Geothermal Energy Keeps Oregon Town Toasty
Shell Oil Company Sues BP For Loss of Production/Profit due to Oil Spill
Entire Chilean City Shifted 10 Feet as a Result of 8.8 Earthquake
KONE Sees Drop in Hydraulic Elevator Installations as EcoDisc Technology Gains
Proposed Keystone XL Oil Sands Project Generates Controversy
Colorado's Clean Air-Clean Job Act Cuts CO2 but Promotes Natural Gas Drilling
Oil Industry Ignored Real Risks of Deepwater Oil Drilling
Oil Spill Partners in Crime – BP, Transocean, and Halliburton
Oil Spill Continues to Suffocate Gulf as Companies Argue Over Fault
British Airways to Fly on Biofuel from City Waste
Net Zero Energy Buildings Are Achievable Today
Senate Considers Reviving Biodiesel Tax Credit of $1 a Gallon
NASA Turns Its Eyes Toward Earth: Website to Educate Public on Global Warming
U.S. Allowed Offshore Drilling without Required Permits
California Approves Stimulus Funding for 3GW of Solar Projects
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer.
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? We explain the controversy by first examining the history of natural gas and hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. [Note: updated 1/12/2011 with extensive galleries]
-
- Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Well on a Former Hilltop
-
- Hydraulic Fracturing Operation On-Site
-
- Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Well on a Riverbank
-
- Large Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Well
-
- Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Well in Forest
-
- Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Well On Hilltop
Hydraulic fracturing, or “hydrofracking,” entered the public sphere in full force this past year when it became an overnight political talking point, meriting its own nickname and even a scathing documentary. Understand this backlash can be difficult without a brief history of natural gas and hydraulic fracturing in the U.S.
What we consider “natural gas” consists of mostly methane, and its gaseous state has made the hydrocarbon notoriously difficult to harness as a fuel. New Yorkers noticed the volatile properties of the Marcellus Shale—a layer of fissile sedimentary rocks that extends beneath five northern Appalachian states—before “New Yorkers” existed, in pre-European America. Cities used manufactured coal gas to light stoves and heat houses in the mid-1800s, but soot and strong odors led twentieth-century industrialists to choose natural gas as the fuel of choice for a cleaner future. (Robert Whaples, “Manufactured and Natural Gas Industry” Economic History Association)
Americans discovered how to utilize natural gas reserves in the late 1800s as a byproduct of oil drilling (See Diagram. Scientists now estimate that early oil drillers in Texas allowed approximately 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas escape into the atmosphere per day.) The Hugoton oil fields in Texas supplied America with 16% of its natural gas in the twenty-first century, but only after oil experts found a way to transport unstable gases from the Western plains to population-dense areas in need of fuel: steel welded pipelines. (W. M. Burnett and S. D. Ban, “Changing Prospects for Natural Gas in the United States,” Science New Series, Vol. 244, No. 4902, Apr. 21, 1989, pp. 305-310) Seamless pipelines allowed for long-distance transport to the northeast, where extensive drilling had already exhausted Appalachian oil and gas reserves. The 1938 Natural Gas Act empowered the federal government to regulate natural gas interstate commerce, but the government did not create an executive agency (FERC) to regulate interstate gas commerce until 1978.
By the late 1960s, natural gas waned as a long-term fuel option for America. Up until this point, oil and gas companies only drilled vertically into the earth. In 1947, a Texas company called Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company adopted a long-used quarrying method called hydraulic fracturing to horizontally drill and extract natural gas through exerting hydraulic pressure into rocks.
Hydraulic fracturing (or “hydrofracking”) expands existent fissures in rock when hydraulic solution is forced into porous rock at high pressures. These cracks extend natural fault lines, making them eventually large enough for gases to seep up to the surface of the earth. The solution injected into the earth includes a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand.
Despite its use in oil fields in Texas, hydraulic fracturing remained economically inefficient for extracting natural gas from less-concentrated petroleum reserves in shale (again, see diagram). Only in the last five years have shale reserves emerged as economically feasible, thanks to R&D and federal legislative support.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 included a clause that stripped the EPA of the ability to regulate the relatively new commercial process of hydraulic fracturing. Fracking made shale gas available, which increased potential U.S. natural gas reserves by 35% from 2000 to 2007.
As Stated in a 2008 Article in Scientific American:
"Thanks in large part to hydraulic fracturing, natural gas drilling has vastly expanded across the United States. In 2007 there were 449,000 gas wells in 32 states, thirty percent more than in 2000. By 2012 the nation could be drilling 32,000 new wells a year, including some in the watershed that provides drinking water to New York City and Philadelphia, some five percent of the nation’s population."
Documentaries and conspiracy theorists alike have since called this legislation the “Halliburton Loophole” because it allowed Halliburton and other gas companies to proceed with shale natural gas extraction before the potential side effects could be thoroughly researched.
In the past two years, potential and current side effects of hydrofracking have surfaced. Problems for residents of hydrofracking areas include groundwater contamination from the hydraulic solution and/or methane, overuse of water in drought-prone regions, radioactive residue, and unintended release of methane (the most common natural gas found in shale) into the atmosphere.
Halliburton was subpoenaed by the EPA in November 2010 to release the chemical content of their hydraulic solution pumped through shale, and has still only released a few of the chemicals because of copyright issues on the formula, the company claims.
Also in the past year, several groups of scientists fear that “policy has preceded adequate scientific study,” and wish to halt further fracking until the EPA completes a two-year report set to end in 2012. New York State governor David Paterson issued a moratorium on hydrofracking, and the U.S. House and Senate have introduced bills to close the “Halliburton Loophole.”
Hydraulic fracturing has catapulted to the forefront of political and scientific energy discussions in the past five years. Invented in the 1940s, hydrofracking cost too much for oil and gas companies to turn a profit until federal regulators allowed rock-breaking chemical solutions to be used without EPA regulation. Natural gas burns cleaner than oil or coal, but the methods used to extract it from the earth might cause greater long-term geological and environmental damage than the amount of pollution saved by burning a relatively clean fuel. Before assuming that a clean burn means a clean source, regulators must examine the controversial extraction methods used in the as-yet scientifically unexamined approach to drilling known as hydraulic fracturing.
Recommended for Further Reading:
- Geothermal Energy Keeps Oregon Town Toasty
- Shell Oil Company Sues BP For Loss of Production/Profit due to Oil Spill
- Entire Chilean City Shifted 10 Feet as a Result of 8.8 Earthquake
- KONE Sees Drop in Hydraulic Elevator Installations as EcoDisc Technology Gains
- Proposed Keystone XL Oil Sands Project Generates Controversy
- Colorado's Clean Air-Clean Job Act Cuts CO2 but Promotes Natural Gas Drilling
- Oil Industry Ignored Real Risks of Deepwater Oil Drilling
- Oil Spill Partners in Crime – BP, Transocean, and Halliburton
- Oil Spill Continues to Suffocate Gulf as Companies Argue Over Fault
- British Airways to Fly on Biofuel from City Waste
- Net Zero Energy Buildings Are Achievable Today
- Senate Considers Reviving Biodiesel Tax Credit of $1 a Gallon
- NASA Turns Its Eyes Toward Earth: Website to Educate Public on Global Warming
- U.S. Allowed Offshore Drilling without Required Permits
- California Approves Stimulus Funding for 3GW of Solar Projects
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. http://t.co/xaSNTqHC #eco #cleantech #greenbuilding #renewableenergy
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. http://t.co/xaSSr0QM #eco #cleantech #greenbuilding #renewableenergy
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. http://t.co/xaSSr0QM #eco #cleantech #greenbuilding #renewableenergy
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. http://bit.ly/fFrbZb #eco #cleantech #greenbuilding #renewableenergy
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. http://bit.ly/fFrbZb #eco #cleantech #greenbuilding #renewableenergy
o documentario GASLAND, premiado no Sundance Film Festival é sobre hidraulic ftacturing... Outro escandalo que nenhum beneficio trAZ AO MEIO AMBIENTE, MUITO PELO CONTRARIO....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8
If you're interested in learning more about Hydraulic Fracturing, you should definitely check out buildaroo's newest article on the topic, where we examine the
environmental concerns associated with hydraulic fracturing.
natural gas . http://bit.ly/fFrbZb What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer.
http://bit.ly/fFrbZb hydraulic fracturing What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer.
We just added a bunch of new image galleries to the article to help give readers a better understanding of this complex issue. I'm amazed that these wells are being drilled in such lush forested areas. There aren't that many pristine forests left in the US, and from what I remember from my college days, trees drink groundwater... So wouldn't this groundwater pollution potentially destroy these forests and as a result entire ecosystems?
It's interesting to see some of the background about using hydrofracking to extract "clean" energy. This article is a nice reminder that efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of our energy consumption need to consider whole system from extraction to end use. It will be interesting to see the results of the EPA study to see how gas from hydrofracking compares to alternatives.
Good summary of what fracking is and the negative aspects. However, people may need to look more at the impact of the newly accessible gas reserves. That's a whole lot of energy security...
Good point, energy security certainly comes into play. What the EPA is investigating, and what we as natural gas users need to look at, is how hydrofracking also impacts our water security.
Interesting article and scary, especially for the people who live in the areas where hydrofracking occurs.
Fascinating! It's nice to have such a detailed explanation about such a recently controversial issue.
And the debate continues in New York State today: http://www.stargazette.com/article/20110112/VIEWPOINTS02/101120305/1121/Opportunity-knocks-for-economic-development
RT @EarthSimply: Want to learn more about hydrofracking? http://buildaroo.com/news/article/hydraulic-fracturing-natural-gas-primer/
Great article! It is both informative and interesting, and I appreciate getting a clearly written up-date on issues involved in "hydrofracking".
#UAlbany History grad student Jackie Mirandola Mullen writes, "What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer" http://goo.gl/GXYvQ
Want to learn more about hydrofracking? http://buildaroo.com/news/article/hydraulic-fracturing-natural-gas-primer/
This is really interesting!
What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. natural gas http://bit.ly/fFrbZb ;P
natural gas What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. http://bit.ly/fFrbZb
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by buildaroo. buildaroo said: What is Hydraulic Fracturing? A Natural Gas Primer. natural gas http://bit.ly/fFrbZb ;P [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by buildaroo. buildaroo said: http://bit.ly/fBVMGt