. Not only do these natural gas wells use up so much water, the methane gas and chemicals in the water contaminate nearby groundwater, causing the people who drink it to become very ill and suffer serious mental and physical injuries. Most of these companies who are in the business of drilling gas wells do not show what really goes on behind the scenes. The leftover fracturing fluid, which are retrieved after the fracking, is only half of what first went down the well. Not only is this a problem because the chemicals that are left sink further down into the ground but they are also not biodegradable, which could go on to contaminate more

Did you know, that in the 35,000 wells fracked around U.S., all of them use a combined total of anywhere from 70 - 140 billion gallons of water annually. Fracking is using up our precise, limited source of water and should be banned immediately.

Hydraulic fracturing or most commonly known as fracking was first invented in 1997 and it is basically a technique and form of mining/drilling into the earth’s shale in search for shale gas and oil. Throughout time fracking has evolved and know a day’s hydraulic fracturing evolved from only drilling vertically to horizontally allowing companies to extract large amounts of oil and gas from places that could not be reached due to environmental concerns. Although fracking does have negative effects it also has positive ones. These include increasing the production of natural gas and increasing economic activities. In other words, fracking allows the state and the nation to access and have an alternative source

First of all, what is fracking? Hydraulic fracturing is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at high

Hydraulic fracking is vertical well bores are drilled thousands of feet into the earth, through sediment layers, the water table, and shale rock formations in order to reach the oil and gas. The drilling is then angled horizontally, where a cement casing is installed and will serve as a conduit for the massive volume of water, fracking fluid, chemicals and sand needed to fracture the rock and shale. In some cases, prior to the injection of fluids, small explosives are used to open up the bedrock. The fractures allow the gas and oil to be removed from the formerly impervious rock formations. Although fracking has technically been in existence for decades, the scale and type of drilling now taking place, deep fracking, is a new form of drilling

Fracking is the short term used for hydraulic fracturing, the forcing of water at high pressure into the ground in order to open natural lines to underground gas and oil deposits extracting it by forcing it upwards. We currently use fracking as a way to keep gas prices down and not have our country dependent of foreign gas.