Gas Fracking

[Harbringe]

In this day and age where things are done on a massive industrial scale I don't think there is virtually anything that doesn't need some kind of oversight (regulation).Those in the industry in question will always want as little regulation as possible as it is a means to increase their profit margin,but given the scale involved society just can not allow this and really any type industry to go unregulated.With the amount of industrial accidents or negligence that has happened over the last 100 years you would think people would take the need for regulation as a given.

[Kendo 2]

First of all, the need to frack is a direct result of involvement by the U.S. government into areas where they had no business sticking their fat noses. Back in the 1970s, a policy was put in action due to the Carter era OPEC oil crunch. A surplus of natural gas was produced from U.S. drilling. See, oil formations have two types of drive, either salt water (the ocean) or natural gas. Since the U.S. needed oil and needed it fast they went for the quick return, which was drilling on formation highs where the drive is NATURAL GAS. More oil means more gas and the gas had to go somewhere. The gas surplus drove down the price per mcf to about 13 cents. The market value tanked and in steps the Feds and their regulations. To 'dispose' of the well gases, operators (like me) had to PAY A FEE for a pump company to do the disposal. Instead of paying out hard-earned money operators flared the gas. No one in their right mind would pay to dispose of something when it can be dumped safely FOR FREE.

 

Fast forward ten years and the gas drives on formation highs are dead. Operators shut in the wells and move on. The pump jacks sit in pastures and rust for another twenty years until maybe five years ago when sweet crude hit $50.00 a barrel. At that price, it is cost effective to use alternate methods of getting oil out of the ground. Guys like me starting buying orphaned wells and reworking them. Coil tubing rigs, hot gas injecting and fracking get lost oil out of the ground.

 

Now Obama's policies for off-shore drilling make land based well reclaimation a viable and safe fix for his created crisis. And since accessable oil puts a Green Agenda at risk it must be hampered. So in come new and STUPID regulations.

 

"This is just another disaster waiting to happen since most of this fracturing occurs at a point below the level of the natural aquifers which supply most of the US with water."

 

THAT is uninformed bull. Oil and gas wells are NOT ragged holes in the strata. If that were the case the water table would have been contaminated during the wild catting era 100 years ago. Drillers are very careful where they tap wells. Oil men do not want water in their crude so they make SURE it doesn't happen. It is bad enough when salt water from the formations come out of the ground. Water is a contaminant to oil, not the other way around.

 

I do this for a living. I have a patent on a thermal hydrogen compressor and a patent on the process. Permian Energy uses my process and I get royalties.

 

Regulate-shmegulate. How about the freak'n government leave things alone and keep their hands out of everyone's pockets.

[Vagrant0]

First of all, the need to frack is a direct result of involvement by the U.S. government into areas where they had no business sticking their fat noses. Back in the 1970s, a policy was put in action due to the Carter era OPEC oil crunch. A surplus of natural gas was produced from U.S. drilling. See, oil formations have two types of drive, either salt water (the ocean) or natural gas. Since the U.S. needed oil and needed it fast they went for the quick return, which was drilling on formation highs where the drive is NATURAL GAS. More oil means more gas and the gas had to go somewhere. The gas surplus drove down the price per mcf to about 13 cents. The market value tanked and in steps the Feds and their regulations. To 'dispose' of the well gases, operators (like me) had to PAY A FEE for a pump company to do the disposal. Instead of paying out hard-earned money operators flared the gas. No one in their right mind would pay to dispose of something when it can be dumped safely FOR FREE.

 

Fast forward ten years and the gas drives on formation highs are dead. Operators shut in the wells and move on. The pump jacks sit in pastures and rust for another twenty years until maybe five years ago when sweet crude hit $50.00 a barrel. At that price, it is cost effective to use alternate methods of getting oil out of the ground. Guys like me starting buying orphaned wells and reworking them. Coil tubing rigs, hot gas injecting and fracking get lost oil out of the ground.

 

Now Obama's policies for off-shore drilling make land based well reclaimation a viable and safe fix for his created crisis. And since accessable oil puts a Green Agenda at risk it must be hampered. So in come new and STUPID regulations.

 

"This is just another disaster waiting to happen since most of this fracturing occurs at a point below the level of the natural aquifers which supply most of the US with water."

 

THAT is uninformed bull. Oil and gas wells are NOT ragged holes in the strata. If that were the case the water table would have been contaminated during the wild catting era 100 years ago. Drillers are very careful where they tap wells. Oil men do not want water in their crude so they make SURE it doesn't happen. It is bad enough when salt water from the formations come out of the ground. Water is a contaminant to oil, not the other way around.

 

I do this for a living. I have a patent on a thermal hydrogen compressor and a patent on the process. Permian Energy uses my process and I get royalties.

 

Regulate-shmegulate. How about the freak'n government leave things alone and keep their hands out of everyone's pockets.

I'm not sure, but you seem to misunderstand what it is that is being discussed. The issue is not where you have vertical bores which are extracting oil or natural gas from a chamber, but instead where you have wells which have exhausted a chamber, and started drilling horizontally several hundred meters below and away from the extraction site, and are using pressure to fracture the stone in these areas in order to release any trapped gas that might exist in smaller pockets.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking

http://www.propublica.org/special/hydraulic-fracturing

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

 

Take note of those bits about depth...

