Yesterday I learnt from an
environmentally minded geologist something rather shocking, but not
entirely surprising: a New Zealand journalist decided to carry out an
investigation into the integrity of the making of the Gaslands film
(about fracking). The idea was that he would interview everyone who
participated in the film. Every single one of them refused to be
interviewed, and it turns out they had all received payment in return
for refusing to comment on the film or the accuracy of what was
portrayed. I find this quite shocking; Gaslands should have been a
truthful film, there was lots that could have been portrayed that
would have been honest and convincing of the necessity to fight those
who want to extract oil and gas from our shale. I am deeply saddened
to learn that the film was even more of a sham than I thought it
was.
Today I attended a session on shale gas and fracking and gleaned a couple of snippets.
I can verify the figure I quoted of around 350,000 gallons of water per frack, BUT I gather that the average well is fracked 10 times. Hence the confusion in the values quoted by various sources. What is deeply shocking is that only 10-50% of the water is recovered, and this is a figure that the oil industry is working hard to increase.
Most of the environmental concerns are about leakage into aquifers and leakage from surface holding tanks for the 10-50% water that is returned. These are factors that can be controlled, and hence the likelihood of pollution of drinking water, soil etc is, in a well run operation, very low. The most worrying source of water contamination should be the escape of tracking fluids from the fractured shale. Whilst modelling suggests that it does penetrate into the shale very successfully, after all this is what it is intended to do, the chemical additives are largely absorbed by the clays in the shale. In shale being fracked for hydrocarbons the clay content is typically 40%, and because of the small size of clay particles (<4 micrometers) the surface area for absorption is vast. For the same reason clays are used for cleaning up contaminated land. So, it may be that although the water moves into the shale to a distance of several meters, the chemical additives don't get that far. The average shale being tracked, is 10s to 100s of meters thick.
Today I attended a session on shale gas and fracking and gleaned a couple of snippets.
I can verify the figure I quoted of around 350,000 gallons of water per frack, BUT I gather that the average well is fracked 10 times. Hence the confusion in the values quoted by various sources. What is deeply shocking is that only 10-50% of the water is recovered, and this is a figure that the oil industry is working hard to increase.
Most of the environmental concerns are about leakage into aquifers and leakage from surface holding tanks for the 10-50% water that is returned. These are factors that can be controlled, and hence the likelihood of pollution of drinking water, soil etc is, in a well run operation, very low. The most worrying source of water contamination should be the escape of tracking fluids from the fractured shale. Whilst modelling suggests that it does penetrate into the shale very successfully, after all this is what it is intended to do, the chemical additives are largely absorbed by the clays in the shale. In shale being fracked for hydrocarbons the clay content is typically 40%, and because of the small size of clay particles (<4 micrometers) the surface area for absorption is vast. For the same reason clays are used for cleaning up contaminated land. So, it may be that although the water moves into the shale to a distance of several meters, the chemical additives don't get that far. The average shale being tracked, is 10s to 100s of meters thick.
Jenny Huggett (12/10/2013)
I am really surprised that Jenny Huggett is throwing doubt on Gasland as the truth about fracking has been released by a wide range of sources that backs up Gaslands claims, such as Jeff and Jodi Andrysick's film 'All Fracked Up'. The logical scientific facts about the introduction of a range of noxious chemicals into the earth are clear - what goes in must come out! Even if some of the chemicals are held by clay, what will happen to that clay over time? Leaching does occur when saturation point is reached.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally who is this New Zealand journalist please?
ReplyDelete