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Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
41–50 of 110 posts
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is basically what happened in the rust belt with steel. Now another "boom" is happening with fracking. The people still haven't learned. You wouldn't believe how many gas workers are driving new trucks, buying toys, etc. I bet very few are putting any of this money in savings. When the fracking leaves we'll be in the same place we were when the steel mills shut down. Just waiting for the next economic boom to co…
Prophetically, and maybe ironically, fracking service infrastructure in my hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, is being built on the same land that the steel mills sat abandoned for decades.
I'm on the Ohio border near Pittsburgh. Most of our infrastructure isn't reusing steel mill but some of it is. The thing I worry about more than the ground pollution are explosions. We've already seen a few but I don't think anything like that fertilizer plant yet. I have a pipeline being put in probably 300 yards from my house and those things scare the shit out of me.
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#43There's a ton of context that's not included here. For starters: 1) How common was this in PA before fracking started? 2) Are these wells unusable? 3) Is the situation getting better or worse? 4) Is the gas linked to the fracking (the only interesting question that was mentioned in the article, and the answer is "we don't know") 5) What about other places fracking is occurring? It's not like we're going to stop frack…
9. Is there something about the geology of spots where companies like to drill that causes higher methane levels? 10. Were the wells sampled chosen for proximity to drill sites? Did the sampling methodology allow for the possibility that methane levels can spike without a nearby well? 11. Was there any relationship between levels and the length of time the well has been operating? Depth of well? I'd add that the SA h…
9. Probably since methane is one of the gases they are attempting to extract.
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you read the article, you will find that the contamination is methane. That is the has they are extracting. It's not the fracking fluid.
I'm not particularly interested in fracking one way or the other, I'm just answering his question. They apparently don't just use water, like some people might expect they could, because it doesn't work. Many people are concerned about contamination from the fracking fluid, correctly or not.
I'm more concerned with contamination from fracking fluid than I am with gases. This article didn't tackle fluid or the disposal of it. There are wells drill specifically to store fracking fluid.
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#45Why isn't there a way to track without toxic chemicals?
Maybe there is, but it works with the chemicals they currently use. I'm sure the geological engineers would welcome suggestions. Additional information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
This is interesting because the gas industry defends the fluid as harmless. A quick look at the ingredients and it doesn't seem that harmless.
- hydrochloric acid: Concentrated hydrochloric acid (fuming hydrochloric acid) forms acidic mists. Both the mist and the solution have a corrosive effect on human tissue, with the potential to damage respiratory organs, eyes, skin, and intestines irreversibly. Upon mixing hydrochloric acid with common oxidizing chemicals, such as sodium hypochlorite (bleach, NaClO) or potassium permanganate (KMnO4), the toxic gas chlorine is produced.
- polyacrylamide: Concerns have been raised that polyacrylamide used in agriculture may contaminate food with the nerve toxin acrylamide.
- Ethylene glycol (the stuff in antifreeze): Ethylene glycol is moderately toxic with an oral LDLO = 786 mg/kg for humans.[8] The major danger is due to its sweet taste. Because of that, children and animals are more inclined to consume large quantities of it than of other poisons. Upon ingestion, ethylene glycol is oxidized to glycolic acid which is, in turn, oxidized to oxalic acid, which is toxic. It and its toxic byproducts first affect the central nervous system, then the heart, and finally the kidneys. Ingestion of sufficient amounts can be fatal if untreated.
- glutaraldehyde: As a strong disinfectant, glutaraldehyde is toxic and a strong irritant
- Isopropyl alcohol (I think this stuff is in aerosol deodorant and hairspray): Isopropyl alcohol and its metabolite, acetone, act as central nervous system (CNS) depressants. Symptoms of isopropyl alcohol poisoning include flushing, headache, dizziness, CNS depression, nausea, vomiting, anesthesia, and coma.
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#46But methane isn't harmful. Also the article doesn't mention the quantities, but another does. [1] It seems that the most that's been found is about 70mg/L, which is not a lot. [1] http://realclearscience.com/blog/2013/06/theres-methane-in-y...
The article does mention the levels, the highest one was 70 mg/L also.
Methane is a pretty inert molecule. It's only a hazard in really high concentrations where it acts as an asphyxiant. I don't know of any metabolic toxicity (but maybe there is).
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#47Nothing will stop the fraking. It's simply too profitable for Congress to do something about it (one of the few bright areas in a dismal economy), and the courts have gutted the environmental laws too much for the courts to do anything about it. It's an intrinsically attractive business: the product is something (energy) that's extremely valuable and has exploding demand, and many of the inherent costs of creating th…
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Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the "opposing side" (the heartland institute) also deny the existence of global warming and second-hand smoke, I think your choice of references does more to harm that viewpoint than support it.
It was a news article. I just grabbed the first relevant link pertaining to "gasland tap water fire". Because I apparently was using the wrong keywords: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasland#Negative > In an article for Forbes magazine, Dr. Michael Economides, a professor of engineering at the University of Houston, commented on the Gasland scene of "a man lighting his faucet water on fire and making the ridiculous cl…
>To begin with, the vertical depth separation between drinking water aquifers and reservoir targets for gas production is several thousand feet of impermeable rock. Any interchange between the two, if it were possible, would have happened already in geologic time, measured in tens of millions of years, not in recent history
It is true that drink wells are ~100 feet and these fracking wells are thousands of feet deep but I'm not sure that completely rules out the possibility of gas escaping a well and making it into drinking water.
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#49But methane isn't harmful. Also the article doesn't mention the quantities, but another does. [1] It seems that the most that's been found is about 70mg/L, which is not a lot. [1] http://realclearscience.com/blog/2013/06/theres-methane-in-y...
The article does mention the levels, the highest one was 70 mg/L also. Methane is a pretty inert molecule. It's only a hazard in really high concentrations where it acts as an asphyxiant. I don't know of any metabolic toxicity (but maybe there is).
It's harmful in the sense that it's flammable also.
Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom
#50What is even worse is that the extracted methane is burnt for heating houses that would need less to no heating at all with the proper thermal insulation. Insulation is passive and is put there once for all.
It will be tricky to explain to further generations that we ruined our land while extracting fossil energy to waste it right away.
Same thing applies to Fukushima.