Gas Fracking

[Ethre]

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.

 

Horizontal drilling's pretty amazing I think - its crazy to see them drop in a single well per section.

 

I thought the worry comes more from the waste material created after fracking? Would that be any worse than the waste materials after drilling though? (not that those are necessarily very nice)

 

How often due you actually run into radioactive casings? Around here it sounds like they're common place, but I have a hard time imagining the radioactivity transferring that quickly.

[ginnyfizz]

Now I know not a lot about drilling, I was talking about naturally occurring radiation such as happens in granite bedrock areas. Granite being naturally radioactive, as indeed is Derbyshire gritstone around where I live (we all have radon meters in our homes round here.) I was sceptical about the radiation notices on that Dartmoor stream until I borrowed a small portable Geiger counter and went back there. It went NUTS. My point was that you can get pollution without any help from drilling or mining. BUT certainly over here in UK, although radon levels are naturally high in certain areas, the radiation does not seem to have transferred quickly. I only glow in the dark if I overdid the shimmer makeup.

[Ethre]

Sorry Ginny, I had actually missed your comment about radioactive water.

 

I know that some areas can be naturally high in radioactivity. My question had more to do with oil drilling: when they pull up the drilling pipe (I think they usually only use it for one well), a decent amount of the pipe can actually end up contaminated (as in a geiger counter will go "nuts").

That's what I've heard around here at least (many people buy used pipe for various applications - but the places selling it can't sell the radioactive stuff). I find it odd that the pipe should become hot in the relatively short period of drilling though. It seems like it should take a longer period of time.

 

I don't know all that much about it, which is why I was asking Kendo (who it seems has actually worked in the field). I've just grown up with rigs around, so I hear stories.

[evilneko]

Water pollution from fracking is mainly a concern in rural areas, where people have wells. In developed areas, the main concern would be the air pollution come off the wells.

[ginnyfizz]

So, you have made up your mind that any water pollution you get is bound to be from the fracking and not from other sources, nor from the incompetence of the water companies? You are sure that your water company or whoever is responsible for your water supply maintains all boreholes, wells and pipework etc properly? That they ALWAYS get the mix of chemicals in the water supply right? There was a notorious incident in England of a water company putting a huge excess of chemicals in at a treatment plant and poisoning a lot of people.

 

My Nan had her water from a well at the height of the mining era in my area - the coal mines were very deep and involved a helluva lot of shotblasting - and never a pollution incident. As far as rural areas go you are more likely to suffer from pollution as a result of farming misdeeds than from the fracking. Remember that radioactive stream I talked about? A couple of miles upstream from the radiation warning notice, I found this same stream choked with a rather luxuriant growth of weeds. Took me ten seconds to find the culprit - the farmer whose land the stream went through had sacks of fertiliser stored on the ground a few yards away and they were leaking. Why the hell he wanted fertiliser in an area of the country that is so darned wet and the grass grows like mad anyway is anyone's guess. But I am pretty sure that in a country as vast as the USA, there would be a good chance of your pollution coming from similar sources, and not just the fertiliser either...slurry too.

[evilneko]

When the water has been consistently fine for decades and longer prior to the drill, and suddenly becomes bad afterward, and the problem is not intermittent but constant, and the further you get from the site the less likely it is that the water is tainted, then yes, I blame the drilling operation.

[Ghogiel]

a glass of Galway water?

[Harbringe]

These are some examples of what can happen with Gas fracing ,these are particular to the US but there are similar instances of it in Canada.Right now the Oil industry and the cattle industry are locked in a lobbying battle ,but the cattlemen are loosing badly as they just don't have the kind of money the oil industry can spend.Should fracing be so regulated that it makes it a non viable method ,well no cause compared to some of the other methods involved its a lot less damaging ,but its foolish to think that it is such a perfect process that there are no risks involved and water contamination is one of them ,amongst a whole host of them.Same is true for every industry they all got their pluses and minuses.Its the minuses that give rise to regulations.

 

Cows drop dead

 

 

Cattle Quarantine

[ginnyfizz]

Oh I agree, and no-one ever said that it is a perfect process and nothing ever goes wrong. I just cannot stand this strident environmentalist desire to clobber the oil industry at every touch and turn in their bid to impose "green" energy solutions.

[Kendo 2]

These are some examples of what can happen with Gas fracing ,these are particular to the US but there are similar instances of it in Canada.Right now the Oil industry and the cattle industry are locked in a lobbying battle ,but the cattlemen are loosing badly as they just don't have the kind of money the oil industry can spend.Should fracing be so regulated that it makes it a non viable method ,well no cause compared to some of the other methods involved its a lot less damaging ,but its foolish to think that it is such a perfect process that there are no risks involved and water contamination is one of them ,amongst a whole host of them.Same is true for every industry they all got their pluses and minuses.Its the minuses that give rise to regulations.

 

Cows drop dead

 

"At least one worker told the newspaper that the fluids, which witnesses described as green and spewing into the air near the drilling derrick..." That sounds like hydraulic fluid to me and yes, cows and other animals will drink it because it is sweet. If the fuild contacts water it turns white. I guess we shouldn't drive cars either since they have hydraulic fluid in them.

 

Cattle Quarantine

 

That was a case of the operators not lining their waste water dump properly. There are State and Fed regulations already in place for that and violating them results in fines and in some cases prison time. More regulation is not needed...unless of course you just want to shut down the industry altogether or tax it until it bleeds.