
The truth about fracking? An oilfield engineer seeks to reassure you - Zaab
http://m.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/article_9b1b6c6a-48f9-11e3-b50f-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=jqm
======
zendere
Looks like a paid-for article to exonerate fracking.

It mentions only at one point the 'fracking fluids', and in order to present
then as if they are harmless, it says:

1\. "gelling agents (used in ice cream)" 2\. "friction reducers (used in
cosmetics)" 3\. "acid to anti-bacterial agents (used in disinfectants)" (note
the trick to exonerate "acid" by attaching the anti-bacterial agents, so it
then mentions 'used in disinfectants' as if those contain acids as well...)

If I were to make my own fracking fluid, do I mix together my disinfectant, my
ice-cream and my mascara?

Just another shameful article, probably paid-for, by the fracking industry.

~~~
lasermike026
Then companies that frac will not mind publishing the chemicals used in
frac'ing. Oh yeah, they don't want to do that.

~~~
icegreentea
Well, here it is: [http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-
used](http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used)

The chemicals used. Right there. Mine you, they don't tell you the percent
compositions - I think that's fair. You can be fairly sane limits when you
combine with the claim that fracking liquid is 98% water.

If you think they're lying... well... better tell the 21+ states that have
mandatory disclosure laws.

~~~
Amadou
Seems that the fracfocus list is incomplete.

Looking at Haliburton's own listen of chemicals in their CleanStim fluid, I
see maltodextrin listed but it isn't listed on fracfocus. I'm not enough of a
chemical engineer to say if there is another name for maltodextrin that is
listed, but I didn't find any hits for "mal," "dext" or "trin" either.

[http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/Hydrauli...](http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/Hydraulic_Fracturing/disclosures/CleanStim_Pop_up.html)

------
4ad
Very very poor and biased article that resorts to appeal by authority fallacy.

I have no idea if fracking is bad for the environment or not. I really want to
know, but the internet is full of crap like this. I haven't found any good
scientific articles about the subject, only very poorly written FUD (on both
sides). Admittedly, I haven't searched too much; probably all the info is
there, but you have to dive really deep into garbage to find it.

------
bradleysmith
> _In the narrative concerning hydraulic fracturing, there seem to be two
> dominant points of view: those who unequivocally oppose it, and those who
> actually understand it._

I work in oil & gas data, so I'm surrounded by a bias from people that both
benefit from fracking, and also have intimate working knowledge of the
process. In my limited experience, I have found the above statement to be
true.

I always love to hear informed arguments against fracking, I just seem to hear
fewer of them than those in support of it.

Thanks for the share, good read.

~~~
Gravityloss
Yes, I guess it could be problematic to find disinterested experts in any hot
new business area, since most experts are getting their paycheck from it.

I have no deep knowledge about the issue and I hope that someone can point me
wrong.

~~~
bradleysmith
exactly right. The only people that intimately know the workings of
reservoirs, and know the risks and pitfalls of the fracking and production
process from field experience are almost always directly benefiting from
increased oil production won by fracking. I'm sure there are some
environmental professionals that have been around the oil patch long enough to
know what's what, and I'd love to hear their take.

I am unabashedly on the fence on the matter. It is one of those things that
the consequences are far more irreversible if one party is correct, and I
always try to bear that in mind.

------
minikites
This whole article seems to have a biased agenda, but this is an important
point regardless:

\---------

If you think that because you ride your bike to work, grow your own organic
vegetables, and have a wind farm in your back yard, you don’t have a need for
all this ill-gotten shale oil and gas, think again. Let’s start with that
reusable “BPA free” water bottle full of mountain spring water sitting on your
desk. I probably don’t have to mention that the bottle itself is made of
plastic. Plastic is a product of hydrocarbons. Your water bottle is not made
of unicorn tears; it came to you from the oil and gas industry.

\---------

I live in rural New York and I see quite a few anti-fracking bumper stickers
on cars. I feel like that essentially says, "oil is okay, as long as the
consequences affect other people".

For example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Ni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Niger_Delta#Oil_spills)

~~~
Amadou
_I live in rural New York and I see quite a few anti-fracking bumper stickers
on cars. I feel like that essentially says, "oil is okay, as long as the
consequences affect other people"._

I think that is a disingenuous characterization, not unlike saying that the
Occupy protesters are hypocrites for using iphones. In both cases the people
protesting live in a society where their access to other forms of technology
are restricted by the inertia of the market. That very restriction is a major
part of what they are protesting.

