Monday, October 29, 2018

Useful Knowledge On Clean Fracking Technology

By Jose Foster


Although fracking is only attaining popularity today, it is a technology that has been around for about two centuries. Other names used to refer to this process include hydraulic fracturing, faccing, hydrofracking, and hydrofracturing. According to history, this technology has been around since the 1800s. During that time, gas and oil shale formations underground were reached using explosives instead of water. Facts regarding clean fracking technology.

Later in the 1930s, companies decided to start using non-explosives. To determine how effective non-explosives can be, experiments were carried out in the course of the next decade. By 1949, the hydrofrac technology was invented. The adoption of the new technology gained a lot of popularity by 1950s. At the time, the adoption was happening at the rate of 3000 wells per month.

Over gallons of fluid were utilized in the initial models of fracking technology. The fluid was made up of gelled kerosene, 400 pounds of sand, water and gelled crude oil. The amount and composition of the fluid did not change for a long period. Today, there has been some slight changes. Around 8 million gallons of water and between 75000 and 32000 pounds of sand are utilized today.

Different forms of fluid are also used due to technological improvements. Gels, slickwater, and foams are among common kinds of fluids used today. Many different ingredients are contained in the modern fracking fluid. Gum, guan, biocines, diesel fuel, friction reducers, benzene, and hydrochloric acid are examples of ingredients. These ingredients impact the environment negatively. The environmental degradation caused by the process has led to calls for making the process more environmentally friendly.

There should be careful disposal of wastewater produced to avert negative impact because a lot of water is utilized in fracking. Prior to 1985, all the resultant wastewater found its way in waterways of the state such as lakes, oceans and rivers. Today, however, it is different since the water is disposed in deep wells. These are also called brine disposal wells.

Besides being disposed of in brine disposal wells, some private treatment facilities take the wastewater to process it. However, even though the wastewater can be processed, not all of it can be processed successfully. Some still contain hydrofracturing fluid and need to be injected back into the ground or disposed in landfills. Even though these disposal methods seemed error proof, they are now being discovered to have some bad effects.

One of the main adverse effects associated with disposal of wastewater is contaminated drinking water. Somehow, the wastewater finds its way back into the water system and causes pollution. Also, water depletion has come up as a major effects associated with the use of such large amounts of water on oil extraction. Lastly, the environment is also affected negatively by both the process of hydrofracking and water disposal methods.

To minimize the adverse effects of fraccing as a whole, there are suggestions to find ways of reusing wastewater. To this effect, some techniques have been invented that make reuse of wastewater possible. Other ways of minimizing pollution include eliminating methane escape, reducing amounts of fresh water used for the process, and using alternative energy sources other than diesel.




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