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    fracking

    whats the story? i know very little about this apart from the absolute basics.

    being a numbers man my main concern is bringing about some control of our energy supply and ultimately safeguarding and continuing the tenuous (i believe) standard of livin we've enjoyed over the last 50 to 100 years.

    i do care about the environment in many respects, although sometimes i feel there is a price worth paying. i think we're a little soft in this country sometimes. we dont get the real extremes that other parts of the world do, although i obviously i'd be careful saying that to people affected by the recent floods.

    environmentalists dispute the financial benefits that fracking brings? surely the american example answers this question?

    #2
    fracking

    Not worth the long-term damage to the water table. In terms of numbers, you already get financial benefits from fracking, because the price of natural gas plummeted due to aggressive fracking in the US.

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      #3
      fracking

      Gideon's local council have already turned down the bribe...

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        #4
        fracking

        To a first approximation, all sentences beginning with the word "surely" are false.

        But really, it's a question of values, and who are we to judge? Some people like their water exploding. It's a typical irony that liberals don't take their views serously, etc.

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          #5
          fracking

          Yeah, flammable water's a small price to pay for cheap gas. Providing your garden doesn't crack in two and swallow your house.

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            #6
            fracking

            Has anyone noticed that the word sounds a bit like a swear word or other exclaimation

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              #7
              fracking

              Are we talking release of high-pressure hydrocarbon gas into the water table, so that generations to come may get hydrocarbon poisoning from their drinking water? That's quite bad. I'd want at least 10 per cent, not some paltry 5 per cent, off my energy bills to see that as a sensible bargain.

              Edit: on the other hand, it will mean we get more fossil hydrocarbons to burn, and that must be a good thing. I think I recall that scientists are concerned that there isn't enough CO2 going into the atmosphere at the moment.

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                #8
                fracking

                To those against it (who admittedly, seem to have good reason), could you point me towards sources that support your position?.

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                  #9
                  fracking

                  Many more earthquakes in Oklahoma.

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                    #10
                    fracking

                    An absolute shitload of water is used to frack a well. This is pretty damned idiotic when fracking takes place in areas experiencing drought.

                    Texas examples.

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                      #11
                      fracking

                      Thank you

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                        #12
                        fracking

                        some interesting points above fairplay, thanks.

                        I am initially in the pro lobby but things like this will encourage me to question my position which I'm always grateful for.

                        taking away the earthquake side of things for now, the nearest article above mentions about the removal of clean water from the water tables and how this water becomes contaminated and cannot ever be replaced. however, I read earlier that clean fossil water being introduced into the water system account for around 25% (0.8mm) of the annual rise in sea levels, so I presume there is an offset going on by there?

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                          #13
                          fracking

                          however, I read earlier that clean fossil water being introduced into the water system account for around 25% (0.8mm) of the annual rise in sea levels, so I presume there is an offset going on by there?
                          25% seems like an absolute maximum proportion based on the estimates in the IPCC, taking the minimum estimates for all other sources and the maximum for land storage. Even so, that's talking about depletion of groundwater, not hot springs or whatever. The whole point is that those sources aren't being replenished.

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                            #14
                            fracking

                            One thing I'd note in partial defence of fracking - it has, at least in the last few years, led to a shift from coal to natural gas which has reduced the US's CO2 emissions fairly substantially. If fracking is the only short-term way to bring carbon emissions down - assuming that it's politically impossible to get Americans to actually turn off their air-con when it gets above 20C and turn off their heating when it gets below 15 - then I'd wonder if it wasn't an environmental trade-off worth making: isn't it better to screw up Canada and North Dakota to protect the rest of us?

                            I'm not sure I know the answer to that. That said, the places that are being fracked in the US seem to be in massive long-term water drought, and are already dependent on declining aquifers. The fact that nothing's being done to ameliorate impacts on the water table means that the true cost of the gas being extracted isn't reflected in the prices that have led to the shift from coal.

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                              #15
                              fracking

                              Toro Toro wrote: To a first approximation, all sentences beginning with the word "surely" are false.
                              Surely not.

                              Um, continue?

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                                #16
                                fracking

                                Josh Fox's Gasland, good doc on the subject:

                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96AEzQYangE

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                                  #17
                                  fracking

                                  Evening all. Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

                                  Given its relatively recent entry into public discourse it will probably come as a surprise to most Europeans that fracking has been implemented at various sites since the 1940's, primarily in the continental United States. There the debate has tended to take place between lobby groups backed by energy companies in favour of the practice and environmental groups understandably concerned about the unintented consequences and risks posed to the ecosystem of the area where fracking takes place. What's more surprising is the worryingly small quantity of any peer-reviewed scientific literature assessing the various impacts of the practice and how what worthwhile literature exists often gets swamped by claim and counter-claim. That being said, evidence of the dangers posed by widespread adaptation is available. The question that needs to be asked here is why is it not more apparent.

