What Is Hydraulic Fracturing In America
Fracturing of America
Even though Hydraulic Fracturing is changing our dependence on fossil fuels, it could very well be changing our most precious resource, our water supplies. The average fracturing site uses an estimated 70 to 140 billion gallons of water to fracture 35,000 wells in the United States annually. This is approximately the yearly water consumption of 40 to 80 cities each with a population of 50,000. This water is infused with chemicals that seep back into our groundwater and contaminate our water supplies.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process used to extract the earth’s natural gas from shale formation found throughout the United States. The largest shale formation in the United States is the Marcellus Shale which is located …show more content…
Wells are drilled vertically hundreds to thousands of feet below the land surface. Fractures are created by pumping large quantities of fluids at high pressure down a wellbore and into the target rock formation. Hydraulic fracturing fluid commonly consists of water, proppant and chemical additives that open and enlarge fractures within the rock formation. These fractures can extend several hundred feet away from the wellbore. The proppants - sand, ceramic pellets or other small incompressible particles - hold open the newly created fractures. Once the injection process is completed, the internal pressure of the rock formation causes fluid to return to the surface through the wellbore. This fluid is known as both "flowback" and "produced water" and may contain the injected chemicals plus naturally occurring materials such as brines, metals, radionuclides, and hydrocarbons. The flow back and produced water is typically stored on site in tanks or pits before treatment, disposal or recycling. In many cases, it is injected underground for disposal. In areas where that is not an option, it may be treated and reused or processed by a wastewater treatment facility and then discharged to surface water.” (“The Process of Hydraulic …show more content…
Toxic substances include petroleum distillates known as kerosene, and diesel fuel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; methanol; formaldehyde; ethylene glycol; glycol ethers; hydrochloric acid; and sodium hydroxide. Very small quantities of some fracking chemicals are capable of contaminating millions of gallons of our public water resources. If you consider these chemicals and how little of them it takes to contaminate the water supply, it is scary to think that 40 trillions gallons of water is used to drill at these fracking sites and are improperly being released back into the
Even though Hydraulic Fracturing is changing our dependence on fossil fuels, it could very well be changing our most precious resource, our water supplies. The average fracturing site uses an estimated 70 to 140 billion gallons of water to fracture 35,000 wells in the United States annually. This is approximately the yearly water consumption of 40 to 80 cities each with a population of 50,000. This water is infused with chemicals that seep back into our groundwater and contaminate our water supplies.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process used to extract the earth’s natural gas from shale formation found throughout the United States. The largest shale formation in the United States is the Marcellus Shale which is located …show more content…
Wells are drilled vertically hundreds to thousands of feet below the land surface. Fractures are created by pumping large quantities of fluids at high pressure down a wellbore and into the target rock formation. Hydraulic fracturing fluid commonly consists of water, proppant and chemical additives that open and enlarge fractures within the rock formation. These fractures can extend several hundred feet away from the wellbore. The proppants - sand, ceramic pellets or other small incompressible particles - hold open the newly created fractures. Once the injection process is completed, the internal pressure of the rock formation causes fluid to return to the surface through the wellbore. This fluid is known as both "flowback" and "produced water" and may contain the injected chemicals plus naturally occurring materials such as brines, metals, radionuclides, and hydrocarbons. The flow back and produced water is typically stored on site in tanks or pits before treatment, disposal or recycling. In many cases, it is injected underground for disposal. In areas where that is not an option, it may be treated and reused or processed by a wastewater treatment facility and then discharged to surface water.” (“The Process of Hydraulic …show more content…
Toxic substances include petroleum distillates known as kerosene, and diesel fuel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; methanol; formaldehyde; ethylene glycol; glycol ethers; hydrochloric acid; and sodium hydroxide. Very small quantities of some fracking chemicals are capable of contaminating millions of gallons of our public water resources. If you consider these chemicals and how little of them it takes to contaminate the water supply, it is scary to think that 40 trillions gallons of water is used to drill at these fracking sites and are improperly being released back into the