Fracking facts: pros, cons and issues

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Cowboy Byte
Print Friendly

It has long been known that shales contain oil and gas but it is only within the last decade that the development of two technologies has made the extraction of gas from shale an economic proposition:

•The first of these is the ability to drill horizontally from an initial deep vertical bore.
•The second is the development of a process called ‘hydraulic fracturing’ .
Hydraulic fracturing is the use of a fluid made up of around 90% water carrying a load of sands, chemicals and sometimes diesel oil and forcing it into shales under high pressure, causing them to fracture and release the gas they contain.

This is the process from whose name the brute industrial tag of ‘fracking’ has been hacked.

Continue Reading on forargyll.com

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
Posting Policy:
The 1st Amendment protects the right to freedom of expression from government interference. However, you are currently posting on private web property and your comments are bound by our site's policies. We have a zero-tolerance policy for comments containing violence (threats, suggestions or direct statements permitting violent or threatening acts or sentiments), racism (suggestion that one "race" is superior to others), crassness or profanity (any word or phrase considered by courteous society to be profane), all caps (a violation of internet etiquette), discourteous behavior (calling names, rude or insulting statements directed at another user/post) or violations similar in nature to any of these offenses. Posts violating our policies of posting are subject to removal and the user may face banning. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.
  • J.M.R.

    to get any of this done we have to fight with the NANNYS that are trying to to take over this country this country wasn’t founded by whimps.

    • don

      This president and his democrat and rino Republican drones are doing their best to shut down the country’s energy systems to destroy jobs in preparation for the nanny state. In order to complete the shut down the obama administration has continued the land grab of the State’s mineral and oil rich properties.

  • Art Chandler

    I’m weary of the “enviornmentalists” whose absurd negative reactions to anything that upsets their petty little minds. They should get a life.

    • http://none walter

      YES CONGRESS CAN CHANGE THAT .THEY NEED TO NOT FUND THE EPA. THE EPA UNDER OBAMA IS KILLING JOBS. LOOK LIKE AN OBAMA PLAN TO KILL JOBS.

      • W WA

        Beyond that, what is really needed is to completely close down the liberal loonies managed EPA and start over from scratch.
        It’s arguable that the EPA is responsible for a significant portion of the economic problems we face, including manufacturing jobs moved offshore and soaring costs of essential commodities.

        • don

          YOU ARE CORRECT!!

  • Eugene Pilcher

    Its not just fracturing, the stupid Dems hold up, its drilling in ANWAR, drilling permits in the Gulf we’re talking over 30,000 good paying jobs, a move closer to energy independence and almost a trillion in new revenues over 12 years. Do us all a favor,
    find just one Democrat and convert them.

    • Lily

      isn’t there something better to do with a liberal/democrat then convert them?
      Is my mind in the gutter? yep. how can you lead a liberal to a full meal deal and make them eat that last french fry?? It’s an illness they have no cure for. SPEND SPEND SPEND..RUIN RUIN RUIN, LIE LIE LIE, CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL. Bring in that Sharia Law, since they can’t read and have NO IDEA what our Founding Fathers wanted for America. I’m so ready to leave this great nation..take all my money, and live off the land. That’s still legal, right?

  • Ken

    The first hydraulic fracturing treatment took place in Kansas in 1946 (65 years ago, for all the math-challenged liberals out there). Since then, there have been thousands upon thousands of these jobs performed on wells in the U.S. and througout the world.
    Now wouldn’t one think that after all this time, there would be SOME concrete evidence that the process is harmful to health and the environment?

    • don

      Obama and his environmental drones are doing this on purpose! They want this country to PAY for it’s “evil ways” in spite of this country by itself has blessed this sorry planet, in particular the usually ungrateful third world countries, with medical, scientific, and other humanitarian advances. This worthless group is forcing a nanny state on us just to prove we deserve to be punished for “harming” the planet. What a crock!!

    • Bushmaster66-68

      @ Ken. You beat me to this point. Although I wasn’t aware of the year of origin, due to limited working in the oil patches of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma on and off back in the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s, I was aware that fracking was commonly in widespread use throughout the petroleum [particularly crude] production industry.

