Fracking is a slang term for hydraulic fracturing, which is the process of creating fractures in rocks and rock formations by injecting specialized fluid into cracks to force them to open further. Fracking also ensures that natural sources are easily retracted from subterranean wells. These natural sources include water, petroleum or natural gas. In this article, let us try to understand the concept of fracking.
“Fracking is an extraction technique for oil and gas wells in which rocks are fractured artificially using pressurized liquid. The process involves drilling down into the earth and injecting a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand, and thickening agent, also called “fracking fluid,” into a wellbore to create cracks in rock formations. Once the hydraulic pressure is removed from the well, the remnants of the fracking fluid hold the fractures open, making it easy to extract the oil and gas inside. Fractures can also exist naturally in formations, and both natural and human-made fractures can be widened by fracking. As a result, it is possible to extract more oil and gas from a given area of land.”
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES:
- When technology fails, fracking becomes a viable option.
- It is economically friendly.
- Domestic means of oil production have grown immensely due to the fracking process
- The process has driven down gas prices and offered gas security to both the United States and Canada for about 100 years.
- The increased usage of the fracking method has helped countries economically too.
- Unfortunately, the fracking process has very negative environmental repercussions
- Furthermore, methane gas contributes significantly to global warming.
- Too much wastage of water
- Can lead to global warming and even earthquakes,
- Equipment used for fracking is no use for any other purposes after the process is done.
“Since 2014, hydraulically fractured horizontal wells have accounted for the majority of new oil and natural gas wells developed in the United States, surpassing all other drilling techniques. In 2016, nearly 70 percent of the country’s 977,000 producing oil and natural gas wells were horizontally drilled and fracked. The fracking boom is largely credited with making the United States the top producer of natural gas and crude oil in the world—a trend expected to continue as fracking becomes more efficient (with fewer rigs generating greater output) and enables access to more of the country’s fossil fuel reserves.”
UNITED STATES:
As of 2012, 2.5 million “frac jobs” had been performed worldwide on oil and gas wells, over one million of those within the U.S. Drilling and hydraulic fracturing have made the United States a major crude oil exporter as of 2019, but leakage of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has dramatically increased. the first hydraulic fracturing experiment, conducted in 1947 at the Hugoton gas field in Grant County of southwestern Kansas by Stanolind. On 17 March 1949, Halliburton performed the first two commercial hydraulic fracturing treatments in Stephens County, Oklahoma, and Archer County, Texas. In the Soviet Union, the first hydraulic proppant fracturing was carried out in 1952. Other countries in Europe and Northern Africa subsequently employed hydraulic fracturing techniques including Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia (before 1989), Yugoslavia (before 1991), Hungary, Austria, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Tunisia, and Algeria. Meanwhile, The European Union is drafting regulations that would permit the controlled application of hydraulic fracturing.
The multi-stage fracturing technique has facilitated the development of shale gas and light-tight oil production in the United States and is believed to do so in the other countries with unconventional hydrocarbon resources. The Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy estimates that 45% of the US gas supply will come from shale gas by 2035 (with the vast majority of this replacing conventional gas, which has a lower greenhouse-gas footprint). The US government project succeeded as many countries on several continents acceded to the idea of granting concessions for fracking; Poland, for example, agreed to permit fracking by the major oil and gas corporations on nearly a third of its territory. The US Export-Import Bank, an agency of the US government, provided $4.7 billion in financing for fracking operations set up since 2010 in Queensland, Australia. Hydraulic fracturing is currently taking place in the United States in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Other states, such as Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio, are either considering or preparing for drilling using this method. Maryland.
Regulations: “In July 2011 the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), citing concerns about freshwater use and wastewater disposal, issued a report recommending that horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing be banned anywhere within the watersheds supplying drinking water to New York City and Syracuse. In 2014 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a statewide ban on fracking, making New York the first state with proven reserves to ban the practice. In 2010 Congress directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study “any potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water and groundwater.” The following year the EPA decided to conduct case studies of seven specific well sites around the country, from Texas to Pennsylvania to North Dakota. The final report, issued in 2016, found that the various activities in the fracking water cycle can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances. It also acknowledged that the lack of toxicity data on the chemicals added to fracking water was a significant limitation to the assessment of the severity of the impact on drinking water.”
