The Pros And Cons Of Fracking

Decent Essays
he process of injecting liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, and more is called Fracking. Many people say fracking causes earthquakes because fracking occurs underground. Fracking could be dangerous in some ways.

Modern fracking began in the nineties. A hydraulic fracturing and combined with horizontal drilling. Fracking is the reason why America is having an energy revolution right now. Fracking is letting the U.S. tap vast oil and natural gas reserves that previously were locked away in shale and other tight-rock formations. Up to ninety five percent of natural gas wells drilled in the next decade will require hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing also is being used to stimulate new production from older wells.
…show more content…
There is a lot of events that fracking could cause. Air pollution, earthquakes, water pollution. Methane is a main component of natural gas and is twenty five times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitoring gas wells in Weld County, Colorado. Estimated that four percent of the methane produced by these wells is escaping into the atmosphere. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists found the Weld County gas wells to be equal to the carbon emissions of one to three million cars. Chemical additives are used in the drilling mud, slurries and fluids required for the fracking process. Each well produces millions of gallons of toxic fluid containing not only the added chemicals, but other naturally occurring radioactive material, liquid hydrocarbons, brine water and heavy metals. Fissures created by the fracking process can also create underground pathways for gases, chemicals and radioactive material. Earthquakes causes more problems to the associated deep oil well and

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Water Fracking

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The water that is pumped into the ground should be separated after the procedure of fracking. Notwithstanding, some of the time it doesn't ascend to the surface yet rather leaks through the ground towards other water sources like waterways, lakes and even the ocean. The chemicals that are in the water blend can bring about issues for animals and plants living in the water or depending on it for their survival. They can likewise bring about issues for individuals who are drinking the water if the chemicals saturate repositories. Now about air pollution, the procedure of fracking can discharge chemicals into air that are referred to cause cancer, for example, benzene and methane.…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Stop Fracking Problems

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Fracking causes chemicals to get into the underground water areas that both plants and humans use to stay alive. Our basic necessity, water, is becoming infected by side effects of fracking that is incurable. Fracking is not a good idea when it kills our most important need for human life by making it into the thing that kills us. Cleanup of drinking water…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Is Fracking Worth the Risks? In a rural area of Colorado families demonstrate for local media and the film crew of the documentary Gasland how they are able to set fire to the water running out of their faucets. This unnerving phenomenon is just one of many side effects for people living in areas where hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is occurring. The effects of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, may not only be detrimental to human health and safety, but also to the environment.…

    • 222 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It has been long acknowledged that the Untied States is in need of finding a natural energy source in order to become a more sustainable country and to also become less dependent on the Middle East. Attaining natural gas and oil from shale is a game changer when it comes to energy production. However, this revolutionary approach has created environmental skepticism around how environmentally friendly and sustainable this practice actually is and the types of problems that could be associated with fracking as a practice. Hydraulic Fracking has become extremely controversial because of very serious potential environmental risks. Enormous amounts of water are used during the fracking process, which become polluted creating a high probability…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fracking Issues

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The controversies surrounding fracking involve the environmental impacts of the drilling itself and the extraction fluid. The fluid consists of various acids, detergents, and poisons that are unregulated by the federal government (NYTimes). This fluid must travel back up the well to the surface. This makes contaminating the area surround it in the event of a broken pipe or seal.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The fracking machines that drill down release diesel fumes. The fumes contain very bad things that cause cancer and contribute to global warming. The companies can also use different engines that take natural gas. Engines that take natural gas rather then diesel are better for the environment and are less expensive (Kiger). They can cut prices by up to forty percent (Kiger).…