------
Zaab
Further evidence the methane found in well waters is not caused by fracking.
The methane found is biomethane produced from decomposition of animals.

[http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-109/issue-49/explor...](http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-109/issue-49/exploration-
development/methane-in-pennsylvania-water-p1.html)

------
melling
I was on vacation last year and I was talking to an older gentlemen who was
involved in the oil&gas industry. I brought up fracking and he openly said
that the chemicals used are pretty bad. I never bothered to do any research
afterwards but I'm still curious if it is real problem. 20 years from now will
we have created another expensive or deadly problem that we will need to fix?
Personally, what I like to see is an article with real data, and not use words
like a little, most, or a lot.

------
danpalmer
> I am also a scientist, with an engineering degree from Montana Tech
> University, and have worked for the world’s largest oilfield service company
> for 10 years. My business is hydraulic fracturing.

My friend with a Geology degree recently gave a talk about why Fracking is a
really bad idea, I think I'll trust a geologist before an engineer on this
one.

That said, the article is a nice alternative to the large amounts of anti-
fracking propaganda, the argument needs to be a bit more balanced.

------
crunchcaptain
What about the "evaporation ponds" & (often missing) liners?

What about methane contamination to drinking water wells?

~~~
steve19
I don't know about the first, but the methane contamination is pure FUD. Those
claims in gasland have been debunked:

[http://energyindepth.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/Debunkin...](http://energyindepth.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/Debunking-GasLand.pdf)

~~~
mikeyouse
I'm extremely skeptical of your source...

[http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Energy_in_Depth](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Energy_in_Depth)

~~~
steve19
Did you actually read it? I linked to it specifically because of the methane
claim. I found it linked to by the NY Times. The PDF quotes county officials
who found no link between the methane and fracking. The methane was determined
to be organic. People have claimed that methane was reported in the water
decades before fracking started.

------
amalag
Injecting hazardous unknown chemicals (trade secrets) into the ground at high
pressure, what could go wrong?

~~~
icegreentea
I don't really like spamming, but I think this is fairly important.
[http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-
used](http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used)

------
skue
I believe the author is earnest, but she is looking at things as an engineer,
and from a very black-and-white mindset.

> _It’s not that hydraulic fracturing is new, it’s that it’s being used in new
> rocks, which means it’s being used in new places._

Only engineers and historians care whether fracking was first invented six
decades ago or two decades ago. Either way, if it's suddenly being on new
types of rocks, with new orientations of wells (horizontal), and in places
it's never been done before, and on a exponentially greater scale -- then it
absolutely feels like _" a new, experimental technique that hasn’t been
tested, isn’t regulated, and is being tried for the first time in your
backyard."_

> _It is not a drilling technique... Hydraulic fracturing doesn’t take place
> until well after the well has been drilled, cased, and cemented. It is a
> completion technique, to stimulate the production of the well. This is not
> splitting hairs, it’s a big difference; get the facts right_

In the public's mind it _is_ splitting hairs. If the technology for fracking
didn't exist, there wouldn't be all these new horizontal drilling rigs in
people's backyards. Of course there's a technical distinction between the two
which is important to the engineers who work in the field, but when a reporter
or community complains about fracking they are complaining about the drilling,
fracking, byproduct, and consequences that all arise when a well is created to
take advantage of fracking.

