Fracking May Provide Most of US Energy Despite Environmental Concerns

Some of the largest known reserves of natural gas are located in the United States; our country alone has an estimated 2,400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. Fracking, the process of injecting gallons of water, sand and chemicals underground at a great pressure in order to extract gas and oil from shale rock formations, allows companies to obtain hard-to-reach resources.

If fracking continues, it will provide over half the energy supply of the U.S. in only 2 years. Proponents of hydraulic fracturing also argue that natural gas could replace coal and oil as the major energy source worldwide, subsequently reducing CO2 emissions by more than 50 percent. The continuance of fracking could mean independence from foreign energy sources and, consequently, a decrease in energy costs.

Among the consequences of hydraulic fracturing are contaminations of groundwater, the release of methane – a gas 20 times as potent as CO2 – and the induction of earthquakes. In 2009, Oklahoma – a state that averages 50 earthquakes per year – experienced over 1,000 earthquakes which have been linked to fracking. Tap water associated with fracking has actually caught fire.

Some argue that the public has been poorly informed about the fracking process, leading to exaggerated concerns about the effects — for example, straightforward mining causing a number of earthquakes over time.

T. Boone Pickens, the chair of the BP Capital Management hedge fund, claims that despite having “worked on over 2,000 fracking wells,” he has “seen no environmental issues as a result.”

The following infographic from the Process Industry Forum explains the basics and arguments for and against hydraulic fracturing:

An introduction to fracking via Process Industry Forum and WebtiseUK

This article was originally published by IVN a non-profit news platform for independent journalists.

IVN.us

9 Comments on "Fracking May Provide Most of US Energy Despite Environmental Concerns"

BillT on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 2:37 am 



The race is on. Will big petro destroy the world or will we nuke everything into oblivion first? Place your bets…

John_A on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 3:02 am 



My bet is that your complaint will be able to continue at least 50 years from now because those doing the estimates of resource size and consumption are more right than those who think TEOTWAWKI is always right around the corner.

GregT on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 3:12 am 



John _A,

You have obviously not done your homework.

Epic FAIL.

Luke on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 6:55 am 



“Fracking, the process of injecting gallons of water, sand and chemicals underground…”
Did the author deliberately left out (billions of clean) water, sand and chemicals….
Some areas in the US have problems providing counties with sufficient potable water due to fracking activities exhausting the water tables. As always Big Oil and Gas and their greedy W.S. capitalist investors determine the priorities.

Airwicky on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 9:39 am 



This article was originally published by IVN a non-profit news platform for independent journalists.
ROFL — this is totally bias .. it’s set up super simple for the pea brain fool to believe that we need fracking and who cares about the environment or how it compares to oil

csatadi on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 2:21 pm 



You are allowed to debate but fracking will remain. 🙂

bobinget on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 2:29 pm 



For the last twelve years;

The average American consumed more then 200 pounds of GMO food stuffs annually.

In the last 60 years Americans worked up to burning
19 million barrels of oil every day of the week.
(all but Canadian Oil Sands), came as a result of a process known as hydraulic fracturing.

In the last two years (a few) Americans are endeavoring to make both innovations illegal, when stricter
over-site, proper inspections, respect for peer-reviewed science instead of innuendo is what is required.

Corporate farming, global warming, peak oil, these are
related but separate issues.

shortonoil on Mon, 7th Oct 2013 2:52 pm 



How “Fracking May Provide Most of US Energy” when it probably doesn’t produce any, must be one of those Zeno questions. These are gas drive wells with phenomenal decline rates. The ERoEI is abysmally low. There may be those who think that this will continue; the Laws of Thermodynamics disagree!

Enviro Equipment Blog on Wed, 9th Oct 2013 7:55 pm 



You really need to go back and get your facts straight about using hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas.

To begin with, most methane releases are recycled as the industry sees the wasted gas as lost profits, meaning that they have an incentive to reduce these releases as much as possible.

Next, the earthquakes associated with hydraulic fracturing are almost always under 3.0 on the Richter scale, although occasionally you do get some over 5.0 as in Oklahoma.

Finally, you’re infographic casually states that “tap water associated with fracking has caught fire proving the high level of chemicals”. Wait… What? That whole water-catching-fire trick has been totally discredited as it’s been happening to tap water In in areas before fracking Wells have been dug because it’s a natural (though unpleasant) occurrence I do to the geologic makeup of the surrounding land.