Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is making possible an increase in U.S. oil production that...
- is working in tandem with energy-efficiency policy and technology to lead us toward energy self-sufficiency;
- made us a net exporter of petro-products in 2011 (tell me again: who's going to use Keystone XL's oil?); and
- shows the private sector is doing enough with available resources to eliminate the need for the federal government to intervene by opening up more public land to be Swiss-cheesed for petro -profit (contrary to the trend under the Obama Administration to increase oil production on federal land).
Fracking also appears to kill cows and sicken ranchers:
Jacki Schilke and her sixty cattle live in the top left corner of North Dakota, a windswept, golden-hued landscape in the heart of the Bakken Shale. Schilke’s neighbors love her black Angus beef, but she’s no longer sharing or eating it—not since fracking began on thirty-two oil and gas wells within three miles of her 160-acre ranch and five of her cows dropped dead. Schilke herself is in poor health. A handsome 53-year-old with a faded blond ponytail and direct blue eyes, she often feels lightheaded when she ventures outside. She limps and has chronic pain in her lungs, as well as rashes that have lingered for a year. Once, a visit to the barn ended with respiratory distress and a trip to the emergency room. Schilke also has back pain linked with overworked kidneys, and on some mornings she urinates a stream of blood.
Ambient air testing by a certified environmental consultant detected elevated levels of benzene, methane, chloroform, butane, propane, toluene and xylene—compounds associated with drilling and fracking, and also with cancers, birth defects and organ damage. Her well tested high for sulfates, chromium, chloride and strontium; her blood tested positive for acetone, plus the heavy metals arsenic (linked with skin lesions, cancers and cardiovascular disease) and germanium (linked with muscle weakness and skin rashes). Both she and her husband, who works in oilfield services, have recently lost crowns and fillings from their teeth; tooth loss is associated with radiation poisoning and high selenium levels, also found in the Schilkes’ water [Elizabeth Royte, "Fracking Our Food Supply," The Nation, 2012.11.28].
The public science on fracking's effects on bovine and human health are incomplete, in part because the oil companies are keeping their fracking formulas secret. And when oil companies offer some compensation to the ranchers whose herds they've harmed, the lawyers impose non-disclosure agreements that keep the ranchers from sharing their information with researchers and the press.
Boy, I hope the experts who came up with fracking are now working on a formula to make burgers out of oil.
Related: The American Petroleum Institute, the biggest oil lobbying group in the country, spent big money to run political ads against Democrats and for Republicans. API's board includes Saudi national and oil exec Tofiq Al-Gabsani. Saudi Arabia's dwindling water supply has led the country to back off growing its own wheat and barley and rely on food imports and investments in farms in Sudan and elsewhere.
Come on Cory, how could anything possible go wrong when pumping tons of potentially toxic chemicals into the ground?
"possibly"
Clay Jenkinson wants a bulwark against the Bakken. A modest plan for protecting the Badlands and the national park: Bismarck Tribune.
No one has yet explained to me how a hydraulic pressure would not disapate from compressing in a mile long hydraulic hose. I learned when I was a kid that oil going through a hose could push up the loader on the tractor. But even oil can compress a little and a mile long hose would compress enough that the pressure would not transfer as well as on Dad's tractor's hydraulic system. Now they are trying to tell us that they can make huge splits deep into rock with a mile of earth holding the rock down. The only thing powerful enough in my knowledge to do something like that would be a nuclear explosion. So now why do they have radiation poisoning from the water wells in the area. To get the radiation all the way to your well means that the crack in the rock had to be a mile long crack to let the radiation go that far. No hydraulics could cause that much pressure from that deep unless it was a natural pressure like in the Horizon explosion or if the pressure was man made it had to be nuclear since that is the only force that big that we as humans have made to this day. Is there also a connection that they are now trying to mine uranium again. Once you put the puzzle together it starts to be a pattern.
how much more documentation do people need to really understand that this isn't a coincidence anymore? My goodness, what could possibly go wrong, when you are injecting poisonous chemicals into the ground? Gosh golly, nothing at all!! ah heck, let's just go ahead and "go for it" down there near Edgemont. Keep moving along, people - nothing to see here!!
Profits for the few - suffering and a major cost to the many.
Most wells are hydraulically fractured. It isn't necessary if the oil, like Jed Clampett's, "come up through ground like a bubbling crude". The issues surrounding the technique are huge, full of knowns, and unknowns. The US has over 1 million hydraulically fractured wells - vertical, directional, and horizontal. That is one reason the EPA's slow, or congenially, deliberate with it's on-going hydraulic fracturing study that is supposed to see release in 2012. Thank goodness the US declines to follow Mexico's use of a nuclear explosion to hydraulically fracture a well field.
One immediate requirement regulators should adopt is the insertion of mandatory, well-unique, registered tracers in the fluids so that if problems arise there is iron-clad accountability. The threat of billion dollar accountability should go far to restrain questionable cement and completion jobs or other careless practices. The anecdotal evidence from Colorado and ND about air quality issues in close proximity to wells reinforces the wisdom in a Colorado town of banning wells in the town.
We need the hydrocarbons, but not in a manner that poisons ourselves. It's becoming apparent that regulators need more hydrologists and microbiologists to guide regulatory schemes and to work on an even standing with the petroleum engineers rather than have this potentially corrupt arrangement as is found in ND and WY where the petroleum engineers essentially regulate themselves - doubling as advocates for the industry.