 

Most of the measures being currently put in place are being done by the EPA, which is a non-partisan group.

[Balagor]

 

Regulate-shmegulate. How about the freak'n government leave things alone and keep their hands out of everyone's pockets.

 

Sometimes we forget that the "freak'n government" represents the surrounding population :thumbsup:

[Kendo 2]

Oh no, I get it. Horizontal drilling is common practice, and doesn't involve fracking. I've jerked enough wrenches on workover rigs to know. Fracking is a service unto itself.

 

Frack sand (man-made and uniform in size) is introduced to the bore and blasted into the formation. It absorbs the xyelene, swells and pressures the formation and is eventually forced back out once the formation begins to flow (the wiki omitted that). It doesn't comprise the pressurized formation since the pockets are flux and not static. AND if you wreck the formation area where the bore is by perfing or blasting you're screwed. Investors will not pay for a mistake like that and the project dies. If fracking didn't work, people in it for the money wouldn't be doing it at all. And a lot goes down the hole before fracking ever begins, too much to lay out here.

 

And I don't see what the depth of formations has to do with anything. Well casings are pressurized and isolate the hole. Squeezing the bores on older wells is common practice. Oil doesn't come gushing out of pipes anymore. It is pumped through 3/8" stainless tubing. The condition of the casing doesn't matter anyway. Everything is ran down field pipe inside the casing. Anyway, a natural gas 'well' is a myth. The oil is there and the gas drive is being pumped out.

 

The idea of 'the nasty oil could contaminate the drinking water' is dubious. The water table contaminating the oil is the real issue and the drillers will do what it takes to keep that from happening.

[Kendo 2]

Sometimes we forget that the "freak'n government" represents the surrounding population :thumbsup:

 

And sometimes they don't:

 

Obama killed the Gulf Coast oil industry, despite the pleas from Gulf Coast residents who were directly affected by the BP spill. He smiled when he announced it. Shrimpers and commercial businesses begged for relief...and what they received was a kick in the face. I assume this is yet another Obamism of 'you don't know what's best for you so the decisions will be made for you'. The industry in The Gulf was shut down so companies moved landside. NOW one project has set in motion a new regulation issue that will affect ALL fracking, not just one instance on one formation.

 

Build a dam to provide power for the people who will vote for you and flood the valley where the people who won't vote for you live.

[ginnyfizz]

Ah, now there are some more facts to ponder. Puts my mind to rest about the water issue. It looks like the environmentalist side are, as is often the case, using flawed, or at any rate slanted, science to back their argument. I should have known to hear both sides of the argument. It strikes me that the regulation should be used to ensure that the drilling operations get a fair hearing and the chance to operate, not to impose ridiculous restrictions upon them.

[evilneko]

And when my grampa's tap water can be lit on fire thanks to fracking, I'll blame the gas company and the government equally.

[Kendo 2]

Ah, now there are some more facts to ponder.

 

Okay, DO NOT take what I have typed here as fact. I haven't scoured wikis to validate my outrageous claims. I am simply calling I what I know is true (opinons about Obummer not withstanding). :D

 

And when my grampa's tap water can be lit on fire thanks to fracking, I'll blame the gas company and the government equally.

 

Blame your grampa's water authority for pumping from the substrata. I'll bet cash money there has been a water issue where he lives since time began. At one time or another the water out of the tap was rusty or smelled funny. When you took a shower your skin was slick and you didn't feel clean, people in the area had dental problems, etc. That is from substandard water wells tapping sulfide contaminated water...NOT from deep water wells. If there are fumes in the water there was always an issue. ;)

 

If his water is really that bad then I would suggest your family pay for a new well... and a DEEP one. Being an old bastard myself, $3000.00 for new well and an old man's comfort ain't much.

[ginnyfizz]

I am beginning to think it is the water companies that need more regulation, the more I consider this point.

 

Here in Britain we do not have much of an on shore oil industry (although the area I live in has the distinction of containing the site of Britain's first oil well, now defunct), so I don't have any direct experience of fracking. Nevertheless, we have certainly within living memory had a thriving mining and minerals industry involving digging some very deep holes and shotblasting coal seams and metal lodes somewhat close to watercourses. In some cases actually utilizing said water courses in their operations.

 

And guess what? There are plenty of incidents of farm waste sneaking into the water supply, or of industrial waste unrelated to the actual mining/drilling operations sneaking in there, or of the water companies themselves putting an excess of chemicals in the water, but very few if any of the actual mining being the culprit. And another thing to consider is that the geology of some areas means you are more likely to be irradiated by your tap water than affected by other forms of contamination. I vividly remember being on a walk on Dartmoor (a granite upland which therefore has high levels of radon emissions)and seeing radioactive warning signs plastered all over the entrance to a tunnel containing a stream... which happened to be a major part of Plymouth's water supply.

 

I am using these points to illustrate the fact that before getting into a funk about the issues involved with fracking, and rushing to strangle the oil industry, we should bear in mind that there are other factors that need looking at. Especially the water companies.