                                  Fracking (a concatenation of the term "hydraulic fracturing" for those unaware) is the process of extracting natural gas from beneath the substrate by means of injecting an enriched, treated fluid deep into a borehole resulting in rock fracture at the desired depth. The fluid contains particles that serve to prevent the fracture from closing. If successful the result will see natural gas rushing to the surface of the well. Side-effects, if that's not too weak a term, of the process can range from contamination of the water supply to the induction of small-scale earthquakes in the vicinity. But while these have been observed there are further problems that come with an industrialisation project of this kinds that haven't always been fully expanded on, more of which later.

                                  The most apparent problem presented by fracking centres around the nature of inducing fractures in the rock. There's nothing wrong with the theory of drilling into the earth and inducing fractures at depth as fracturing the rock is a simple matter of time and applied pressure. Many rocks at the depths bored during fracking already have dormant fractures and the rocks themselves are the product of millennia of intense geological stresses and upheavals. However this is precisely the problem that we are unable to conclusively surmount. In order to render the boring and fracturing process completely risk free - i.e. to avoid creating unwanted fractures or reactivating extant but dormant ones and also to ensure that the fractures induced conform to desired characteristics and dimensions - extensive and detailed knowledge of the in situ stresses and physical properties of the surrounding substrate is required. Such knowledge gathering is extremely difficult if not impossible and would require a considerable time-frame to establish before operations could safely begin. Energy companies, to put things bluntly, have neither the time nor inclination to do this kind of groundwork, pun intended.

                                  The second problem to consider is that of the effect of fracking on any local ground water supply. There are two ways in which ground water can be contaminated as a result of the process. Firstly the aforementioned unintended fractures at depth could result in the gas and/or the fracking fluid escaping to and toxifying a nearby supply. A variety of different factors come into play at this point, whether they be the size and orientations of the rocks surrounding the borehole or the permeable nature of the material. It's possible to use computer models to simulate the effects here but these often need to be thoroughly tested and streamlined before use and in order to preserve their usefulness must be subject to constant revision. Secondly there is the question of what happens to the fracking fluid itself. The fluid is basically water enriched with heavy particles such as sand, chemical and acidic dopants and corrosion inhibitors. Nothing, in other words, that you'd feel entirely comfortable with drinking if it were to come out of your kitchen tap. This fluid, once drained from the borehole, needs to be stored and disposed of carefully to avoid contamination but this process is neither easy nor accident-proof. Furthermore, the fluid itself could permeate along the length of one of the fractures and enter the ground supply through there.

                                  In addition to all of this there is the significant carbon footprint left by a fracking operation on the local ecosystem. As one hopefully guessed from the description of the process, fracking isn't simply a question of rolling into a site, drilling a concrete-lined hole, filling it with sand-filled water and pumping the resulting gas into a waiting tank. The amount of water needed to simply initiate the fracturing needs something on the order of 200 tanker trucks to roll into the area. Surface storage units for the gas and for the waste fracking fluid need to be constructed as to pipelines to ferry the supply to the national grid. This is neither cheap nor easy. None of which is a concern to the Conservatives (both small "c" and big "C") that often feverishly back the practice given the potential financial rewards. But while it can't be denied that there have been successful implementations of fracking in the past it's ecological suicide to push for its widescale adaptation. At least, based on what we know now.

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                                    #18
                                    fracking

                                    Impressive first post. Now be prepared to be harassed to choose a biscuit or something...

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                                      #19
                                      fracking

                                      Nice to see a first post that isn't hawking a book or harassing MsD.

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                                        #20
                                        fracking

                                        Some Labour activists down here in Brighton saying fracking is a middle-class divergence from the bread and butter issues of austerity.

                                        Fucking pricks.

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                                          #21
                                          fracking

                                          Welcome, The Wanderer, and thanks for an excellent post.

                                          Now. Do you like cheese?

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                                            #22
                                            fracking

                                            Thanks Wanderer - extremely instructive. Please post more often, especially about the many uses of the comma. Crazed comma discussion.

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                                              #23
                                              fracking

                                              Awesome summary and first post, Wanderer, thanks for your contribution.

                                              This being a British board, I would add to Wanderer's post that fracking really isn't suited for most of Europe due to geography, with smaller countries and deposits sitting near heavily urbanised sites. The US could afford to drill in places like N. Dakota or west Texas, but drilling in some areas like the Marcellus Basin upstate NY (affecting the water to NYC) or the St Laurence Basin in Quebec is a horrible idea.

                                              I would however be in favor of at least looking into the extraction of oil from Anticosti, a small uninhabited island at the mouth of the St Laurence gulf which is reported to have huge oil reserves, if it were done with strong environmental standards.

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                                                #24
                                                fracking

                                                Very nice post Wanderer.

                                                I really didn't think that fracking would have much impact on the landscape until I had to do some map review of an area of Arkansas that had had a massive fracking boom. Each fracking site gets a basically a clearcut parking lot (of roughly a fast food level site), sometimes graced with a containment pond full of toxic and radioactive wastewater. It's not very pretty, and if anybody is talking about doing this is your backyard, you better NIMBY that shit.

                                                Oddly, a recent story I read suggested that mixing the wastewater with coal mining waste actually worked to neutralize both in a way that the wastewater could be reused for more fracking.

                                                So smart it's stupid.

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