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Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#71

Post by dylangs1030 »

rayiner wrote: post #60
minikites wrote: post #54

I have mixed feelings about fracking. It almost certainly pollutes areas, but lots of areas in not-United States get polluted currently from the oil industry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Nig... In other words, what makes us special? Why are we okay with polluting other places but by golly we get mad when it happens in our own country?

> Why are we okay with polluting other places but by golly we get mad when it happens in our own country? Because we live here and not there?

You have a fair point, Rayiner. Peoples' attention is due to their local affairs before others. But I think the parent meant in a more idealistic sense, in which case, we really should care, we should care about both, just prioritize one.

I guess it's semantics.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#72

Post by ars »

johnward wrote: post #45
mhb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hydr…

Very cute.

I am not familiar with all of those, but hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol, and isopropyl alcohol will decompose to basic elements within days if not hours.

The are only dangerous if you actually ate the concentrated solution. Put them in the ground, and they'll be harmless within days - really, days - hours even for some of them.

I looked up the other two.

Polyacrylamide is used in water treatment. Yes, the water you drink, and it's used in soft contact lenses, and mixed into soil on farms. The concern is from the potential 0.05% contamination, and in the small amounts used, plus the dilution underground 0.05% is nothing.

Oh, and on top of that acrylamide decomposes rapidly in soil so there will be none left by the time it reaches the surface.

I looked up glutaraldehyde and it decomposes within 48 hours in the presence of oxygen, and 24 hours to a week without oxygen.

I guess I should thank you for posting this, because if this is the extent of the worrisome chemicals used then there is nothing to worry about - all them are completely harmless within days. For some reason I thought they were using dangerous chemicals, but I guess not.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#73

Post by rayiner »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #68
hawkharris wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fracking will end when the oil/gas is gone. It's inaccurate to group together hydraulic fracturing and traditional oil drilling in terms of environmental damage. The regulations and safety procedures for oil are leaps and bounds beyond those of hydraulic fracturing. My girlfriend is in charge for assessing the environmental impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline, and she recently spent two weeks rerouting KXL because sh…

>It's inaccurate to group together hydraulic fracturing and traditional oil drilling in terms of environmental damage. No it isn't, fracking is a technique that is used to increase the output of a 'traditional oil well' and actually, oil/gas drilling has been ruining surface water for a long time, too. In the past it tended to happen to people who owned the surface as well as the minerals, and who were often happy to…

The wins, unfortunately, tend to be random, as a result of the sorry state of our environmental law. The people at the EPA don't target oil pipelines for rerouting due to beetles instead of focusing on whether fracking is polluting groundwater because they care so much about beetles, or because they've already won on everything more important. Industry takes examples like this to show "look at how out of control the EPA has gotten!" because bystanders thing: "gee, I care about the environment, but all that work to protect a few beetles is a bit much!"

But that paints a misleading picture. The EPA goes for the beetles because the Endangered Species Act is one of the few laws with bright-line rules that hasn't been watered down over the last 30-40 years. That makes it a good tactical hammer. They've got a limited budget, and they need to hit things like this that are a slam-dunk in court instead of broader issues that could get mired for years in debates between expert witnesses and thousands of reports being thrown back and forth.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#74

Post by madaxe »

rayiner wrote: post #15

Nothing 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…

Fracking will end when the gas is gone, the planet is uninhabitable, and we're all dead or living underground.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#75

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

rayiner wrote: post #73
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's inaccurate to group together hydraulic fracturing and traditional oil drilling in terms of environmental damage. No it isn't, fracking is a technique that is used to increase the output of a 'traditional oil well' and actually, oil/gas drilling has been ruining surface water for a long time, too. In the past it tended to happen to people who owned the surface as well as the minerals, and who were often happy to…

The wins, unfortunately, tend to be random, as a result of the sorry state of our environmental law. The people at the EPA don't target oil pipelines for rerouting due to beetles instead of focusing on whether fracking is polluting groundwater because they care so much about beetles, or because they've already won on everything more important. Industry takes examples like this to show "look at how out of control the…

In the mean time, landowners pissed off about Keystone XL's successful use of eminent domain need to know where to get a supply of these beetles.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#76

Post by lhc- »

ars wrote: post #69
tibbon wrote: post #2

Aside from money (which is pretty motivating), I don't understand why the gas companies simply continue to deny that there is contamination and that there are negative outcomes to the environment for doing this (let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. Its unlikely to be a neutral impact.) Its like what cigarette companies used to do- just constantly deny what's completely obvious.

> let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. No. It's completely positive. Methane has almost no pollution, and far less CO2 than any other large scale energy source. The "contamination" is methane in water, which is harmless even if you drank it, and trivial to remove.

What about the other pollutants dumped by fracking?

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#78

Post by smky80 »

ars wrote: post #69
tibbon wrote: post #2

Aside from money (which is pretty motivating), I don't understand why the gas companies simply continue to deny that there is contamination and that there are negative outcomes to the environment for doing this (let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. Its unlikely to be a neutral impact.) Its like what cigarette companies used to do- just constantly deny what's completely obvious.

> let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. No. It's completely positive. Methane has almost no pollution, and far less CO2 than any other large scale energy source. The "contamination" is methane in water, which is harmless even if you drank it, and trivial to remove.

Methane's greenhouse gas effect is 20x that of CO2. [0]

---

[0] http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#79

Post by ars »

lhc- wrote: post #76
ars wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. No. It's completely positive. Methane has almost no pollution, and far less CO2 than any other large scale energy source. The "contamination" is methane in water, which is harmless even if you drank it, and trivial to remove.

What about the other pollutants dumped by fracking?

See my reply to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6265828

He picked the ones that seemed most dangerous to him, and they are all harmless. (But I haven't checked if there are others.)

Don't forget these chemicals are injected deep underground, so unlike lighter-than-air methane they won't easily get to water.

(PS. It's not "dumping" if you are actively using them. Dumping is the waste you don't need, no need for inaccurate emotive language.)

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#80

Post by ars »

smky80 wrote: post #78
ars wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. No. It's completely positive. Methane has almost no pollution, and far less CO2 than any other large scale energy source. The "contamination" is methane in water, which is harmless even if you drank it, and trivial to remove.

Methane's greenhouse gas effect is 20x that of CO2. [0] --- [0] http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html

The quantities we are talking about are pretty minimal though, and definitely worth the tradeoff with less coal (or oil for that matter).
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