On Tuesday, February 11, 2014, workers at a fracking well were about to begin a safety meeting at a fracking well site. The three wells on the site were drilled and ready to produce fresh natural gas. The wells were owned and operated by Chevron Appalachia, in Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania, of southwest of Pittsburgh. One of the wells was making a hissing noise. The hissing noise was methane escaping from a damaged well.…
The myth is Oil companies create jobs by drilling more wells. The reality is while oil giants claim it will create 150,000 jobs only about 25% will be directly hired per year. A gas well only requires about thirteen full time employees during the year when drill is completed at the site the jobs drop to around 0.1% for full time jobs. A study from the university of Montana titled “ The local Economic Impacts of Natural Gas developed in Valle Vidal, New Mexico found that the employment level in Colorado Raton Basin was .12 jobs per well” It only takes about a year to drill and extract the gas from a well, after that the jobs drop to a minimum. When a big company moves to a new location local entrepreneurs start small trucking companies to transport the drilling material and water to well sites.…
Fracking causes chemicals to get into the underground water areas that both plants and humans use to stay alive. Our basic necessity, water, is becoming infected by side effects of fracking that is incurable. Fracking is not a good idea when it kills our most important need for human life by making it into the thing that kills us. Cleanup of drinking water…
The controversies surrounding fracking involve the environmental impacts of the drilling itself and the extraction fluid. The fluid consists of various acids, detergents, and poisons that are unregulated by the federal government (NYTimes). This fluid must travel back up the well to the surface. This makes contaminating the area surround it in the event of a broken pipe or seal.…
According to the Energy From Shale Organization website, “fracking supports 2.1 million American jobs and promises more energy-secur[ity] for [the] country… and will save the average American household $3,500 per year by 2025”. Moving oil production from foreign to domestic also lowers gas prices nationally, which is beneficial for the public. In fact a statistic from the Energy From Shale Organization says the fracking has already saved Americans money, “through lower gas prices estimated at $1,200 per household in 2012”. Economic gains aside, the entire world runs on oil and natural gas, without these two key components nothing could have possibly been accomplished. There would have been no industrial or technological revolutions.…
While winter approaches, arctic cold fronts bring a decrease in temperatures to the prairies and the demand for heat and energy increases. Western Canada derives much of its main source of heating fuel from natural gas. It also leads Canada in the production of natural gas through unconventional well production. Natural Gas or Methane (NH4) left in its organic state, and let migrate in the atmosphere as is the case in the Arctic with the thawing of the tundra, is 20 times more harmful as a greenhouse gas then Carbon Dioxide (CO2). When it is burned Methane is relatively cleaner and is less harmful to the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than coal and other fossil fuels.…
Hydraulic Fracking and the Environment What the frack is fracking? On the one hand, Fracking has allowed the United States to decrease its dependence on foreign oil. On the other hand, fracking has been blamed for thousands of Earthquakes across the country. Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is used to recover oil and gas from shale rock beneath the earth’s surface.…
The fracking machines that drill down release diesel fumes. The fumes contain very bad things that cause cancer and contribute to global warming. The companies can also use different engines that take natural gas. Engines that take natural gas rather then diesel are better for the environment and are less expensive (Kiger). They can cut prices by up to forty percent (Kiger).…
North America should stop the use of fracking because it can cause earthquakes, puts the public at risk, lowers the quality of life for people near fracking grounds, and pollutes the environment. In Western Canada there have been many earthquakes directly related to fracking. When the fracking fluid and sand are pumped into the ground at high pressure it causes the quakes. When it is pumped into porous ground it eats away at the ground and causes cavities that cause earthquakes.…
Fracking is the process used to access natural gas that is trapped underground 1. Recently, fracking in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale has gained the attention of many environmentalists 1. Many energy corporations argue that the natural gas industry is not only important for the United States energy, but it is also a large contributor the U.S. economy 2. Environmentalists have made arguments that fracking is not a clean process because the actual process of fracking involved uses a large volume of water along with sand and chemicals 3. A result of this process is contamination of groundwater; this is raising concerns for many environmentalists and the Environmental Protection Agency because it is harmful for public health3.…
Fracking is a cheaper and more harmful way for us to get oil out of the ground. It has caused just as much bad as good, if not more. The chemicals in the Fracking Fluid can leak into our water, poison our loved ones, and pollute our environment. Fracking should be illegal due to its detrimental effects on the environment and people. Here’s a “fun,” fact; each fracking job uses between one to eight million gallons of water and over forty thousand gallons of chemicals (Source 2).…
While there has been disagreement over fracking, fracking is very vital to the United States. The need for natural gas in the United States is increasing, so the country needs to produce more of it own energy. If the country produces more of its own energy, America does not have to send soldiers to defend oil fields. (Beyond oil) Fracking also provides huge job opportunities and funds the United States.…
The ground water becomes contaminated and the air is polluted with disease and cancer causing chemicals. The negatives outweigh the few positives from fracking. Fracking is bad for the environment and the people and creatures living in it. Fracking is killing and harming animals, fracking is hurting the environment, and harming the people in and around the fracking sites. Fracking is…
In other words, by welcoming fracking into the U.S., the country will receive lots of new energy, new jobs, and can provide money for the citizens. According to Issue Overview: Fracking by “Bloomberg”, “ Fracking generates a little more than half the oil and natural gas the U.S. produces today.” This shows that by embracing fracking, the United States can receive tons of new energy. Energy is always a needed resource around the globe, and fracking can help the U.S.A. get more of it. Bloomberg also says that fracking is “highly profitable” and “created tens of thousands of jobs”.…
Fracking is a big controversial topic that has been argued for years because of the effects it can have on the environment. Fracking has been used since the 1940s to get natural gas from rocks such as limestone and sandstone. At first, the workers started to use small explosions to get the natural gas from the dead organisms in the stone. The oil and gas companies later changed by using water pressure which is known as hydraulic fracking. This sounds good but fracking can have consequences on the local environment.…