
Oil-and-gas wells produce radioactive waste - elijahwheelock
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-gas-fracking-radioactive-investigation-937389/
======
JohnJamesRambo
I used to do the soil lab testing for a guy that dealt with this waste in my
state. They did permitting and paid farmers to be able to spread it on their
fields and tell them it is good for them and will make the soil more fertile.
It can be either the salt brine or the more hydrocarbon based stuff that was
basically like tar being spread on the farmer’s pasture. He himself wrote the
laws that the state government just rubber-stamped. I felt like I was working
for evil, polluting my own state, and quit as soon as I could. Some real
Grapes of Wrath type stuff. The old farmers don’t have any money, so the money
the oil company will pay to spread that garbage on their land seems like a
good deal to them and they weren’t informed about the real dangers of what was
being spread.

Side note, the owner of that company was a very rich man and also one of the
unhappiest people I’ve ever met in my life. It was a good lesson to learn at
my young age then.

~~~
clumsysmurf
> they weren’t informed about the real dangers of what was being spread.

I wonder how many of them would even care. This week the EPA dismantled the
Clean Water Rule.

The primary backers for this were farmers and developers.

~~~
rayiner
> I wonder how many of them would even care. This week the EPA dismantled the
> Clean Water Rule.

This week, the EPA rolled back an Obama-era executive order interpreting the
Clean Water Act. Hard to see how rescinding a three year old executive order
could “dismantle” a 47-year old statute.

The Obama-era interpretation was ridiculous on top of everything else. The
Wikipedia article is actually pretty good:

> The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law regulating water pollution in
> the United States. The language of the Clean Water Act describes itself as
> pertaining to ‘Waters of the United States’. These the act defines as
> ‘navigable waterways’, which connects the act to constitutional authority to
> regulate interstate commerce. Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, in 2001 and
> 2006, interpreted the law to include waters not presently navigable that
> were formerly navigable that might be readily dredged to be restored to
> navigation or be made available for navigation. The scope of these decisions
> cast into doubt lower court decisions interpreting the act’s authority to
> extend regulatory authority to streams, wetlands, and small bodies of water
> not navigable in the sense of the interstate commerce clause.

So the Clean Water Act says the EPA can regulate ”the waters of the United
States,” which is defined consistent with “navigable waters,” contemporaneous
with Congress’s Commerce Clause authority over navigable waterways. The Obama
EO extended it to include even small bodies of waters like ponds, such that
farmers would have to get EPA permits to make modifications on their own land
that was nowhere near navigable waters.

Maybe we need a law that requires permitting of everything that could affect
any body of water no matter how small, because it’s true that pollution can
flow from such waters into navigable waters. Maybe there is a way to even make
such a law constitutional (e.g. setting up state regulation of water bodies
that fall outside the commerce clause). But the Clean Water Act is not that
law, and the permitting framework under the CWA is not appropriate for farmers
doing work on land far from rivers and lakes.

So just because farmers supported rolling back this rule, why would you assume
they’d be okay with radioactive materials polluting their land? Is there any
room in our politics to acknowledge that agencies sometimes overreach, and
just because you want to push back on that overreach doesn’t mean you want get
rid of the agency or long-standing laws entirely?

~~~
jcranmer
> So the Clean Water Act says the EPA can regulate ”the waters of the United
> States,” which is defined consistent with “navigable waters,”
> contemporaneous with Congress’s Commerce Clause authority over navigable
> waterways. The Obama EO extended it to include even small bodies of waters
> like ponds, such that farmers would have to get EPA permits to make
> modifications on their own land that was nowhere near navigable waters.

That is a rather distorted view of the water. Note that the definition of
"navigable waters" is explicitly laid out in the law (33 USC §1362 (7), for
exact reference) as:

> The term “navigable waters” means the waters of the United States, including
> the territorial seas.

This has been generally interpreted to include at least pretty much all non-
ephemeral streams in the US, and ephemeral waterways are rather more
questionable. See, e.g., Rapanos v US, decided in 2006 (i.e., before Obama
took office).