      Duri8ng that time priod, I can’t recall EVER hearing about environmental damage resulting from fracking, or fracking itself, EXCEPT that SOME SCOFFLAW, unscrupulous [sp?] operators were occasionlly intentionally “dumping” used fracking FLUIDS into local drainage ditches, small streams, and now and then a river. Other than that, I’ve heard NO “horror stories” about fracking.

      Reading many recent articles about the fracking fluid issue, led me to think that the “stink” being raised about used fracking fluid “contaminating” potable water sources could be greatly reduced by the industry allowing some regulation which would require [with a few limited exceptions] that used fracking fluids be REUSED by transporting them to other wellsites via truck [they do this already for disposal in downhole reinjection wells] or even via temporary surface pipelines to the “next” frack job.

      I can already hear industry squealing about the used fluid from one well NOT being compatible with what is needed for the next job, BUT, they “could” process it enough to make that used water reusable, thus reducing the overall water demand on the available supplies.

      I realize that there is gonna be a lot of “blowback” on this idea, but it could be a way to partially satisfy the tree-hugging “greenies,” AND the fracking industry as well.

  • Julie

    I have a list of 87 chemicals used in the fracking process and have been following this story since last year. Call me a wimp I live in an area that has high unemployment but we are a rural area and also a watershed district. Now maybe I am a wimp but there is alot of things that give me a gut instinct that this is not the way to go. If you think about this for a moment how long do they say you can survive without water???????? Food for a long time but water????????? Well I am not a rich person so if my water is fouled what am I supposed to do just pack up and move my family of 6 to another area?????? We have lived in this house for 36 years. I raised my children in this house and am now raising my grand-children do you all think I want to leave here at this point in my life??????? I did not write this because I want to make anybody mad I just would like you to maybe take a little more time to think about this issue.

  • Jer

    Notice how the author slipped radioactive waste into it.

  • Dan Clamage

    I engaged some college students who were handing out anti-fracking literature.
    “Did you know that ‘fracking’ takes place a mile or more beneath the surface — far away from our drinking water?” Why no they didn’t.
    “Did you know that the ‘fracking’ fluid is basically water and a little bit of oil? No big deal.” No they didn’t.
    I asserted what they were protesting was false, and we need domestic energy sources.

    • don

      The facts have nothing to do with the protest. The environmentalists use the heads-full-of-mush, that have been indoctrinated (just as the muslims are trained to blow people up) to protest their anti American agenda.

    • Julie

      Hi they no longer use oil in the fracking fluid it was one of the 88 chemicals that they took out leaving 87. I have the list of chemicals which a Chemist said is highly toxic. If this stuff is so safe why is the state of Pennsylvania paying the state of Ohio 800,000 dollars to bring the stuff in and dump in containment wells down in our part of the state. Now we learn not only our we going to put up with their toxic waste but they are promoting drilling in our area hot and heavy because they talk about all the prosperity it will bring to our region. By the way ,these containment wells Aren’t that deep.

  • Gordon T

    Anti fracking resonates with 3 mindsets of the left. 1. The paranoid phobics who fear everything of industry is poisoning us or is evil capitalism, 2. Naive do good types who believe any leftist hype, 3. Political radicals intent on weakening America as a superpower.
    Many thousands of wells have been fracked for over a half century if vertical is included and there is over a quarter of a century of horizontal fracking alone and the truth is that the safety record is exemplary, no death tolls, not even like people who have died from farming practices such as 22 deaths in what happened recently with suspicion over Spanish vegetable crops or what happened with cantaloupes in Mexico I believe the year or so before..people dying from eating contaminated farm produce!
    They also seem to focus with tunnel vision logic on fracking while seemingly being unaware of real groundwater threats that are from agricultural products, industry waste and so forth and that ain’t from fracking!
    The author of this article continues to spread untruths .. and should get the facts straight. The ingredients of fracking are no secret..they vary slightly but are basically posted all over the web and if the writer took the time to go to the “evil” Haliburton site, the writer might note where they list the ingredients on their ongoing site construction that will specify exactly what is used at specific drill sites. This will be updated… In a saner time a company like Halliburton would be praised as a giant of American ingenuity and creativity.

    The characterization of Carbon Dioxide as a pollution gas has been absurd in the first place..without it we would have no green plants who in gratitude for that gas pay us back with Oxygen..we all do get along that way quite well. Methane is actually non toxic in itself if you don’t breath it of course, because you are designed for Oxygen..but if it went into a glass of water , you could drink it…call it Methane seltzer.
    We are being turned into a society of fearful can’t do peoples, sometimes I think as part of a larger scheme..we need not collapse by bullets and bombs..there are other means. The left is against all carbon energies..as harmful. We can’t even pipe oil down from Canada because a movie actress and 100 followers don’t want us to..might spring a leak..good gracious!
    They seem to ignore that the Golden Eagle and other raptures are being slaughtered by the stupid windmills in California..to the tune of .. they will be extinct if this isn’t stopped. That doesn’t seem to trouble them..the same types that were so eagle concerned with DDT and whose banishment has caused the deaths of millions of Africans not to mention the return of bedbugs..Yes , the left should fly the bedbug as their party mascot along with the jackass.

  • Gringo Infidel

    Anything that can be portrayed as harmful to the environment, whether is or not is not important, has the emotional hooks to get school kids, and soccer moms to support it. Fact checking is a skill that has gone dormant in public debate. So called journalists used to fill this role, but have become mere political mouth-pieces for propping up and selling bad ideas to the masses.

  • THOMAS STEWART

    Fracking Facts?? Just Call Sarah Palin A Real Smart Classy Lady And She Without 30 Czars And VP Biden Or Eric Holder Will Tell You The Truth Without The Chi-Town Rope-A-Dope, Yikeess, Sorry You Colored Folks That Backed A Chi-Town Liar Deluxe, It Works For ACORN However As President You Better Not Lie Daily, Buckwheat. Please Sarah Palin Run For The Real Patriots. God Bless America And The Tea Party Patriots.

  • LoneStar

    Obuma can’t fix the problem, Because he is the Problem.

  • JDB

    When natural gas is burned it releases oxides, which in energy producing plants and even automobiles, are scrubbed through stacks and catalytic converters to eliminate a very high percentage of the oxides. Methane, propane, hexane etc, etc are all products of shale gas and the energy industry has long since figured out how to filter most of these oxides out of the air, so it’s not as if huge amounts of methane itself, in its raw state were being released into the atmosphere when drilling for natural gas. Rather, it is captured and used as a clean fuel source. Where the United States to make the decision to convert 18 wheelers, buses, and automobiles with perhaps even trains and motorcycles being added to the list to running on natural gas instead gasoline, our dependence on foreign oil would drop dramatically and the jobs required to build the infrastructure for this change and to build the new vehicles, the necessary the service stations, etc. would result in millions of new jobs here immediately; and many long term jobs in the future, all while we search for a better source of energy, which we have not discovered in large quantities as yet. Quit demonizing the energy industry in this country and sending a huge part of our GDP value to foreign countries to pay for expensive foreign oil, with this transition, we could lower our dependence on it to a negligible amount compared to what we spend every day now. I invite any discussion of the logic, or lack thereof, of this proposed solution to a large part of our energy problem in the USA.

    • JDB

      Please post my comment it is applicable to shale gas, fracking etc.

  • JDB

    JDB says: My comment below are made due to the fact that fracking, which takes place below impermeable barriers of rock above the shales, which protects groundwater and the atmosphere, produces methane, propane, butane, hexane, helium, hydrogen sulfides, and nitrogen among other gases. The explosions they discuss in the article are known as perfing, (for perforating) not fracking, in the formation, which “shoots” hole into the formation so the frack can open more shale to the horizontal wellbore. these gases are all extremely important to this country’s energy future, and economic future, because, when natural gas is burned it releases oxides, which in energy producition plants and even automobiles, are scrubbed through stacks and catalytic converters to eliminate a very high percentage of the oxides from the emmissions. Methane, propane, hexane etc, are all products of shale gas and the energy industry has long ago figured out and used stacks to filter most of these oxides out of the air, so it’s not as if huge amounts of methane itself, in its raw state were being released into the atmosphere when drilling for natural gas. Rather, it is captured and used as a very clean fuel source. Where the United States to make the decision to convert its 18 wheelers, buses, and automobiles and perhaps even trains and motorcycles and some of our defense department vehicles, like jeeps, trucks, and so forth to run on natural gas instead gasoline, our dependence on foreign oil would drop dramatically. Also the jobs required to build the neccessary infrastructure for this dramatic change in fuel source and the auto and truck industries, retooling to build the new vehicles, along with the necessary service stations, etc. in the infrastructure; would result in millions of new jobs being created here ; and many would be long term jobs, all while we search for a better source of energy, which we have not discovered in large quantities as yet. we need to quit demonizing the energy industry in this country and alos, quit sending a huge part of our money to foreign countries to pay for expensive foreign oil, as with this transition, we could lower our dependence on it to a negligible amount compared to what we spend on it every day now. I invite any discussion of f this proposed solution to a large part of our energy problem in the USA, with fracking included.

