Energy has always been the driving force that help mankind developed. From the First Industrial Revolution, steam engine powered by coal was developed. Then the Second Industrial Revolution come with the development of combustor engine and petroleum. Today, oil has become an essential source of energy for production and our everyday life. The demand keep on increasing which lead to the growth in scale and quantity of oil production all over the world. It has led many companies to overlook the benefit of other stakeholder beside their traditional shareholder. And the result as many accident relate to companies cut corner to pursuit profit. Although, we have long realize the negative impact of oil and oil industry. But it is impossible to replace them with some other alternative in a short period. With that being said Fracking has appear to be a shiny star and reasonable solution for U.S in this near future. We will discuss fracking current state and future also as the potential ethic issue tag along with it. Modern fracking was first introduced in 1947, but it has not commercialized until 1990s (Manfreda, 2015). After almost seventy years of development, fracking technology has developed rapidly and become more efficient. But question about its safety has yet to be answer. Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting mixture of liquid, including water, sand and chemical, at high pressure into the well. This mixture will create fracture in the rock and release natural
There are many articles, studies being done, and organizations fighting for what they think is right. Two organizations involved in fracking are the American Gas Association (AGA) and FracDallas. AGA is a natural gas utility association supporting fracking, its priority is to use natural gas for transportation in order to increase the demand for it. FracDallas “does not oppose gas well drilling” it “opposes unsafe, untested and unproven gas well drilling in densely populated urban areas”
Hydraulic fracking is not only harmful to people but also toxic for the environment around the site. Extracting gasses deep in the earth's crust is not natural, neither is sucking 5-8 million gallons of water out of lakes. Eight million gallons might not seem like a lot because of how much the earth’s surface is covered in water, but there are over a million wells being fracked around the United States. Even if the fracking site is located in water deficient regions the companies will still pump out a large quantity of water from the local sources. For now, we have enough water for drinking and domestic use, but if the process doesn't stop or slow down we will affect the ecosystem. The composition of some fracking chemicals remains protected and disclosure through various "trade secret" exemptions under state or federal law, scientists analyzing fracked fluid have identified dangerous compounds to humans and the environment. For each frack, 70-300 tons of chemicals may be used, selected from a menu of up to 500 different chemicals. When the workers are down with the fracking mixture it is then stored on site in tanks and get reused until the fluid is be disposed of. When disposing of the flowback fluids, it's injected back into the ground deeper than the wellbore and left. In a recent report, USGS science for a changing world made stated “Wastewater disposal wells typically
If the practice of fracking continues without the necessary regulation and management to construct the infrastructure required for extraction, transportation and consumerization, the practice has the potential to generate serious problems.
Even though I would need to do more research to have a more coherent opinion, I believe that fracking should not be practiced in the United States. My opinion is heavily based on the fact that fracking is still such a new discovery and that safe methods have not been identified. Thus, too many people are at risk for being exposed to contaminated drinking water (Jackson, 2014). The methane contamination of the drinking water is very concerning because it is very flammable, which can be incredibly dangerous to the citizens in the affected area (Hoffman, 2016). Thirdly, the amount of pollutants that are released into the atmosphere is not safe for people to inhale. Both children and adults have been exposed to these pollutants, which have had severely negative effects. Lung disease is just one of the major negative health effects of fracking. Cancer and birth defects in infants are other incredibly disabling diseases that affect people in proximity to these wells (Kiely, 2016). Another issue that I find disturbing about the process of fracking is that the waste water wells are disposing of the chemical waste deep into the Earth’s crust. However, some of this chemical waste is disposed of in landfills, which, in turn, pollutes the groundwater (StateImpact, 2017). Overall, I find the process of fracking
The dictionary states that fracking is a method used for getting oil and gas from underground rocks by injecting liquid into the rocks so that they can break apart (Merriam-Webster). Fracking can be a controversial topic in numerous people’s eyes due to the side effects that coincide with this procedure. Fracking has evolved over the years and made a comeback around 2010. Lately, the United States has heard tremendous news regarding this procedure and the drawbacks from fracking natural gases and oil. Fracking can be beneficial; sadly, the side effects greatly outweigh the benefits. The environmental risks, pollution, and the overall risk factors prove to not worth the risk of fracking.
