natural gas, which is locked up in shale and has proven to be very hard to extract in the past in now made available through a process called hydraulic fracturing also known as fracking. Which includes drilling wells deep into shale (vertically then horizontally) then fracture the rocks using the well by sending explosive charges. The final step includes injecting the well with 18 million gallons of fracking fluid (which is a highly toxic mixture of over 596+ chemicals). After the water is used it is considered produced water. The produced water is then pumped out of the well and either: trucked away(to a processed water plant- highest cost), left in the ground (affecting groundwater), sprayed (contributing to air contamination), left in pools (these ponds commonly leak), or left in fields (to seep into groundwater). One well site would use 324,000,000 gallons of water for one cycle. A well can be injected 18 times before the site is no longer usable.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 09:43:28 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015