    • 1622 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    2015 research from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that expectant mothers in Pennsylvania living near active natural gas wells "are at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and for having high-risk pregnancies.". Another recent study http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/study-living-near-fracking-wells-linked-to-increase-in-hospitalizations/article/2568545i showed that people living near hydraulic fracking are at a higher risk of being hospitalized for serious illnesses like cancer, neurological disorders and cardiovascular diseases. The potential threat to human health is just one compelling reason to stop fracking. Even the researchers in this study acknowledged the environmental problems associated with fracking, including: Air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and small earth tremors.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fracking is the process used to access natural gas that is trapped underground 1. Recently, fracking in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale has gained the attention of many environmentalists 1. Many energy corporations argue that the natural gas industry is not only important for the United States energy, but it is also a large contributor the U.S. economy 2. Environmentalists have made arguments that fracking is not a clean process because the actual process of fracking involved uses a large volume of water along with sand and chemicals 3. A result of this process is contamination of groundwater; this is raising concerns for many environmentalists and the Environmental Protection Agency because it is harmful for public health3.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Emissions of carbon dioxide and methane will contribute to global warming. Methane warms up the climate 80 times more than the amount of a 20 year period of carbon dioxide emission. In addition to pollution, health is a problem too. The workers who work for fracking companies, will likely have respiratory problems, cardiovascular problems, effects on fetal / child development and effects on the reproductive system after/before they retire. They are also likely to be a danger to their family, because of the contaminated shirts, pants, hats and boots that they bring home everyday after…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fracking Argument Essay

    • 1563 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The ground water becomes contaminated and the air is polluted with disease and cancer causing chemicals. The negatives outweigh the few positives from fracking. Fracking is bad for the environment and the people and creatures living in it. Fracking is killing and harming animals, fracking is hurting the environment, and harming the people in and around the fracking sites. Fracking is…

    • 1563 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fracking In Canada

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Lac-Megantic, Quebec, 47 people were killed and the downtown was incinerated after a rail car full of freshly fracked oil exploded (Tracking Hotspots, 2014). Phosgene can be formed from the burning of flare stacks, when carbon monoxide and chlorine gas are combined, from fracking chemicals (Tracking Hotspots, 2014). These are just a few examples on how hydraulic fracturing, if not carefully performed can initiate serious harm to the environment and…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fracking: A Controversial Topic If someone offered you $100,000 to drill on your land, would you accept the offer? Would the $100,000 be worth the sacrifices? Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process in which chemicals and liquids are injected into rocks below the Earth’s surface at high pressure to extract the natural gas or oil trapped inside the rock. Below the surface of the United States lies trillions of cubic feet of natural gas, a quantity which is twice the amount of oil in Saudi Arabia.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fracking is a big controversial topic that has been argued for years because of the effects it can have on the environment. Fracking has been used since the 1940s to get natural gas from rocks such as limestone and sandstone. At first, the workers started to use small explosions to get the natural gas from the dead organisms in the stone. The oil and gas companies later changed by using water pressure which is known as hydraulic fracking. This sounds good but fracking can have consequences on the local environment.…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    What the frack is fracking and why it should be replaced with alternative energy Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is the extraction of natural gas from deep underground shale using vertical (“conventional fracking”) and horizontal (“unconventional”) drilling. According to C. Mooney (The Truth About Fracking) conventional fracking has been used since the late 1940’s; it involves drilling a vertical well into a layer of shell and pumping chemically treated water and sand at extremely high pressure to fracture the rock and extract natural gas, a non-renewable fossil fuel used as a source of energy for heating, cooking, electricity generation, and as fuel for vehicles. Natural gas, mainly methane (CH4), is thought to be a relatively clean burning…

    • 1814 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    In many people’s minds, the term “Fracking” only applies to the controversial extraction process and the environmental impact surrounding that process. Hydraulic Fracturing or “Fracking” for short is a process where chemicals and water are injected into wells to breakup rock formations that have gas or oil trapped in the rock itself. This process is specifically used for developing and extracting oil and natural gas from shale. While most people have heard the term “Fracking”, very few understand or even consider the down the road steps required to transfer, process and transport the fuel once it has been extracted or the implications and environmental or health impacts that follows in its wake. While fracking is currently banned in New York State and much of the New England area, those states still play a part in getting the fuel to export markets such as Canada or overseas.…

    • 1878 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays