Fracking has opened a century's worth of new oil and gas. The USA is once again energy-independent and ready to lead. This technology will be a major contributor to our economy. It's important to understand what it is, and what it isn't. Applied to a million wells over the past sixty-five years, it is mature technology. Fracking has an enviable safety record. It poses no threat to the environment or to human health. It does, however, drink a lot of water. A working well consumes almost as much recycled water as a golf course. Other liquids may be used instead of water, but they are more expensive. They're using liquefied petroleum gas in Texas today.
Fracking has returned the USA to energy independence. Fifty years of energy dependence brought us oil embargos, two wars and inflation. Today’s dollar won’t buy what yesterday’s dime did. We have become oil exporters again.
Petroleum has contributed to human progress for centuries. Drilling began in China in 347 AD. World demand for oil has grown ever since. Marco Polo reported seeing shiploads of the stuff in China. The first North American well was drilled in 1858. In 1859, explosives were lowered down that well to shatter the host rocks and increase the well’s output. Nobel’s dynamite made handling high explosives much safer. Dynamite quickly became the high explosive of choice for boosting oil well production. In 1949, a new technique using high-pressure water instead of high explosives to upgrade well performance was tested.
Hydraulic fracture—commonly called “fracking”—is an engineering feat. First, a hole is drilled down toward an oil-rich rock layer deep underground. Then the drill is turned sideways and bores horizontally through thousands of feet of the targeted rock layer. Steel pipe is inserted and secured with concrete. The steel sheath and surrounding rock are perforated to prepare for fracking. Shape charges explosively form jets of molten metal that cut through the steel and into the rock around it. Later, high-pressure water will fill those holes and stress the rock until it shatters. Sand carried by the water gets into the cracks and keeps the fractures open. The vast surface area of the shattered rock leaks its oil and gas content into the pipe.
Sixty-five years later, it has become fashionable to protest the safety of the process. Worrywarts are concerned that the fracking water and its chemicals might percolate up to contaminate drinking water and the environment. The harsh chemicals they worry about include detergents, antifreeze and pool chemicals. You don’t have to dig down ten thousand feet down to find sources for those. The worrywarts talk about hypothetical effects on human health, but admit they can find no solid evidence of them.
In more than sixty-five years since hydraulic fracture’s initial application, more than a million wells have been fracked without serious incident. A million consecutive successes don’t mean that a failure won’t occur—only that it’s highly unlikely. Statistics bound the failure probability at less than five out of a million with 99% certainty. Fracking, it seems, is 99.9995% safe. Aren’t there scarier things to worry about?
The volume of water consumed in hydraulic fracture is a concern in the current drought. It’s not an unreasonable quantity, actually. Five gallons of water releases enough gas and oil to power the average household for a month. Five gallons: that’s about the same as one tooth brushing, two flushes, or a five-minute shower. A working well uses less water than a golf course. Which is more useful, really? Fracking water is recycled water—the stuff we’re dumping in the ocean anyways.
Other liquids would work as well, but cost more than recycled water. Some Texas wells are being fracked using liquefied petroleum gas. Other liquids are being tested. My personal favorite alternative fluid would be carbon dioxide. The liquid has some interesting solubility properties … and who is going to complain about deep-well disposal of carbon dioxide?
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