Environmental Costs of Hydrofracking

Natural gas drilling with high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (hereafter referred to as fracking) has exploded onto the energy scene in the last 5 or 6 years, and the promise of vast stores of natural gas under American soil has prompted a true natural gas rush. Once the technology was developed, new drill rigs appeared all over landscapes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, and Wyoming. Many have worries about the environmental consequences of this new approach to drilling; here are some of those concerns. Drill Cuttings During the drilling process, large amounts of ground up rock, mixed with drilling mud and brine, are pulled out of the well and transported off the site. This waste then gets buried in landfills. Beside the large waste volume that needs to be accommodated, a concern with drill cuttings is the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials in them. Radium and uranium can be found in drill cuttings (and produced water – see below) from a proportion of wells, and these elements eventually leach out of the landfills into the surrounding ground and surface waters. Water Use Once a well has been drilled, large amounts of water are pumped into the well at very high pressure to fracture the rock in which the natural gas is located. During a single fracking operation on a single well (wells can be fracked multiple times over their lifetime), on average 4 million gallons of water are used. This water is pumped from streams or rivers and trucked to the site, bought from municipal water sources, or is reused from other fracking operation. Many are concerned about these important water withdrawals, and worried that it may lower the water table in some areas, leading to dry wells and degraded fish habitat. Fracking Chemicals A long, varying list of chemical additives is added to the water in the fracking process. The toxicity of these additives is variable, and many new chemical compounds are created during the fracking process as some of the added ingredients break-down. Once the fracking water returns to the surface, it needs to be treated before disposal (see Water Disposal below). The amount of chemicals added represents a very small fraction of the total volume of fracking water (around 1%). However, this very small fraction detracts from the fact that in absolute terms it is rather large volumes that are used. For a well requiring 4 million gallons of water, about 40,000 gallons of additives are pumped in. The greatest risks associated with these chemicals occur during their transportation, as tanker trucks must use the local roads to bring them to the drill pads. An accident involved spilled contents would have significant public safety and environmental consequences.   Water Disposal A large proportion of the prodigious amounts of water pumped down the well flows back up when the well starts producing natural gas. Besides the fracking chemicals, brine that was naturally present in the shale layer comes back up, too. This amounts to a large volume of liquid that is released into a lined pond, then pumped into trucks and transported to either be recycled for other drilling operations, or to be treated. This â€Å"produced water† is toxic, containing fracking chemicals, high concentrations of salt, and sometimes radioactive materials like radium and uranium. Heavy metals from the shale are of concern too: produced water will contain lead, arsenic, barium, and strontium for example. Spills from failed retention ponds or botched transfers to trucks do happen and have an impact on local streams and wetlands. Then, the water disposal process is not trivial. One method is injection wells. Waste water is injected into the ground at great depths under impermeable rock layers. The extremely high pressure used in this process is blamed for earthquake swarms in Texas, Oklahoma, and Ohio. The second way fracking waste water can be disposed of is in industrial wastewater treatment plants. There have been problems with ineffective treatments at Pennsylvania municipal water treatment plants, so that practice has now ended and only approved industrial treatment plants can be used. Casing Leaks The deep wells used in horizontal hydrofracking are lined with steel casings. Sometimes these casings fail, allowing fracking chemicals, brines, or natural gas to escape into the shallower rock layers and severely contaminating ground water that may reach the surface of be used for drinking water. An example of this problem, documented by the Environmental Protection Agency, is the Pavillion (Wyoming) groundwater contamination case.   Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change Methane is a major component of natural gas, and a very powerful greenhouse gas. Methane can leak from damaged casings, well heads, or it may be vented during some phases of a fracking operation. Combined, these leaks have significant negative impacts on the climate. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning natural gas are much lower, per quantity of energy produced, than from burning oil or coal. Natural gas would then seem to be a reasonably good alternative to more CO2 intensive fuels. The problem is that throughout the entire production cycle of natural gas, a great deal of methane is released, negating some or all of the climate change advantages natural gas seemed to have over coal. Ongoing research will hopefully provide answers as to which is least damaging, but there is no doubt that mining and burning natural gas produces great amounts of greenhouse gases and thus contributes to global climate change. Habitat Fragmentation Well pads, access roads, waste water ponds, and pipelines crisscross the landscape in natural gas producing regions. This fragments the landscape, reducing the size of wildlife habitat patches, isolating them from one another, and contributing to detrimental edge habitat. Peripheral Aspects Fracking for natural gas in horizontal wells is an expensive process that can only be done economically at high density, industrializing the landscape. Emissions and noise from diesel trucks and compressor stations have negative impacts on the local air quality and overall quality of life. Fracking requires large amounts of equipment and materials which themselves are mined or produced at high environmental costs, notably steel and frac sand. Environmental Benefits? At the local scale, the land footprint from fracking operations, especially once the well has been established and the drill rig is gone, is smaller than that of coal strip mines, mountain-top removal mines, or tar sands fields. The footprint of thousands of wells and pipeline right-of-ways over an entire region do add up, though.Natural gas from Marcellus, Barnett, or other North American shale deposits allows us to rely on a domestic source of energy.   That means less energy spent transporting fossil fuels from overseas, and more importantly maintaining the ability to have stricter environmental controls over the entire energy production process. Source Duggan-Haas, D., R.M. Ross, and W.D. Allmon. 2013. The Science Beneath the Surface: A Very Short Guide to the Marcellus Shale. Paleontological Research Institute.

