Hydraulic fracturing in progress. Photo source: ©© Joshua Doubek
Excerpts;
Scientists, engineers, and government regulators are increasingly turning their attention to solving one of the chief environmental problems associated with fracking for natural gas and oil, significant leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Calculating exactly how much methane is escaping during the fracking and processing of oil and gas is exceedingly difficult. Estimates of methane emissions range from 1.5 percent to 9 percent. Getting a clearer sense of the scope of the problem is vital; although methane only lingers in the atmosphere for 10 to 20 years — as opposed to hundreds of years for carbon dioxide — recent studies show that methane is 34 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2…
Dangerous Levels of Radioactivity Found at Fracking Waste Site, Guardian UK (11-02-2013)
EPA Implicates Fracking In Pollution, AP (12-11-2011)
Sand mining Is Booming Along With Fracking, My San Antonio News (Uploaded 09-27-2011)
Fracking, the latest craze in the quest to produce oil and gas, has been blamed for environmental problems ranging from flammable tap water to minor earthquakes. Now a new risk is emerging: sand mining. To squeeze hydrocarbons out of shale through hydraulic fracturing of the rock, the process known as fracking, producers need to pump an enormous amount of sand into the ground…
Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids Likely Harmed Threatened Fish Species, USGS (08-30-2013)
Hydrofracking, Water, Watersheds, and the Ocean (02-28-2011)
With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.
The Ocean connects all things…