If John D. Rockefeller, one of the first oil tycoons, were to look at the oil industry today, would he believe his eyes? With millions of oil barrels being imported and exported each year, the oil industry has changed dramatically since the 19th century. At the forefront of the oil industry is the emergence of an oil drilling technique known as fracking. Fracking is an unconventional drilling process that is accomplished by using high-pressured water to release oil and natural gas from rock formations, known as shales. The use of fracking in the United States has made it one of the top oil producing countries in the world. However, this newfound oil and gas drilling method has not come without its costs. Despite the economic boom near drilling locations, politically, fracking has caused some international relationships to be strained. Also, fracking is seen as highly controversial by conservationists because of the environmental threats that it poses. The drilling method of fracking has deeply impacted the United States from an economic, a political, and an environmental standpoint.
One major issue with fracking is the lack of transparency of chemicals used. There has been some movement toward public awareness of the specific chemical which are pumped into the ground. It is certainly not definitive the so called halliburton loophole exempts corporations from disclosing the chemicals
Fracking has always been a problem, but seems to become more of a problem as time goes on. Although gas, oil, and coal are necessities for living, there is a better way to obtain these substances instead of fracking.
Hydraulic Fracturing or “Fracking” is something that has been prevalent in the news in recent times. It has revolutionised the energy industry in the US and now there are various companies competing as drilling companies suggest that trillions of cubic feet of shale gas may be recoverable from underneath parts of northern England. As many of our coal powered power stations are coming to the end of their lives, alternative sources of energy need to be found. However, there has been mass protest, due to the environmental and social impact of the fracking process.
You have probably come across the term 'fracking ' in the news quite recently and perhaps wondered if the reality is as ugly as the word. There is an ever rising body of evidence, that there are inherent and unacceptably high environmental and health risks associated with coalbed methane and shale gas extraction - hydraulic fracturing (fracking). This is fast becoming a global issue happening in our own back gardens, it 's contaminating our water supplies and tampering with mass food production industries. Something must clearly be done about fracking. Today I will express my personal feelings towards this topic and discuss the process and dangers of this industry.
Referring to fracking already gives a large and complex theme which exceeds simple the process that it requires, although this procedure has been used in America since 1940, it is not until now, when the hydraulic fracturing process has been refined and used more than ever. In the United States fracking, or the process of extracting oil and natural gas from unconventional sites where these fuels are trapped in rocks, has a lot to do with the economic side, since it is one of the most important things that is leading to the energy independence of the country, but there are a variety of drawbacks that take away the reliability of this method. With the issue of fracking, the environmental concerns should be analyzed and put first, regardless of
Americans have had an insatiable appetite for the consumption of fossil fuels. Since the Industrial Revolution our preference had evolved from coal to oil, petroleum, and natural gas. Over the last century we’ve gone from drilling our own wells to building pipelines to importing fossil fuels from the Middle East, Venezuela, Canada and Russia, and today we are back producing our own fuel through a process called fracking. Fracking is the direct result of energy companies using cutting edge technologies to combine the processes of traditional hydraulic drilling and horizontal drilling, which allows us to effectively harvest natural gas here in the United States
There has not been an adequate amount of research into the long-term consequences that fracking will have. As of now the quality of the air in and around fracking sites is not monitored and the impact of the health of nearby residents and workers is unknown. There needs to be legislation put in place to force the fracking companies to provide a list of chemicals being used. Due to the lack of regulation the communities around fracking sites have no way of knowing the exact composition of the chemicals that are in use. If an accident were to happen at one of the fracking sites, emergency responders would be unprepared, there are different ways to deal with different
The overwhelming supply of oil and gas may seem a negative aspect today, but there will come a time when these resources become hard to get again. Through fracking, whatever shortage the world will experience will be resolved. Hydraulic fracturing will also lead to safer ideas of pumping natural gas. Using both fracking and oil drilling, running out of fuel will be out of the picture (“List”). Another benefit behind using hydraulic fracturing is that it has a low energy cost.
As there started, the massive expansion of gas drilling, the potential troubling discoveries associated with its byproducts are increasingly alarming. For instance, the wastewater created by the process is radioactive. Claiming that the information is proprietary, drilling companies have still not come out fully transparent in disclosing what exactly are fracking fluids made of and still a lot of ambiguity in its compositions and their detrimental effects, remain. But the most vital of all controversies that remains is, fracking is simply distracting energy firms and governments from investing in renewable sources of energy, and encouraging continued reliance on fossil fuels. Thus, there remains a long list of heated controversies and discussions around fracking and its sustainability