With water pollution, toxic waste and earthquakes as by-products of fracking, should we not concentrate on renewable and clean energy?
Fracking is the practice of drilling holes in rock, then injecting high-pressure fluids (inclusive of toxic metals and other substances dangerous to people) into the hole. These fluids break apart the shale (which is fragile ) and free rich deposits of natural gas and oil that have built in the shale. As the rock breaks the freed gas or oil is pumped to the surface.
The State of Pennsylvania released details of 243 cases (between 2008 and 2014) where companies prospecting for oil and natural gas have contaminated private drinking water wells. The document outlined reasons for the contamination to include methane gas contamination, spills of wastewater and other pollutants, in addition to wells that went dry or were otherwise undrinkable.
These released details comes on the heals of a report from The Pennsylvania Inspector General that found “rapid growth of the state’s gas industry ‘caught the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) unprepared to effectively administer laws and regulations to protect drinking water and unable to efficiently respond to citizen complaints.’”
The “big prize” is access to the gas-rich Marcellus Shale that lies under large parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio. A drilling boom that took off in 2008 has made the Marcellus the most productive natural gas field in the nation, and more than 6,000 shale gas wells have been drilled. That has led to billions of dollars in revenue for companies and landowners, but also to complaints from homeowners about ruined water supplies. Extracting fuel from shale formations requires pumping millions of gallons of water along with sand and chemicals, into the ground to break apart rock and free the gas. Some of that water, along with other heavy metals and contaminants, returns to the surface. (WSJ.Com)
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Another risk of fracking is generation of small earthquakes caused by the disposition of large amount of liquid waste underground, which might lead to larger ones. It also appears that wastewater fluids add pressure to cracks in earth’s crust and cause additional quakes at fracking site and larger ones later (fracking sites are also more prone to earthquakes in response to other quakes from miles away later).
Nicolas van der Elst, a geologist at Columbia University told Science News that the remote triggering of small quakes “seem to foreshadow larger induced earthquakes.”
The other side: The oil and gas industry has a different point of view. It estimates that fracking has played an important role in the development of oil and natural gas resources for the past 60 years and that up to 80 percent of natural gas wells drilled in the next decade will require hydraulic fracturing to properly complete well setup. It also indicates that “this process takes place under tight regulatory control…with best practices to minimize the environmental and societal impacts associated with development (What is Fracking?)
Although it goes without saying that the oil & gas industry assures us fracking is “safe”, with overwhelming evidence of water pollution, toxic waste and earthquakes as consistent by-products of fracking, should we not minimize the risk and work on weaning ourselves from oil and gas and concentrate on clean renewable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, hydrogen (even nuclear with waste and safety solutions) and yet to be created sources?
What do you think?
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Photo: Chris Goodwin /Flicker