> _We are not just pumping massive amounts of harmful chemicals into the
> earth. Fracturing fluid is generally made up of 98 percent water. The other
> 2 percent is chemicals ranging anywhere from acid to anti-bacterial agents
> (used in disinfectants), to gelling agents (used in ice cream), to friction
> reducers (used in cosmetics), to surfactants (used in laundry
> detergents).... We are pumping very small amounts of them thousands of feet
> below the surface and then recovering most of them when the well is flowed
> back._

First, if you introduce enough toxic chemicals into an aquifer to contaminate
the water, no one cares whether those toxic chemicals were initially
introduced as a 2% solution, 20% solution, or 0.02% solution. Second, I'm
pretty sure it's not the fracking chemicals that are coming out of people's
plumbing and burning spectacularly when they hold a match to the faucet, it's
the extracted gas. And if fracking is causing gas and flowback from the shale
to be introduced into the aquifer then that's a huge problem, regardless of
the other chemicals involved.

> _Hydraulic fracturing is not contaminating drinking water. These fractures
> are being created about 6,000 feet below the surface.... If anything is
> going to risk the integrity of the drinking water, point the figure at the
> construction of the well, the steel and concrete barrier that is built to
> isolate that aquifer from a flowing well._

> _I fully realize that this does not exonerate the oil and gas industry, but
> hydraulic fracturing is the one getting all the blame for no reason, and by
> people who clearly need to take a physics class._

And _this_ is the author's main point. She's not denying that the oil and gas
industry is contaminating drinking water and destroying communities. She's
just arguing that it's the well-builders who are screwing up, not the folks
pumping in the contaminants and extracting the gas.

I'm sure the this distinction is very important to the author. She is an
engineer who has done hydraulic fracturing for the world's largest oilfield
service company for 10 years. She probably believes the technology is great.

But if hydraulic fracturing brings new wells to town, those wells fail, and
the flowback from that fracking process ends up in the drinking water and
destroys communities then no one cares about which engineer is to blame within
the oilfield company. It's still the oilfield company's fault.

Edit: Tweaked some of the terms I may have been using inaccurately.

------
jgalt212
Fracking definitely has negative externalities, but it's better than sending
our money to the Middle East or Russia.

------
philwelch
Doing new and clever things to harvest fossil fuels is a waste of innovation.

~~~
angersock
Yeah, they should totally be killing it in the B2B2C2GOV market, mining data
for advertisers.

~~~
philwelch
No, they should be figuring out how to conserve energy, extract it from
sustainable resources, or at the very least developing high density urban real
estate.

------
AsymetricCom
I guess the engineer is saying we should address coconut trees because of
falling coconuts, but the physical and geological effects of fracking don't
matter because they're below the ground.

Considering the logical breadth and wiseness of the statement, I think the
logical conclusion is to grant this engineer his own fleet of fracking
equipment and a company to run it. Because then he'd make money and money is
more money than no money. Everyone likes money but nobody likes a coconut to
the head.

Drill on!

------
bestdayever
>Hydraulic fracturing is not contaminating drinking water. These fractures are
being created about 6,000 feet below the surface. That’s four Empire State
Buildings stacked on top of each other between the aquifer and the hydraulic
fracture. If anything is going to risk the integrity of the drinking water,
point the figure at the construction of the well, the steel and concrete
barrier that is built to isolate that aquifer from a flowing well.

Don't the companies doing the fracking usually build these barriers? How is it
not their fault if they don't hold.

~~~
Zaab
From drilling to producing there maybe many companies working on the well.
Land is usually owned by big oil producers (Shell,Exxon,BP, etc) while the
drilling, casing (protects the ground water), and hydraulic fracturing jobs
may all be done by separate service companies.

All in all, yes these barriers should hold and safety factors are taken into
consideration. But when the service company doing the casing job recommends
job A that will surely hold but the land holding company wants job B which is
cheaper and might fail, who's at fault when it fails?

~~~
lowmagnet
Land is often leased from average citizens or land holding companies. Rights
to minerals are leased from whomever owns them. At least that's how it works
in Arkansas.