~~~
rayiner
That’s not a correct reading of Rapanos. Rapanos says that “the meaning of
’navigable waters’ in the Act is broader than the traditional understanding of
that term, SWANCC, 531 U. S., at 167; Riverside Bayview, 474 U. S., at 133.3
_We have also emphasized, however, that the qualifier ’navigable’ is not
devoid of significance, SWANCC, supra, at 172._ “

Rapanos doesn’t define exactly what navigable waters are, but casts sharp
doubt on two types of waters: ephemeral streams, and wetlands without a
surface water connection to navigable water.

The key changes to the 2020 rule are to exclude those things:
[https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062159101](https://www.eenews.net/stories/1062159101)

> Specifically, the new rule will erase protections for so-called ephemeral
> streams, which flow only after rain or during snowmelt.

> The rule also erases protections for wetlands that do not have surface water
> connections to intermittent or perennial streams, which account for more
> than 51% of the nation's wetlands.

------
totalZero
"Radium, typically the most abundant radionuclide in brine, is often measured
in picocuries per liter of substance and is so dangerous it’s subject to tight
restrictions even at hazardous-waste sites. The most common isotopes are
radium-226 and radium-228, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires
industrial discharges to remain below 60 for each. Four of Peter’s samples
registered combined radium levels above 3,500, and one was more than 8,500."

I wonder how many of these trucks full of radium have driven beside me on the
freeway.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Nice to see some numbers. Lot's of articles leave out numbers, which really
matter in thing like radiation where the detectable level is sometimes many
orders of magnitude below the hazardous level.

Ra-226 is mostly an alpha emitter and can't reach you through a piece of
paper. Don't drink it though. Ra-228 is primarily a beta emitter which can't
go through a metal tank. Also don't drink it.

~~~
capableweb
> Ra-226 is mostly an alpha emitter and can't reach you through a piece of
> paper. Don't drink it though. Ra-228 is primarily a beta emitter which can't
> go through a metal tank. Also don't drink it.

What about being in constant contact with the skin via let's say you have a
bit of it your shoes?

> the rest of the uniform hardly offers protection from brine. “It’s all over
> your hands, and inside your boots, and on the cuticles of your toes, and any
> cuts you have — you’re soaked,” he says.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Alpha particles generally cannot penetrate the skin, much less clothing or
shoes. Betas can get through skin but probably not shoes. There is some energy
dependence. Secondary decays and energy transitions often emit gamma rays as
well which can go through everything, but the majority of the energy with
these nuclides are alphas and betas.

These are primarily dangerous because they're water soluble and present an
ingestion and inhalation hazard. Once a large amount of a strong alpha-emitter
is in your intestines it can really cause damage.

~~~
capableweb
> These are primarily dangerous because they're water soluble and present an
> ingestion and inhalation hazard. Once a large amount of a strong alpha-
> emitter is in your intestines it can really cause damage.

So since the workers are getting it all over their hands and feet, which
probably has sweat on it, would it pose a danger? Also, would getting it on
wounds like cuts be dangerous as well?

~~~
Spooky23
Yes. If you are appropriately protected you can work with it. If you’re paying
people $16/hr to haul hazmat (that you are concealing), you’re not providing
appropriate protection or procedure.

Don’t listen to the apologists here. If you’ve worked in a place that handles
toxic materials, you wouldn’t read about worried truck drivers keeping samples
in mayonnaise jars. The driver would contact the industrial hygienist or
safety officer at work.

------
peter303
Uranium precipitates out of igneous hydrothermal waters when it encounters
organic carbon. So it is probably concentrated in some oil deposits. Then some
radiative isotopes of uranium will decay into radium, alpha particles (ionized
helium) and other elements.

Most of the worlds commercial helium is mined from natural gas, which may have
fractions as much as 5%. This helium is thought to be from uranium decay
emitting alpha particles and not primordial helium.

------
keeganjw
We're drowning in headlines these days that I feel like this story really fell
through the cracks. People who live near fracking really need to know this.

