From Guest Blogger Jessica Greenberg: Hydraulic Fracking Poses Water Pollution Hazards; Earthquakes also a Possibility
The issues regarding hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” are considerably growing as risk analysts have issued their concerns regarding the contaminated waste water coming from hydraulic fracking wells have a great potential of polluting rivers and other sources of water within an area. The same analysts have also called out for additional mandatory steps in order to reduce or stop the contamination of drinking water sources from salts or other radioactive materials, such as uranium, radon and radium. You should know that these three are just some of the many hazardous chemicals used by companies who harvest natural gas through hydraulic fracturing. These findings and recommendations are just some of the issues that surrounds hydraulic fracturing ever since it was placed under public and government scrutiny because of its potential risks to the environment.
For those who are not familiar with hydraulic fracturing, hydraulic fracturing is a drilling and harvesting method that requires a multitude of chemicals being pumped into the shale formations deep under the Earth in order to release natural gas. The said fossil fuel is then pumped up into the surface for harvesting. Companies who use fracking have defended the said technique, stating that because of its efficiency, there have been more jobs and energy independence is now a possibility. These companies have also stated that there hasn’t been one incident where a local water supply have been contaminated by the chemicals used for hydraulic fracking.
Unfortunately, I don’t think we have to wait until it happens!
Another way that these chemicals can pollute a nearby water system is when the tanker transporting these chemicals break down in the middle of the road and the container is thrown unto the ground or unto a nearby river. Contamination will surely spread rapidly should this happen, thus affecting vegetation, animals and/or humans who happen to live nearby. People who have been contaminated with these chemicals all have complaints about difficulty in breathing, disorientation, muscle weakness and other unusual symptoms.
Is it really worth the risk? In my opinion, it’s a no. Perhaps you can treat diseases caused by such hazardous mining technique, but let’s think of the long term damage. Potable water supply under ground is diminishing and there is a good possibility that the chemicals used for hydraulic fracking might reach water supplies hidden under ground. And not only water pollution, but rumours of hydraulic fracking causing earthquakes have also been heard.
Some experts believe that since hydraulic fracturing involves pumping chemicals deep into the Earth, it could trigger a hidden fault line just underneath the ground and an earthquake may occur. Of course, scientists and companies who utilitze hydraulic fracturing are still investigating whether this is true or not. Right now, society is watching and waiting as to what exactly would be the government’s final verdict on fracking and, if fracking turns out to be illegal, what exactly are the alternate ways of harvesting natural gas underneath the ground? Only time can exactly tell as to what will eventually happen!
About the Author:
Jessica Greenberg is an experienced blogger/alternate energy researcher from San Diego, California. She spends most of her time writing and surfing the Internet for forums and discussions about alternate energy, shopping for home decors, and how to stop global warming. If not busy on the Internet, she spends her time going out with her friends, looking for cheap computer parts or going to the beach for a swim.
Yes, fracking fluids are transported on our highways and with the right accident scenario I could imagine fatalities from blunt force impact as well as drowning in the liquid released. A few fish might be killed.
This happens with some regularity with a variety of commodities shipped by truck and rail. %$#& happens! Do you really think that this fracking fluid is more dangerous than all of the other potential spill materials? We have great HASMAT emergency response teams all over the country that are experts in dealing with spills.
Or, do you want to shut down all transport of hazzardous materials?
Don’t forget that studies have shown that people who live closest to development projects that receive royalty payments are less likely to have negative experiences than people who live futher away and are not getting royalties.
Seeing their neighbors collecting free money is enough to make these folks physically and perhaps mentally ill. The only evidence for fracking damages is anecdotal in nature.
We need this clean source of energy and IMO, letting a few disgruntled neighbors shut it down is not in the best interests of the country as a whole. L
I would be curious to know who pays for those “great HAZMAT emergency response teams” and all the training and equipment and support they require to stand ready to handle these potential disasters. The companies who transport hazmats or the local residents. I would opt for not transporting hazmats.
Ironic that Jessica’s blog would come out on the same day I read this:
http://news.yahoo.com/unusual-dallas-earthquakes-linked-fracking-expert-says-181055288.html
Yes, I saw that item on Dallas too. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
I have to echo Larry Lemont’s criticism here. It’s entirely bogus to say “we cannot have hazardous chemicals being transported on our roadways”. Especially since the chemicals in question are not nearly as dangerous as many other chemicals.
There is a point where the environmental movement becomes absurd and does nothing more than play into the cartoon stereotype of the anti-economy zealot. Any point where we play into such stereotypes have to be very carefully evaluated from the perspective of know adverse effects (essentially for every hippy that drives a railroad spike into a tree; we save one tree, harm one logger… and lose 100,000 potential political sympathizers… The same is true for every hippy that is protesting a new solar field – save one tortoise, lose hundreds of thousands of potential voters…)
The fracking wells are ~2000 m below the aquifers. How exactly are these chemicals going to travel UP 2000 meters of microscopic fractures into the water system? If it’s capillary action we’re talking about maybe a gram of contaminated water per century… into a billion gallon aquifer. That’s not even parts per trillion on a year-by-year basis.
As for Earthquakes, if a few micro-tremors are set off by a few tons of focused underground explosions, then that’s effectively serving to alleviate pre-existing geological stresses. No-one cares, and often no-one can even FEEL tremors in the 3-3.5 range on the Richter scale. If Fracking causes a few hundred tremors in that range, it would relieve stresses and avert the threat of a future significant earthquake, without doing any significant harm. While there should be greater care in mapping some of these stresses before fracking wells have begun, the majority of the threat is to the drilling equipment and financial investment of the gas company, while the ancillary impacts seem to be more likely to be “good” than “bad” for society as a whole.
Gas is better than coal, and inexpensive gas is necessary for continuing build-out of wind – which is 2 orders of magnitude more significant than solar. Fracking gets us inexpensive gas. Stop screaming about nonsense like chemicals being delivered on tanker trucks, start determining if the few valid threats are worth losing low-cost gas, which is a great GOOD for the environment… and then determine whether we should oppose natural gas fracking.
When you say: “inexpensive gas is necessary for continuing build-out of wind – which is 2 orders of magnitude more significant than solar,” what do you mean? We can install 100 times more wind? Why do you think that?
Craig,
Sorry I was unclear there. One reason that some of the renewables lobbies are naturally hesitant to embrace natural gas is that they see themselves (correctly) as competitors with natural gas. That’s certainly true of the solar industry – they’d do better under a high-priced natural gas scenario.
But wind does better with cheap balance power, and wind is already cheaper than coal if it can be effectively utilized, so factors which help wind power result in abating CO2 emissions at nearly 2 orders of magnitude as factors which help wind. So environmentalists should be happy about low-priced NG.
arg…
That was supposed to read: Factors that help wind power result in abating CO2 emissions at nearly 2 orders of magnitude greater rates than factors which help solar…
I was rushing through my response, and so that was more unintelligible than the original.
Sorry about that.
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