Monday, March 2, 2015

Water For Fracking And The Disadvantages

By Earlene McGee


If you have heard about fracking but have not quite understood what this term means, then you are in the right place. Fracking is the process of drilling and mining in oil and gas industries which uses some highly pressurized liquid substance to stimulate a well. This mixture substance is majorly comprised of water, sand and some chemical proponents that many companies have failed to bring to light. The process and use of water for fracking has led constant uproars from environmental and conservation bodies due to its downside effects.

The purpose of using this highly pressurized liquid mixture that mainly comprises of water, sand and other chemicals like boric acid is to open up the rocks and create fractures. Opening up the fractures enables oil and gas to flow out of the rocks freely without hindrance. After removing the hydraulic pressure, the proponents of the mixture like sand particles help keep the fractures open.

It consumes about 2 to 7 or 8 million water gallons to frack a one well in normal circumstances. However, contingent to the well type and size, more of this can be utilized. Some wells also need to be fracked out more than once and the result of this is that huge and massive quantities of liquid are drawn from our cycle for this purpose.

The use of such large amounts of this precious commodity that is mainly gotten from our supply points like the rivers and local storage areas means danger to our cycle. The liquid used in these activities cannot be recycled from the contamination it goes through. Though companies have failed to disclose what components they have in their pressurized liquid mixture, samples from the well sites show signs of chemicals such as acetic, boric and citric acids.

These huge amounts of water means that transportation is necessary to move the fluid to the mining site as well as carry the waste from the wells away. In order to accomplish such a large goal, you need to have around 500 tankers to ferry the fluid and waste for a single well.

For a single eighteen wheeler truck, it can weigh about 80000lbs. Now considering that you have over 500 of these truckloads on the same road would mean disaster on that way. The end result is that the city or state will end up having to do the repairs. However, some companies ought to do these themselves.

Some of the liquid mixture that is approximately half of it is returned to the surface. It is then stored locked in steel tanks that help keep it out of reach by animals and humans. The liquid has been observed to result in chemical contamination around the tank surroundings.

The other half is perceived to remain underground or where else could it go? A great guess is that this later on circulates back to the cycle hence contaminating it. The cases of contamination around the areas where fracking has occurred are many.




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