Fracking, as the media is wont to call the process know on the industry as hydraulic fracturing, is a process that was developed back in the late 1940s to cause normally tight (low permeability) hydrocarbon reservoirs to be able to produce oil and gas in commercial quantities. Prior to the adoption of the technology, wells were fracked using quarts of nitro glycerine lowered into a well and detonated opposite a producing formation. This was truly dangerous practice to both the shooter and the community through which the explosive liquid was transported. Compared to this modern hydraulic fracturing is safe and basically benign to all involved including those who depend on wells for this drinking water. As more and more of the conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs (sandstone and limestone) have been discovered and subsequently produced and depleted, American geologists, engineers and entrepreneurs have turned to unconventional reservoirs that are by nature of low permeability. Hydraulic fracturing, properly employed has resulted in the discovery of vast amounts of valuable hydrocarbons being made available to the American consumer and the concomitant reduction of our dependence on foreign sources. As far as the prentice resulting in damage to drinking water, each State in which hydrocarbons are produced, have strict regulations on well casing and cementing of that casing, specifically designed to protect known aquifers from any contamination from produced waters. Annual testing is mandatory on all wells into which produced water (including the fresh waters that are flowed back out a fracture treated well) to ensure that casing integrity is maintained. One must keep in mind that no government or taxpayer dollars are spent on any of these activities, so it is logical that the private money in the form of capital from investors has no interest or desire to contaminate anything or create any ill will in their relation to private mineral owners because a failure to do so only costs them the hard earned money they have risked in the first place. It is my opinion that the brouhaha surrounding fracking is rooted more in an ideological opposition to the extraction of fossil fuels and the unsubstantiated claims of groundwater pollution are a straw man argument against the practice in order to inhibit production.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 02:36:44 +0000
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