Fracking

Topics: Hydraulic fracturing, Oil well, Natural gas Pages: 4 (1151 words) Published: July 28, 2013
Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing and is one of the most effective ways of extracting natural gas from the earth. It yeilds 300,000 barrels of natural gas a day, but at the price of numerous environmental, safety, and health hazards. . It’s an extremely water-intensive process where millions of gallons of fluid – typically a mix of water, sand, and chemicals, including ones known to cause cancer, are injected underground at high pressure to fracture the rock surrounding an oil or gas well.

What Fracking is:
Explain the process
drill a well
remove drill stem
insert casing
pump cement casing
use coiled-tubing to clean out steel casing
frac
use coiled-tubing to drill out zone plugs
flowback frac fluid
start production
What is used:
Friction reducers (reduces friction going down hole)
cross linkers for gel (makes gel linear so it will carry sand) Frac gel (made of guar beans and mineral oil)
buffers (ph of 10-13) (used to change the ph of the slurry going down hole) breakers (time delayed)(uncross links gel to help with floback after completion) Surfactants (used to clean casing while fracing, and also helps with floback) non-emulsifiers (keep slurry from breaking down while fracing) acids (used to break open shale or granite formations)

alphas (kills microbes in the formation)
frac sand (holds open the formation after fracturing)
Why it is dangerous:
Secrecy (2005-2009 94 million gallons "trade secret"
Waste water evaporates compounds that cause acid rain, ozone depletion, and contaminated air. 40,000 gallons of chemicals used per fracture.
Since 2005, 10.2 million gallons of chemicals containing carcinogens have been dumped into the ground. (highest texas oklahoma and colorado) 600 chemicals used have known carcinogens or hazardous air pollutants.

The Dangers of Hydraulic Fracturing

Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing...
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