Fracking Is Good!

Sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns and look something up, or study a technology to learn the truth. I had to do this with global warming, and I am having to do it with natural gas fracking, technically known as hydraulic fracturing.

I have known that this process existed in the drilling of oil wells since we lived in Houston in the 1970’s. A simple Google search will tell you that fracking in oil wells has been done since the 1940’s. There are over 840,000 oil and gas wells in the United States, and about 1.2 million wells world wide. In most of these wells some form of hydraulic fracturing was used.

Here’s my reference:

Hydraulic Fracturing 101: What Every Representative, Environmentalist, Regulator, Reporter, Investor, University Researcher, Neighbor and Engineer Should Know About Estimating Frac Risk and Improving Frac Performance in Unconventional Gas and Oil Wells

This is a paper written for the Society of Petroleum Engineers International, the professional society of engineers engaged in the petroleum industry. As such, their members have generated reams of technical studies about hydraulic fracturing. There have been over 550 papers on shale fracturing, and there are over 3,000 papers on all aspects of horizontal wells. This is one of the most studied and researched technical areas in science.

Whenever an oil or gas well is drilled, a risk matrix is constructed for that well and field by the company. Those guys have been at it for so long, and have done this so many times that these estimates of risk are pretty much everyday things. They know how to do this.

Here are some of the salient points of the paper.

1. Polluted ground water is not caused by hydraulic fracturing. Fracking in and of itself cannot pollute ground water because the fracking takes place over a mile under the surface. It is usually a well construction problem, and that is a problem easily mitigated. Most often, ground water pollution is caused by water well drilling, and the water seeping up through the well has come through a coal seam, and is already polluted. This is a well known problem, especially in New York and Pennsylvania. If you remember the first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. They didn’t drill to discover oil because it was laying all over the ground. There are thousands of places where oil seeps to the surface and contaminates ground water, naturally.

2. Risk of earthquakes is extremely over-stated. Earthquakes can be caused by hydraulic fracturing, but very few will be felt at the surface. We are not talking about San Francisco scale earthquakes, here. The quakes caused by hydraulic fracturing are usually micro-quakes, and very few reach the intensity high enough to be felt on the surface.

3. General surface pollution can be caused by other processes. There are many sources of pollution around drilling sites. Thousands of gallons of drilling mud are used there, along with the water used in the fracking process. Pollution can result from accidental spills, or from the transport of those fluids to the drilling site. Care has to be taken in these areas.

In the introduction the author makes the following statement:


Yep! Natural gas from shale takes money out of the pockets of coal companies, solar companies, and wind turbine companies. Natural gas from shale fracking is so cheap that everybody is against it except the consumer.

Now, you know why there is so much press against fracking in natural gas wells. There is no evidence that it will pollute the environment, or that is can poison an entire region’s water supply. There is no reason to panic, unless you are invested in solar and wind power.

Follow the money!

2 thoughts on “Fracking Is Good!”

  1. Bob, I spent my career in mining. Although I am not knowledgeble about hydrolic fracturing, I do know something about drilling through a water table. When we don’t want water entering our drill hole nor something we plan to bring up that drill hole to enter the water table, we essentially put a large grout pkug throught he entire water table. We do this by circling our drill hole with many small drill holes into which we pump chemical grout under extreme pressure to seal all the fractures in the rock hosting the water table. This is continued until not one drop of water enters our prime drill hole. And, you are absolutely correct. The petroleum boys really do knpw what they are doing,

  2. Thanks, Jim. Anybody who has been close to the industry knows that the petroleum companies know how to get the job done. If there are leaks it costs them money. However, badly constructed wells can be a big mess, but that’s the easiest thing to control. The really big pollution risks come from job site spills and transportation spills. There are, of course, laws regulating these aspects, and legal remedies for injured property owners. The big problem is that the greenies don’t want it, and they are telling unsupportable lies about the risks.

    I noticed that I put up a link to the paper that makes you pay. I will see if I can use one of my sites for free downloading.


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