What Does The Fracking Process?

for approximately 20 years.7 Once hydraulic fracturing was commercialized, independent gas companies quickly pursued the opportunity. Today, nine companies compete for shale gas production in the U.S., and the major oil companies have moved more slowly since the smaller firms were the originators of fracking technologies.8 Hydraulically fracked wells in the U.S. today total over 500,000 and continue to grow rapidly.9 Another key factor which allowed rapid shale gas development is that U.S. law provides that landowners also own the natural minerals under their property, which enabled shale gas developers to lease land for drilling directly from homeowners (in most other countries, the government owns minerals found under properties). Future success with clean energy will require collaboration between the U.S. Government and industry, and our leaders must commit to advancing this agenda in parallel with the continued development of U.S. shale resources.

In recent years, the subject of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking has been a constant subject of interest in the news media. The pros and cons of fracking are passionately debated. However, the public should become educated on the subject of fracking prior to choosing a side of the argument. In the scholarly article, “Super Fracking,” published in 2014, by Donald L. Trucotte, Eldridge M. Moores, and John B. Rundle, a detailed description of fracking is provided, followed by their analysis of current issues surrounding the controversy. According to Trucotte, Moores, and Rundle, fracking saves the consumer money. The wellhead cost to produce natural gas in January of 2000 was two dollars and sixty cents per one thousand cubic feet. At an alarming rate, the cost at the wellhead to produce natural gas had risen to eight dollars per one thousand cubic feet by January of 2006. Comfortingly, the wellhead cost dropped to two dollars and eighty-nine cents by the end of 2012. Impressively, gas production increase and price decrease over the time period are a result of fracking. In their article, Trucotte, Moores, and Rundle describe in great detail that hydraulic fracturing, most commonly referred to as fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth to fracture the layers of rock so that a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the oil or natural gas inside. This method of fracking has been used commercially for the last fifty years.

Over the past decade oil and gas producers have increasingly used hydraulic fracturing also known as fracking to extract oil and gas from the earth. Most people believe fracking is a new process but it has been around for over 100 years. Modern day fracking began in the 1990’s when George P Mitchell created a new technique by combining fracking with horizontal drilling. Since then, U.S. oil and gas production has skyrocketed. But the “new” perception of fracking leads people to incorrectly believe that fracking is temporary and that it somehow harms the environment. The truth is fracking is a reasonable energy solution if oversight and safeguards are used. In the last ten years fracking has improved conditions in the U.S. in three

This trend later became known as fracking, a new revolution sweeping the country (Gold, 2014).

But not everywhere is fracking a viable extraction technique. Blackwill and O’sullivan’s paper states, “The fracking revolution required more than just favourable geology; it also took financiers with a tolerance for risk, a property-rights regime that let landowners claim underground resources, a network of service providers and delivery infrastructure, and an industry structure characterized by thousands of entrepreneurs rather than a single national oil company.” The paper declares that although many countries around the world have the shale gas, aside from the USA and Canada, no other countries have the right industrial environment in order to have hydraulic fracturing expand as rapidly.

Hydraulic fracking in the United States is a current environmental hazard that has to be addressed by the American people and by the federal government. Fracking in America has opened up millions of acres of lands that were once not economically viable to produce oil and gas. While the Bureau of land Management has paved the way for hydraulic fracturing on public lands, there is a need for retaliation. Fracking is a dirty method of extracting gases and oils at the price of numerous environmental, safety, and health hazards. The environment is not a means of income when rather it is the capital for future generations.

Hydraulic fracturing began in 1947 and still happening until now. People have used fracking to produce more than one million oil and natural gas wells since 1947. Currently "fracking accounts for 50% of locally produced natural gas and 33% of local petroleum” (Engelder 274). It proved that fracking is valuable because people can get too much natural gas and petroleum from fracking. There are 2.5 million "frac jobs" that had been performed on oil and gas wells around the world and more than one million of those are in the United Stated. Oil shale resources are abundant in United States, such as in