~~~
dylan604
It's amazing what that monthly check can make people look over when the wells
are placed on private property.

~~~
mattbk1
That monthly check might not even be very large. Unfortunately, in many places
(like North Dakota), mineral rights are severed from surface rights. So as a
surface owner you might get a pittance for allowing a pad on your property,
all the royalties are going to someone else who bought up mineral rights
decades ago.

------
jiofih
> There are over 1 million active oil-and-gas wells across 33 states

This is insane. One well per 300 inhabitants of the USA. How is that even
economically viable?

~~~
carapace
> How is that even economically viable?

Are you kidding? It's like drilling up geysers of money.

The ten most profitable companies in the world are nine oil companies and
Apple.

Count the cars and trucks and planes and generators and leaf-blowers and
chainsaws and _every piece of plastic ever_ and thousands of chemical
byproducts... oil is _everywhere_.

~~~
jiofih
I was thinking of the overhead of equipment, personnel and so on. Saudi Arabia
produces as much oil with 100x less wells. All I can imagine is that US oil is
massively subsidized, to the point of market forces or efficiency not
mattering at all.

~~~
carapace
Ah, yeah, I don't know, I'm not that knowledgeable about it. Maybe Texas is
less efficient than the Saudis, maybe the tech is older or something, but
they're not losing money on those fields.

Oil is _black gold_.

FWIW, oil is massively subsidized: war isn't cheap, eh?

------
dghughes
It reminds me of the Radium Girls.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls)

------
jandrewrogers
Now measure coal waste.

~~~
Frost1x
There's a lot. A lot more than I imagined according to a DOE seminar I sat
through.

It's interesting because an incredibly small fraction of coal (coal varies a
reasonable amount in composition across geological regions) contains various
radioactive isotopes with long high-lifes.

When you burn/combust coal, especially without care and consideration in the
process, a lot of these small components are released in the air as
particulates.

Now at first thought, it doesn't seem like much (were talking 1ppm/1ppb or
less levels in some cases depending on the coal type/geological area), but
when you consider the entire volume of coal combusted worldwide, that small
fraction turns out to be more radioactive waste than is produced by all
controlled nuclear energy in the world at the time (about 8-10 years ago).

I wish I still had the slide set with all the reference material and
derivations.

~~~
jandrewrogers
Coal ash is a thorium and uranium concentrate, and as you say the Department
of Energy publishes the release statistics. They aren't too difficult to find.
Each year in the US, we release more than _a thousand tons_ of thorium and
uranium into the environment via coal ash dumping, with limited controls.

There have also been population health studies in communities that live
adjacent to where coal ash is dumped in the US. As I recall, it is correlated
with a small but detectable (around 1% IIRC) increase in cancer incidence
rates relative to local control populations, and largely attributed to the
thorium component of the waste.

------
acidburnNSA
Technically speaking they released concentrated naturally-occurring
radioactive materials (NORMs). I only emphasize this because most people don't
know how much radioactive stuff is natural.

Doesn't mean it's not a hazard in concentration, of course.

~~~
capableweb
Sounds like you're trying to correct something that is already correct in the
article, as soon as in paragraph 4.

> The Earth’s crust is in fact peppered with radioactive elements that
> concentrate deep underground in oil-and-gas-bearing layers. This
> radioactivity is often pulled to the surface when oil and gas is extracted —
> carried largely in the brine.

~~~
acidburnNSA
The article does a good job. I'm referring to the headline. For example,
nuclear reactors _produce_ radioactive material by fissioning barely-
radioactive uranium into highly-radioactive fission products but take great
care to not _release_ it. Fracking _releases_ naturally-occurring radioactive
materials.

