Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as "fracking", involves pumping water, chemicals, and a proppant down an oil or gas well under high pressure to break open channels in the rock holding the oil or gas. The proppant can be a material such as sand, and is designed to hold the cracks open once they are formed. This allows oil or gas to flow to the well with less resistance, which increases the amount of material that can be recovered.
It sounds simple enough, but in recent years fracking has become a highly controversial topic. People have strong opinions on the practice, but those opinions are often not based on science and data.
Fracking was first commercially introduced in the oil and gas industry in 1949, and application of the technique grew rapidly in the oil and gas fields of Oklahoma and Texas. So if fracking has been around for more than 60 years, why has it only recently become controversial? There are two reasons.
The first is that until recently, the application of fracking was on conventional, vertical wells. But over the past decade or so, fracking began to be commercially applied to horizontal wells. This allowed more area underground to be accessed, which required ever greater amounts of water and fracking chemicals that were often being pumped down to pay zones beneath aquifers.
The second reason fracking became controversial is that the marriage of fracking with horizontal drilling enabled economic oil and gas production in the nation's many shale formations for the first time. One of these formations is the Marcellus Shale, which lies underneath parts of New York, Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, western Maryland, and West Virginia -- many areas with high population density that weren't used to oil and gas exploration. I suspect that if the Marcellus was underneath Wyoming, the majority of the country would have still never heard of fracking.
Most of the opposition to fracking revolves around two issues. The first is the risk of contaminating water supplies with fracking fluids. This is the issue that has gotten the most traction with the public.
Fracking proponents will argue that there are thousands of feet of impermeable rock between the fossil fuel pay zones where fracking occurs and any aquifers, meaning there is really no chance for fracking fluids to migrate from the fracking location to the aquifer. Competing studies have been commissioned by both sides, with some concluding that fracking could contaminate aquifers, and others concluding that there is virtually no possibility. A task force commissioned by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu found that "the likelihood of properly injected fracturing fluid reaching drinking water through fractures is remote."
Most of the science to date supports that claim, as long as the fluid is "properly injected." But the fracking fluids must be transported, injected down the well, and ultimately disposed. If fracking fluid leaks out into the environment during any stage of a fracking operation (e.g., if the well casing isn't properly sealed), it is irrelevant to impacted people whether it was the physical act of fracking, or simply the steps supporting the fracking process, that resulted in the contamination. In any case, fracking will be blamed.
Some environmentalists are opposed to fracking because of associated carbon emissions. This is also a controversial argument, because the United States has seen the most dramatic decline in carbon emissions of any country in the world over the past five years, and fracking is one reason for that. Cheap natural gas has resulted in many utilities swapping in cleaner burning natural gas to replace coal.
But some rightfully note that if the level of methane leakage from fracking operations is sufficiently high, methane's contribution to carbon emissions will more than offset the benefit from replacing coal. A widely cited (and widely criticized) study by Cornell Professor Robert Howarth concluded that the leakages rates were indeed so high that natural gas produced from fracking was worse overall than coal. The EPA contradicted his study and found far lower rates of methane leakage, as did a study from the University of Texas.
Still others don't want to see any expansion in the usage of natural gas – even if it is replacing coal – since it is still a fossil fuel that adds carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. So even if you could make 100 percent assurances that there could be no water contamination and no methane leakage, they would still oppose fracking in favor of more development of renewables.
Yet opponents of fracking often fail to acknowledge any possible benefits. For these opponents, fracking is all bad. But last year a group from Yale estimated that shale gas production contributes over $100 billion to US consumers annually. Jobs have been created, many landowners have benefited financially, and lower gas prices have provided relief for consumers in the form of lower heat and electricity bills. In comparison, the authors estimated that the cost of groundwater contamination could be $250 million per year, which is 1/400th the estimated benefit.
However, the costs aren't necessarily being borne by those who are benefiting. There are many people whose lives have been altered in one form or another by the incursion of drilling into new areas. When those lives have been altered in negative ways – even if only by more noise and traffic – some will naturally be opposed if they can't see any personal financial benefit.
Ultimately, fracking is like so many other ways we acquire energy - it can result in injuries or environmental damage. There is always a cost associated with the production of energy. There is no free lunch, even for renewable energy. Some people don't want fracking in their neighborhood, and others will protest wind farms near their homes. When it comes to energy we make trade-offs, which are acceptable to some, but not to others. Thus fracking will continue to be embraced by some for the economic benefits and condemned by others for the environmental risks.
Robert Rapier is a chemical engineer with 20 years of international engineering experience in the energy business. He is the author of Power Plays: Energy Options in the Age of Peak Oil and is Chief Investment Strategist for Investing Daily's Energy Strategist service. Mr. Rapier has appeared on The History Channel and PBS, and his articles have appeared in numerous media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, and Forbes.
