Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Several Of Aspects Of Water For Fracking

By Earlene McGee


If you have heard about fracking but have not quite understood what this term means, then you are in the right place. Fracking is the process of drilling and mining in oil and gas industries which uses some highly pressurized liquid substance to stimulate a well. This mixture substance is majorly comprised of water, sand and some chemical proponents that many companies have failed to bring to light. The process and use of water for fracking has led constant uproars from environmental and conservation bodies due to its downside effects.

The purpose of using this highly pressurized liquid mixture that mainly comprises of water, sand and other chemicals like boric acid is to open up the rocks and create fractures. Opening up the fractures enables oil and gas to flow out of the rocks freely without hindrance. After removing the hydraulic pressure, the proponents of the mixture like sand particles help keep the fractures open.

The amount of water consumed in this process is substantially massive. It takes about 2 to 8 million gallons of water to frack out a single well. However, some wells tend to use much more than this. In some cases too, there are wells that require fracking more than once. This means using huge amounts of fluid gallons that is fresh from our water cycle.

The use of such large amounts of this precious commodity that is mainly gotten from our supply points like the rivers and local storage areas means danger to our cycle. The liquid used in these activities cannot be recycled from the contamination it goes through. Though companies have failed to disclose what components they have in their pressurized liquid mixture, samples from the well sites show signs of chemicals such as acetic, boric and citric acids.

You need to have many tankers to move water and waste from the well site. Due to the large amount of this fluid required, you must acquire around 400 to 600 truckloads wit this fluid. This is a very large number of trucks travelling on a road for a single purpose.

This translates to a total of 1000 tankers for two wells and mind you one tanker could be weighing about 100000lbs. This is a very massive amount of weight being transported on the roads. The result of this is damage to the roads resulting in wear and tear. This definitely calls for need to invest more to re-carpet and resurface the pathways.

Approximately half the liquid substance used in fracking is returned to the well surface. It is then stored in steel tanks for protection and away for reach by humans and animals. This composition is dangerous as it has been noted to cause contamination in areas around the storage facilities or tanks.

The process has been highly faulted for general contamination in many states. No one really knows what happens to the other half that remains underground after half of it is extracted to the ground. A great possibility though is that this fluid integrates into the normal water supply and this toxic substances result in harmful contamination.




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