Also: "is peppered with" does not imply naturally-occurring. Someone biased to
think all radiation is man-made could easily assume it's from us dumping
waste.

~~~
firethief
I'm sure your terminology is right in the context of nuclear engineering, but
I think the headline is right in terms of how most people will read it: oil
wells produce radioactive waste in the same sense as they produce oil

------
nyrosis
They do and unfortunately this knowledge has been available for some time.

Here is a simple observation I derived from witnessing much of this over the
years. In my experience the bigger your wallet. The more you get away with and
the easier it is to change "laws" to further your business interests. I think
it is important to understand the lengths people will go to secure a financial
interest.

------
shiftpgdn
For what it's worth this brine is potentially a monster source of lithium.

~~~
capableweb
How is that relevant to the story about workers being exposed to brine, not
being told it's radioactive and everyone is acting casually around waste
management around brine?

~~~
asguy
I found it interesting. Maybe there’s an avenue to better remediation via
using the waste as feeder to another chemical process, which ends in more
value?

~~~
capableweb
Me too, but it's hardy relevant to the subject of the article, which is about
contamination and people being affected by it, and the industry not taking the
necessary precautions when dealing with waste.

~~~
chii
but it is relevant - if the waste could be made economically viable to process
and extract (and as a side effect, the harmful parts removed/utilized), then
there would be less pollution and contamination.

------
colinprince
"A Balrog awoke in Moria when the Dwarves had mined too deep for Mithril. It
drove the Dwarves out of their home and slew King Durin VI, and the Balrog was
thereafter called Durin's Bane"

[https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Balrogs](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Balrogs)

------
acvny
That is a novel not an article

------
willj
I'm glad they wrote about this, but it's certainly not breaking news or
anything. Back in 2016, EPA released a report [1] that was years in the
making, which covered the history, science, and effects of hydraulic
fracturing in the U.S. The executive summary [2] says that produced water can
contain "naturally-occurring organic compounds, including benzene, toluene,
ethylbenzene, xylenes (BTEX); and oil and grease; radioactive materials,
including radium; and hydraulic fracturing chemicals and their chemical
transformation products." It also discusses spills from evaporation ponds
(e.g., a 2.9 million gallon spill in North Dakota in 2015 that flowed into
Blacktail Creek), as well as exacerbation of local droughts due to groundwater
withdrawal for fracking.

Unfortunately, as happens these days, when the draft report was released in
2015, conservative news outlets [3][4][5][6][7] grabbed hold of a single
statement in the executive summary reflecting the usual statements of
uncertainty in any scientific report, and they used that to imply there was no
evidence of any consequences of hydrofracking on the environment or human
health. The draft report's statement that they took hold of was: "We did not
find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts
on drinking water resources in the United States". However, the very next
paragraph explains "This finding could reflect a rarity of effects on drinking
water resources, but may also be due to other limiting factors. These factors
include: insufficient pre- and post-fracturing data on the quality of drinking
water resources; the paucity of long-term systematic studies; the presence of
other sources of contamination precluding a definitive link between hydraulic
fracturing activities and an impact; and the inaccessibility of some
information on hydraulic fracturing activities and potential impacts."

Even in 2016, when the final report was released, a WSJ article [8] insisted
EPA had "political scientists" who rewrote the report to cast doubt on the
safety of hydraulic fracturing. (The rewritten statement was: "However,
significant data gaps and uncertainties in the available data prevented us
from calculating or estimating the national frequency of impacts on drinking
water resources from activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle. The
data gaps and uncertainties described in this report also precluded a full
characterization of the severity of impacts.").

[1]
[https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332...](https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332990)

[2]
[http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=53...](http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=530285)

[3] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/fracking-has-had-no-
widespread-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/fracking-has-had-no-widespread-
impact-on-drinking-water-epa-finds-1433433850)

[4] [https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/report-epa-
finds-...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/report-epa-finds-no-
widespread-water-pollution-fracking-18748)

[5] [https://www.txoga.org/eid-long-awaited-epa-study-finds-
frack...](https://www.txoga.org/eid-long-awaited-epa-study-finds-fracking-has-
not-led-to-widespread-water-contamination/)

[6]
[https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/washingtonbureau/201...](https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/washingtonbureau/2015/06/epa-
theres-no-evidence-fracking-has-led-to.html)

[7] [https://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-no-
wide...](https://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-no-widespread-
affects-water/)

[8] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-epas-science-
deniers-148209...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-epas-science-
deniers-1482099327)

------
_pmf_
Wait until they hear about neodymium processing for wind turbines.