  • JDB

    What on earth is wrong with my post?

  • http://adrianvance.blogspot.com Adrian Vance

    All complaints “fracking” has caused problems with the water supply are false as it is done thousands of feet deeper than water ever goes! This is more environmentalism seeking power.

    The Two Minute Conservative at http://adrianvance.blogspot.com has political analysis,
    science and humor. Now in the top 3% on Kindle.

  • Clifton Lee West

    Common Sense for Idiots

    To all the insurance agents and adjusters in the world, I dedicate these few words.

    When a company or individual builds a house either for himself or for sale, he should know what he is doing. Only an idiot places his foundation on sand or soft dirt. The foundation has to be on hard pan. If you don’t know what hard pan is, go out in the yard, any yard, and start digging a hole. When it becomes hard to dig any further, that is called hard pan.
    The foundation is the most important part of your house. If it isn’t level, you will have problems in building the house from the foundation up, nothing will be plumb, doors will stick and warp and all of this could have been prevented if the builder knew what he was doing.
    Once the actual building starts, it is important to frame as quickly as possible and get a roof on the structure, especially in areas of the world where cold weather or rain dominates. The roof cover will protect the structure and start the drying process. Once the exterior sheeting is put on and the windows and doors installed, then building paper and siding can be applied. However, just because the windows and doors have been installed, the siding or other exterior covering has been installed, it is not wise to jump in and put the insulation in and the sheetrock or wallboard on. Until the framing lumber is completely dry inside the structure, putting the insulation in and the sheetrock on traps moisture still in the wood. It is this trapped moisture that causes mildew later on. Once mildew starts, it continues until it is corrected.
    Insurance adjusters around the world are blaming mildew on everyone they can find, the roofers, the plumbers, the electricians, the concrete people, the painters and most of all, the siding installers, who should be last on the list and really shouldn’t be on the list. Granted, if windows and doors are not properly weatherized, there will be some moisture that can seep in but the amount is minimal when you consider that most windows open as well as doors, leaving a large opening for weather to pour in.
    The builder or the contractor controls the progress of the building and should bear full blame if the structure is defective. It is time to stop looking for scapegoats in everything and man up to your responsibilities. If you can’t, stop building anything until you learn how to do it right!

    Clifton Lee West
    Retired Journeyman Carpenter

  • Joe

    All yall email this nice lady and let her know what you think about fracking.

    Ms. Daneen Daneen@Peterson.name

    Be kind, she has a thin skin.

  • Tom Rankin

    The “environmentalists” are in cahoots with Agenda 21 and the UN.
    Audit the Fed
    End the Fed
    Prosecute the fraud

    End the fiat money system and Agenda 21 and the New World Order will die on the vine.

    Ron Paul is the man and the US Constitution is the Plan.

    “If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have: no federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U.S. membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign aid. We would have no welfare for big corporations, or the “poor”; no American troops in 100 foreign countries; no NAFTA, GATT, or “fast-track”; no arrogant federal judges usurping states rights; no attacks on private property; no income tax. We could get rid of most of the cabinet departments, most of the agencies, and most of the budget. The government would be small, frugal, and limited.”-Congressman Ron Paul (1998)

  • JimW

    This is one of the most left slanted articles I have read in quite a while. Even the “positives” are stated as negatives. One of the biggest “negatives” the author states is that natural gas will increase “Global Warming” because of increased CO2, but the whole “Global Warming” issue has been blown out of all reason by the lies and phony cooked research data from the environmentalist that were trying to cash in alone with Gore.

  • http://methodengineer.me/portal.php Get free stuff and make easy money

    I believe this is one of the so much significant information for me. And i am satisfied studying your article. But want to observation on few general things, The web site taste is wonderful, the articles is in reality great : D. Excellent process, cheers