One of the worst activities that can affect the environment and cause extreme damage is fracking. Its name translated into Spanish means hydraulic fracturing. You've probably heard it mentioned thousands of times in the media since the United States put it into practice. Here in Spain it has also been carried out on numerous occasions. But do you know what fracking is and what impacts it has on the environment?
In this article we are going to tell you what fracking is and everything you need to know about it.
What is fracking
As we have mentioned before, it is nothing more than an oil and gas extraction technique. This technique allows increasing the extraction of these natural resources from the subsoil. To carry out this technique, some material is injected under pressure into the soil where it is to be extracted. In this way, the fractures that already exist in the rocks inside the earth increase and the release of the natural gas or oil existing in these areas can be carried out.
What is usually injected is, normally, pressurized water with a mixture of sand. Some type of foam or gases can also be injected under pressure. Lately oil has been demonized too much due to the pollution it produces both in its extraction and in its use in industry and transportation. This has caused a greater amount of natural gas to be consumed, since its greenhouse gas emissions are lower.
Fracking is used to extract natural gas. This technique ends up destroying landscapes in many areas of the planet. Companies desperately seeking natural gas fields are trying not to go out of business. The problem is that these environmental impacts they are getting older and more serious. Some of the natural gas reserves are almost inaccessible, thus greatly increasing the damage we do to the environment.
Dangers of fracking
There are many studies that have questioned the activities carried out in fracking, especially in the United States. These studies claim that fracking is negativeNot only because of the environmental impact on flora, fauna, water and soil, but also the danger it poses to people's health.
The system uses several thousand liters of water to mix with chemicals and sand. Just looking at the amount of water you consume is an ecological aberration. Those liters of water could be used for crops, industrial refrigeration or human consumption. Normally, the compound of water with the rest of the components is released, being injected under pressure into the reservoirs enclosed in the dense rock of the subsoil. With this pressure, natural gas can be released.
The chemicals used serve to break up and dilute the rock. Once they have been used, they contaminate the ground and underground aquifers. This is corroborated by several scientific studies, including one conducted by researchers from Duke University and another conducted at Cornell University.
Apart from the pollution produced by this technique, greenhouse gases are emitted, among which methane stands out, which is more harmful to climate change than CO2 itself. Toxic chemicals such as benzene, lead and other products that have been classified as carcinogens are also used. It is estimated that fracking is used in 60% of the extraction wells that are open today.
Jobs you create
The only positive thing about all this is that fracking creates a lot of jobs. There are 1.700.000 workers in 400.000 wells that there are. Nearly 60.000 jobs are created in Spain. Our country does not have a rate of exploitation as intense as the United States can. It is estimated that about 4 people work per well. While in the United States there is usually one well every 24 km2, in Spain there is one every 37 km2.
Although these figures may seem encouraging and positive for giving jobs, the truth is that these positions are low-qualified and usually last only about 5 years, what is the half-life of a well. Therefore, the figures are used to "fool" people into saying that it is a positive aspect, when it is not at all.
Impacts on the environment
As we have mentioned before, there are many impacts and negative aspects that fracking has on the environment. We are going to analyze one by one:
- Risks during drilling: These risks are, in most cases, of explosion, gas or toxic leaks and collapses of the formation on the injection pipes. Substances that are dissolved can be radioactive and heavy metals are found in bedrock.
- Contamination of aquifers. The underground water reserves have a high possibility of being contaminated, since toxic fluids can be discharged with the gas that is intended to be extracted. A borehole needs about 200.000 m3 of water to cause fracturing. As you can see, it is quite a lot of water to extract some natural gas. 2% of all the water that is introduced is toxic, so in each injection, we are introducing 4000 tons of polluting chemicals. Between 15 and 80% of the injected chemicals usually return to the surface.
- Air pollution: Most of the additives that are added are volatile, so they go directly into the atmosphere. The unconventional gas that is extracted is largely made up of methane.
- Earthquakes: It has been confirmed that the areas where fracking occurs have an increase in seismicity. This danger increases when the areas near the hydraulic fracture are urban areas, nuclear power plants, fuel storage centers, oil pipelines, etc. It could cause quite large environmental catastrophes.
As you can see, this is a technique that is not worth it if we evaluate its costs and benefits. I hope that with this information you can know what fracking is and what impacts it causes on the environment.