~~~
wiggler00m
[https://min-eng.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-real-cost-of-using-...](https://min-
eng.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-real-cost-of-using-neodymium-in.html)

 _" Neodymium is found most often in monazite and bastnasite. Due to the fact
that these minerals also contain lanthanides and other rare earth elements, it
is difficult to isolate neodymium. The first isolation process involves
extracting the lanthanides and metals out of the ores in their salt form. This
step is carried out using sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, and sodium
hydroxide. To further isolate the neodymium from other lanthanides and metals,
procedures such as solvent extraction and ion exchange are used. Once
neodymium has been reduced to its fluoride form using these processes, it can
be reacted with pure calcium metal in a heated chamber to form pure neodymium
and calcium fluoride. Some calcium contaminants remain in the neodymium, and
vacuum processes are used to remove any of these contaminants. It is an
expensive and potentially environmentally harmful process.

In a recent posting (February 1st), it was noted that China produces over 90%
of the world’s rare earths, and that Beijing’s export reductions in recent
years have forced high-tech firms to relocate to China. An article in a UK
newspaper claims to have uncovered the distinctly dirty truth about the
process used to extract neodymium: it has an appalling environmental impact
that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green
technology.

According to the report, hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory
complexes lie vast, hissing cauldrons of chemicals in tailing lakes that are
often very poorly constructed and maintained; throughout the extraction
process large amounts of highly toxic acids, heavy metals and other chemicals
are emitted into the air that people breathe, and leak into surface and ground
water.

The report concludes that whenever we purchase products that contain rare
earth metals, we are unknowingly taking part in massive environmental
degradation and the destruction of communities. It is a real dilemma for
environmentalists who want to see the growth of the renewables industry but we
should recognise the environmental destruction that is being caused while
making these wind turbines."_

~~~
Tade0
Regarding the last paragraph:

From that same article:

 _A direct-drive permanent-magnet generator for a top capacity wind turbine
would use around 2 tonnes of neodymium-based permanent magnet material._

[https://roskill.com/news/rare-earths-changing-magnet-
composi...](https://roskill.com/news/rare-earths-changing-magnet-compositions-
to-manage-supply-availability/)

 _The rare earth content in neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets is 29-33% and
the main rare earths used are neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), typically at
a ratio of 3:1._

Given this data your typical wind turbine contains ~650kg of rare-earths.

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277639048_An_Assess...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277639048_An_Assessment_of_the_Rare_Earth_Element_Content_of_Conventional_and_Electric_Vehicles)

 _We estimate that approximately 0.44 kg of rare earths are used in a typical
conventional sedan, with approximately80% of the rare earth content in
magnets. As such, neodymium is the most extensively used rare earth, followed
by cerium,which is used mainly in catalytic converters. The mass of rare
earths in a full hybrid electric vehicle with a nickel metal hydride battery
is approximately 4.5 kg. A full hybrid electric vehicle with a lithium-ion
battery contains approximately 1kg of rare earth elements._

Basically one turbine is equivalent to ~1500 cars in terms of rare earths,
which may seem high, but if you compare the production scale, wind turbines
are unlikely to be the main consumers of neodymium, or rare earths in general.

