- Hydraulic fracturing has been used in conventional-style wells since the late 1940s. When a vertical well shaft hits a layer of shale, chemically treated water and sand are blasted down at high pressure to crack open the rock and liberate natural gas.
- technique has been combined with a newer technology called directional, or horizontal, drilling—the ability to turn a downward-plodding drill bit as much as 90 degrees and continue drilling within the layer, parallel to the ground surface, for thousands of additional feet
- Fracking is not powerful enough to break through that much rock, connecting horizontal well bores, called laterals, to groundwater near the surface.
- Huge ponds or tanks are needed to store the chemically laden “flowback water” when it comes back up the hole after wells have been fractured.
- This task requires an amount of two to four million gallons of water for a single lateral, as well as 15,000 to 60,000 gallons of chemicals; multiply those quantities by the number of wells drilled at one site. Transporting the liquids involves fleets of tanker trucks and large storage containers.
- 75 percent of what is blasted down comes back up. It is full of chemicals; which are used to protect the pipe and kill bacteria, helping the fracking fluid flow, but often with radioactive materials and salts from underground layers.
- Most companies use open-air pits dug into the ground. Many states require the bottoms of the pits to be lined with synthetic materials to prevent leakage. Some also require the pits to be a sufficient distance from surface water.
- "thermogenic" methane,this kind of gas originates in shale layers, unlike “biogenic” methane, which is produced by microbes in pockets closer to the surface, where aquifers typically are.
- The idea that water blasts deep underground can directly contaminate drinking water, by creating unexpected pathways for gas or liquid to travel between deep shale and shallow groundwater.
- If the company is at fault, that does not mean fracking in the ground caused the problem. Many “gas flow pathways” were involved. Gas could have traveled all the way up from the fracked shale through an unknown path. Or a faulty cement job on the vertical part of the well, much closer to the surface, could have done it.
- Every well has to pass through the near-surface layers that contain groundwater, and it could also pass through unknown pockets of gas.
- A casing failure might also allow the chemical flowback water, propelled by the pressure released when the shale is cracked, to leak out.
- New wells connecting with old wells is called "fracture communication".
- Faucets in homes have lit on fire and some families’ water wells have been contaminated with methane as a result of improper drilling practice in Pennsylvania.
Summary:
Hydraulic fracturing has been used in conventional-style wells since the late 1940s. When a vertical well shaft hits a layer of shale, chemically treated water and sand are blasted down at high pressure to crack open the rock and liberate natural gas. To do fracking, the technique has been combined with a newer technology called directional, or horizontal, drilling—the ability to turn a downward-plodding drill bit as much as 90 degrees and continue drilling within the layer, parallel to the ground surface, for thousands of additional feet. Huge ponds or tanks are needed to store the chemically laden “flowback water” when it comes back up the hole after wells have been fractured. However, it requires an amount of two to four million gallons of water for a single lateral, as well as 15,000 to 60,000 gallons of chemicals. 75% of what is blasted down comes back up. It is full of chemicals; which are used to protect the pipe and kill bacteria, helping the fracking fluid flow, but often with radioactive materials and salts from underground layers. The idea that water blasts deep underground can directly contaminate drinking water, by creating unexpected pathways for gas or liquid to travel between deep shale and shallow groundwater. Faucets in homes have lit on fire and some families’ water wells have been contaminated with methane as a result of improper drilling practice in Pennsylvania.
Summary:
Fracking is a very wasteful towards using water, like they use two to four million gallons of water for a single lateral, as well as 15,000 to 60,000 gallons of chemicals. Many people have contaminated water in their homes, what if a whole family got contaminated just because some company use fracking in their backyard or near their house? Companies just blames the people for not checking their water quality before they started drilling. The drilling also caused earthquakes in the area. I know that some companies wanted to have a natural gas that's why they wanted to drill the ground but they should think about how many people can affect their drilling and the people's water resources getting contaminated because of them.