Fracking is a big part in today’s world and some people don’t like the idea of it, because it can be harmful to the earth. With fracking it has supplied the world with enough energy to continue for about 100 years. Natural gas has supplied the world since “the French explorers discovered it in 1626” (Brief history), 0but didn’t start fracking till the 19th century. With fracking being all around the country it offers great, good paying jobs. Natural gas from fracking is more affordable than other energy sources in abundant amounts. Chemicals used in fracking is said to contaminate earth’s water source if comes into contact and cannot be filtered clean. Natural gas has supplied energy to humanity since the 19th century, offers great since jobs

The global crisis surrounding energy needs grows in severity as time goes by and in order to solve it, scientists have created the innovative solution known as hydraulic fracturing (Source 5). Hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as “fracking,” is a process that injects water, chemicals, sand, and other materials into layers of shale. The injected mixture cracks the layers of shale, releasing trapped natural gasses that can be collected (Source 1). Fracking occurs deep under the surface of the earth, miles below the groundwater that is accessed from drinking-water wells. In the mid-2000s, “fuel prices were rising rapidly” (Source 5). Hydraulic fracturing was a cheap solution that not only brought the world out of a state of emergency but made oil prices drop. The new method of gas collection grew the oil and gas industry, benefiting people all around the world. Fracking is a cheap, effective solution to global needs, but is under attack from skeptics who worry about environmental hazards. The claims against fracking not only have no real evidence but also risk destroying the jobs in the oil and gas industry as well as support for energy needs. Hydraulic fracturing is not only a cheap but a safe method that supports global needs surrounding both energy and jobs.

A relatively new process for extracting desired shale oil from the bowels of the earth seems to be shaking things up around operation sites. Environmentalists and oil tycoons have been debating for years over the safety of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, since areas with a high concentration of fracking operations have been affected by several environmental problems. Though many scientists argue that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, the media and many environmentalists use these environmental problems around fracking sites as proof of the long term damage fracking causes. Although it has domesticated the oil industry and reduced usage of coal as a fuel source, fracking is undoubtedly related to many detrimental environmental impacts, such as water table pollution and increased seismic activity.

The beginnings of our modern day fracking process reside in a U.S. Patent No. 59,936, issued to a Col. Edward Roberts, in November of 1866, during the civil war. Robert’s idea, dubbed “Exploding Torpedo”, involved dropping artillery rounds down a well, filling it with water, to concentrate the concussion, thereby fracturing the surrounding rock, allowing for greater access to the gas or oil below. (Hicks, “See an Exploding Torpedo”). This process has improved greatly and the Environmental Protection Agency now refers to hydraulic fracking as the entire process, from the gathering of water used until waste disposal. What was once thought to be cost prohibitive is now more cost effective than ever.

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

The fracking process involves a lot of hazardous chemicals that if not taken into consideration can cause a lot of issues to workers health, the surrounding area and can compromise the safety of the well and the gas purification plant. (FEASTA, 2017) A health consideration that has been taken into account is the amount of Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) that is being emitted to the air. Hydrogen sulphide is a very hazardous compound at which concentrations of over 100ppm can cause coughing, eye irritation and loss of smell at above 500ppm if it not detected can cause someone to be unconscious and potential fatality within an hour. In addition if too much hydrogen sulphide is emitted into the surrounding environment it can react with the oxygen and

Klare argues that discovery of a natural resource, for instance, oil, result in producers seeking and exploiting the most desirable, best quality and those closest to markets. Over time, these “easy” resources become scarce, of poorer quality, harder to extract and extend into areas further away from the market. This subsequent need to extract “tougher” resources has catalyzed an age of discovery that energy experts call the “shale revolution.” Daniel Yergin, an author and energy optimist describes the “natural gas

A lot Scientists and oil field experts have been collecting facts and scientific evidences to try to predict the period at which peak oil will occur. Two of the scientists working toward this discovery are Colin J. Campbell and Jean H laherre. Those two scientists wrote an article about the aftermath s of the 1970 's oil embargo sppured reachees over the decline of oil, which resulted in erroneous conclusions due to various factors (78). In order to truly cast light on the issue of oil decline, Campbell and Laherrère merged a variety of techniques which comprise the examination of “the decline of aging fields” and “the diminishing returns on exploration in larger regions”, the extrapolation of the size