Consider this 2008 industry presentation on hydraulic fracturing - since little here is "new" rather refinements in technology and technique. (5.6 mb)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=fracturing%20and%20veach&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fspemc.org%2Fresources%2Fpresentation_011708.pdf&ei=t4q7UKGICqSsyAHP6oCIBA&usg=AFQjCNEO093k3UN-Fq2b8zZASfkxv4uOVw
Interesting post Cory...But what about the view that oil companies wouldn't want to pollute the water or air any more than the rest of us would?
Good question. Maybe because owners never have to live in a polluted area and really don't give a hoot about the hicks who live around the wells or downstream from the polluted water.
When a nuclear dump site was proposed for Springview area of Nebraska, it was because the corporate bigwigs and lawyers thought people out in this area were too ignorant and stupid to understand the dangers.
Oil companies and nuclear companies may compete for business, but they also compete in the race for the most despicable disregard for the environment and society.
Oil and mining interesting fund ALEC. The hundreds of bills passed in some state legislatures such as anti-union and anti-global warming (remember SD legislature's concern about astrology?) almost all have come from corporate sponsors effectively bribing legislatures in ways not prosecuted.
Roger-
By fracturing, they mean creating micro fractures. Not a giant hole. Trapped liquid down there are under a huge amount of pressure and just need microcracks to make its ways.
The scary part of fracking is that no one really knows what will be soluabilized into the fracking fluid. As the fracking fluid starts to mix with a range of hydro carbons an incredibly large range of compounds can be absorbed and once absorbed transported into contact with people/animals/plants/etc.
Most people don't understand how easily people can be harmed by the myriad of compounds that are sequestered in the crust by geological processes. We are bringing them to the surface through fracking and are not adapted to them.
Imagine tapping into the nuclear furnace under Midland:
http://ecotrope.opb.org/2012/01/geothermal-fractures-vs-hydraulic-fracking-whats-the-difference/
http://www.the9billion.com/2011/10/27/new-geothermal-map-of-us-reveals-huge-potential-for-geothermal-energy/
Wait a minute, Tony: you mean it's not just the stuff we're putting into the ground, but the stuff we're bringing up out of the ground along with the oil that threatens us? That's an angle I haven't heard anyone raise yet. Holy cow -- fracking is riskier business than I thought.
Thanks for posting this to the blog. Good luck in your future.
but this is all supposed to be safe and not harm the environment. Why in the world would these folks cry "fowl" over this?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/01/us-endangered-prairie-chicken-idUSBRE8AT1E320121201
There is a Mt company being prosecuted in ND for dumping the frac water down an out of service oil well. The issue, ground water contamination.
The frac water is extremely contaminated, but how does going back into an oil well give us groundwater contamination unless there is something they are not telling us to begin with on the frac process.
Recall the 2005 secret Cheney energy task force. Koch Industries had millions of tons of waste chemicals like formaldehyde and benzene that the Environmental Protection Agency was pressuring them to destroy. A plan was hatched by Bush Interior Secretary Gale Norton to skirt regulation and force the EPA administrator to allow the pumping of these volatile chemicals into oil shale.
http://interested-party.blogspot.com/2011/05/fracking-fluid-waste-koch-formaldehyde.html
Tony,
A micro crack would not result in a leakage a mile up into your water well. A mile long crack is a major crack, not minor.
Do you guys believe everything you read on the internet?...even when their only sources link back to themselves? It's amazing what landowners not getting a check will come up with. And Les, your first mistake is assuming it was dumped down a fracked well. Wells have been in ND for quite a while before fracking came about, and these wells tend to be a bigger problem. Shallow, crappy techniques, and just poor locations are just a few reasons why they are so risky. I highly doubt it was dumped down a fracked well. Highly, highly doubt it.
"But most states allow companies free reign to decide that a chemical is secret. An NRDC analysis released in July found that only two states out of 29 with fracking require that companies provide factual justification to claim that a chemical is a trade secret. And many state regulatory agencies do not have the resources to ensure that the industry is following the rules on the books."
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/mmcfeeley/despite_state_laws_requiring_d.html
Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, closed the Halliburton loophole before he was term-limited out of office:
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/wyoming_first_in_nation_to_require_public_disclosure_of_chemicals_used_in_g/C618/L618/
Hello Roger,
I was not using the term micro fraction colloquially. Micro refers to the size of the structure--in this case a crack--not the extent of the crack formation.
*micro fracture
you lugubrious twit.
DB, not you, tony.
kurtz, you lugubrious twit....
Don't be silly Larry. You're the most cheerful person I know.
DB, your first mistake was your reading comprehension. Nowhere did I say it was dropped in a fractured hole, you dreamt that and the frac water would be the cleanest product in a fractured hole anyway.
There would be reason to believe a new fractured well could be in the same field as the disposal well. Those old wells would be much more likely to be sealed from potable water than a new well that had a million gal injected under thousands of pounds pressure.
Your crappy technique is bogus. Shutting off potable formations is old proven technology.
Want to know what's in fracking fluid? Sue:
http://grist.org/news/wanna-know-whats-in-that-fracking-fluid-tough/
Longread follow-up on Cory's post:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/04/north-dakota-fracking-boom-family
KXL not transporting crude oil; judge halts construction:
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/viewart/20121211/NEWS01/312110011
Wyo group retiring earth destroying oil/gas leases:
http://trib.com/business/energy/groups-raise-enough-money-to-buy-out-wyoming-range-leases/article_1d5f4d96-cf4d-5373-b6b3-48a90ed94eb3.html
Halliburton fracking incident kills Minnesota man:
http://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/man-dies-in-north-dakota-hydraulic-fracturing-accident/article_3fdb6f94-63d5-11e2-be0b-001a4bcf887a.html