Romeo and Juliet Night - Rejoice or Rebel - 880 Words

Romeo and Juliet: Night - Rejoice or Rebel? Night can be seen in two contrasting ways. The first can be summarized as a time for celebration and love. The second, and most commonly associated with night, is a time of darkness and horror. Two shining examples of the different emotions and reactions brought on by darkness are the books Night by Elie Wiesel and Romeo and Juliet by well-known author, William Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet night has a positive image, a welcomed time for love, protection and exchanging of covenants, while in Night the image is portrayed in a negative way, a time for fear, suffering, and death. Night in the great romances is a greeted time of romance and in Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet a time to hide†¦show more content†¦To everybodys life there must come an end, but this end was often brutally cut short in concentration camps during the wickedness of night. The Germans killed uncountable numbers of Jewish people during the darkening skies, nights coming, through hangings. An example that stands out particularly well transpires in nights darkness when a child is being hanged with two adults for destroying an electric power station. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony before our eyes. (Wiesel 62) Elie almost succumbs to death during the long march in the cold and bitter night, but doesnt give in to deaths beckoning because of his father. Death wrapped itself around me till I was stifled. (Wiesel 82) But Elies father, his condition gradually declining because of dysentery, is eventually taken off to the crematories during nights unforgiving harshness, while possibly still alive. In conclusion, I think we should have more of a open mind when thinking about the meaning of night and not just look upon it with a one-sided point of view. These two books are excellent examples of how night can be both full of passion and full ofShow MoreRelatedEssay on Gender Inequality in the Song of Songs5212 Words   |  21 Pagesthey pertained to love, he cites that the couple in the work are not married or getting married as yet (Fox 231). In fact, because the female persona clearly still lives with her family, Fox insists that the characters are likely the age of Romeo and Juliet, about 13-16. To Fox, the language of the speakers also suggests emotional youth (Fox xii). Scholars have also debated as to whether the Song is even poetry at all. The Mosoretic text of 1008 c.e., the Hebrew source most interpreters use

Help from an Unexpected Friend Essay Example For Students

Help from an Unexpected Friend Essay Today, I feel good with myself. I’m studying, working, writing, reading, going to the gym, listening to what other people say with attention, but one day, not all was well. There were drugs, crazy parties, bad companies, racism and a lot of bad things. I was also young and stupid. We need bangs to grow up, but there are some bangs from which people cannot (literally) stand up. I needed help, and someone gave it to me. But not just anybody, he was one from a race and religion that I despised. I needed help and someone gave it to me. I had taken a vacation, and when I came back, I noticed some change in my social circle. They were taking a lot of drugs. Of course we had been doing that, but just for experiments (what is so bad too), for now it was every moment that they can do it. I thought, â€Å"Well, we are a pack† so I started in it too. One day my parents left our house for a work travel, I was â€Å"home alone,† so I called three girls and two friends got stoned. They bought everything, alcohol and drugs too (of course). You can imagine what we were thinking to do, go crazy in a hard and really bad way. That night a friend come to my house. He is an Arabic person. I hated that race, I thought that every single Arab was a crazy person, more if they are not Christian or some â€Å"normal† religion. Do you believe it? I don’t know what I had in my head. I knew that my â€Å"crazy† Arabic friend didn’t use drugs, so I started to disturb him for that. After when drugs took hold, I screamed him â€Å"get out of my house. Not matter the situation, you have to be really rude to do that. Today, seven years later, I still feel shame for my attitude. He went out. We, my two friends and the girls, started to take what we hadnt yet. The next day, I felt physically so bad and confused. My memories were like pictures with flash. When I was thinking about the last night, I heard someone calling me through the door. It was my friend, my Arabic friend. I could not believe it. In that moment I remembered my attitude with him. I felt very sorry, I can’t explain it. He talked to me about life, about women, about how to have success and fail in life, and many other things. It was a very important moment in my life. It changed to me. A person who is from a race and religion that I hated changed me in a good way. You don’t know who can change your point of view. I that case it was a person from a culture that I hated. Now, Ive grown up, and I don’t think like I used to think, and I know what was wrong with me. But that conversation with my friend, real friend, was an very important step in my life. A real help from a real man.