Fracking : Review And Ethical Considerations

Hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”)1 is already beginning to change the nature of how we approach future energy needs. The processes of fracking also carry environmental risks. This paper is aimed at exploring the ethical, social, and legal issues related to “fracking’. In order to accomplish these tasks, it will 1st be necessary to describe the processes involved in fracking. The technical problems with fracking create a number of ethical, social, and legal problems related to the environment. Some of these issues include land clearing for digging the wells, the impact on freshwater aquifers, and the well bore. Once the well bore is created, around 1-5 million gallons of water is inserted into the shale along with proprietary fluids. It is

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been a hot topic in recent times due to its controversial ways. Many people argue that it is a way for the United States to become less dependent on foreign oil, while others argue that the environmental cons outweigh the pros of fracking. Fracking is the process of extracting natural gas from underground by drilling into the earth. This is done by injecting water, sand, and chemicals into a bedrock formation by a well (“Hydraulic Fracking”). By doing this, the process creates new fractures in the rock, as well as making previously made fractures bigger and easier to access (“Hydraulic Fracking”). Fracking is mostly done is areas that have low-permeability rocks like tight sandstone, shale, and some coal beds to increase the flow of oil and/or gas to a well (“Hydraulic Fracking”). The fracking process can take up to a month; the drilling team going more than a mile into the earth to extract the natural gases or oil. After the job is done, the well is cemented up (“What is Fracking”).

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.

“Fracking is the process of obtaining Natural Gas from below Earth’s surface by drilling 1000’s of feet into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside.” Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well.” (Jackson). Hydraulic Fracturing got its name due to the fact of how the rock is fractured apart by the high pressure mixture of a number of chemicals, sand, and water. Drilling companies first began Fracking in the early 1940’s, and starting in the 1990’s companies began “safer drilling” due to the amount of concerns that had arisen because early drillers had to detonate small explosions that eventually ended up killing many people. Fracking has been used for nearly 60 years and the number of concerns about it are rising every day. Due to the new technological advancements in drilling Fracking has changed greatly over the years. Before, the drilling would go on for weeks on end in order to extract only a small amount of natural gas. Now, due to the invention of higher powered drills, the drills get double the amount then they used to be able to get in more then half the time. Over 95,000 square miles of shale deposits have been found around the Appalachian Basin but the only way to reach these deposits of shale is through fracking. “Fracking is a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock by drilling

that the technology is environmentally friendly and the threats it is said to pose to the underground water reservoirs do not exist in reality. However, the shareholders agreed with the environmentalists that the concerns cannot just be ignored and needed the companies to disclose the full information about the operations carried out in the fracking process and the chemicals used. Some companies claimed to be abiding by the environmental ethics and, therefore, the disclosure asked is not necessary. For instance, ExxonMobil and Chevron which are large gas producers had urged its shareholders against asking the companies presenting the disclosure of the fracking process. However, 30 and 41 percent of Exxon

‘Hydraulic fracturing/fracking is the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, etc. to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas’ (Oxford dictionaries, 2015).

After analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of fracking, this paper attempts to address this ethical issue by using the act-utilitarianism approach. The first reason for using this approach, instead of Respect for Persons and Virtue Ethics, is because utilitarianism strongly supports the impartiality feature. Impartiality is paramount in this fracking case because there are lots of both direct and indirect stakeholders at stake. Local residents around fracking sites suffer from increasing health risk, while other people live very far away around the U.S. benefit from the cheaper natural gas price. Engineers desperately try to deliver the clean energy more safely and responsibly, while oil and gas industry prioritizes efficiency in all sectors. Health-care workers around the fracking sites should be better educated about the negative impacts of fracking to handle public health issues. The U.S. government thus has to spend more money to support continuous research on the effects of fracking, although they gain much revenue from the operations. Animals may also be endangered since they breathe the same air and drink water from the same spring, which was claimed to be contaminated, as humans do. Given the complex and multiple stakeholders, impartiality prevents any special preference on what the ethical solution should be. Public, who counts for the biggest portion of the stakeholders, is not allowed to spread prejudice, given the impartiality feature. From all

Thieves who planned a major cyber attack on banks in 2013 struck while the iron was hot. job applicants need to highlight what they bring to the table. as soon as a director blocks a scene, some actors want to rehearse wearing the shoes that are part of their costumes. employers might want to incentivize employees to reach beyond the low hanging fruit. university of Michigan students illustrated how to improve housing projects on Manhattans lower east side with infill. As an alternative to fracking, some countries are studying the environmental advantages of using methane hydrate- what Atlantic writer Charles C. Mann refers to as "ice you can set on

Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial practice commonly used by oil and natural gas producers. This practice, better known as “fracking”, is used to stimulate the production of oil by fracturing shale to release natural gas. The birth modern day hydraulic fracturing began as early as the 1940s and today it is widely practiced across the United States, from new york, to Oklahoma, even all the way to California. The process of fracking is fairly simple, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) involves tapping shale and other tight-rock formations by drilling a mile or more below the surface before turning horizontal and continuing to drill several thousand feet more (Energy from Shale 2016). is drilled water is injected at an extremely high rate

Hydraulic fracking is a process in which metal pipes are drilled miles deep into the ground. This method uses millions of gallons of water and chemicals which are injected down a pipe, thus causing rock layers called shale to break due to a difference in pressure. Furthermore, the natural gas flows upwards and is obtained to be further burned for human use.

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

Hydraulic fracking has dramatically increased the amount of natural gas and oil production. Fracking allows for twice the production of oil and gas over regular oil rigs. Industry observers predict that by 2020, the United Stated will be the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world. Currently Saudi Arabia produces about 10 million barrels of crude oil per day, whereas the U.S. produced about 8 million. As of right now it is hard to be completely energy independent from Middle Eastern countries because we as a nation consume more than we are able to produce. It was estimated back in 2009 that we as a nation have consume around 19 million barrels of oil-based fuels per day. As the supply and demand of oil and natural gas increase allows for more job to open up. In 2010, IHS CERA estimated around 600,000 new jobs were created. In 2011 alone, the oil and gas industry profited more than 100 billions dollars (Levi, 2012).

Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the inner gas. Water, sand, and many chemicals are injected into the rock

Imagine if one day the United States no longer defended the oil fields in other countries because the United States decided to use its own energy resources instead. (Beyond Oil) Fracking is when gas companies drill into the ground using high-pressure water to break apart rock to release natural gas. Fracking increases the amount of natural gas that the United States can get to. The United States needs to make more of its own energy so it does not see the day that the whole world runs out of fuels to make energy. It is important for the U.S. to make more jobs because it gets energy around the United States faster, and fracking gives people more money. Anti-frackers think it is important to protect the environment so that people do not destroy

Fracking is the process of drilling a well ten thousand feet into the ground and putting chemicals in water and shooting the high pressure water into the rockbed, which extracts the gases.