The Pros And Cons Of Fracking

Fracking: Good or Bad? Take a look around your house and you will see many items that run on natural gasses. Some of these items include: Heaters, stoves, washers and dryers, and washing machines. Nowadays, natural gasses are not easily accessible, and they are in high demand. One way to obtain these gasses is through a high risk, high reward procedure called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short. Hydraulic fracturing is defined as: "A process in which fractures in rocks below the earth's surface are opened and widened by injecting chemicals and liquids at high pressure: used especially to extract natural gas or oil." Hydraulic fracturing was first put into use in the early 1950's after being discovered through experiments in the 1940's. This process of obtaining natural gasses is very convenient, but can be very harmful to the environment. The water that is shot into the ground is called fracking fluid. This fluid contains chemicals, water, and sand. Another name for this is polluted water. It fractures the surrounding rock formation and allows the natural gas to flow up the well. The well is about 12 inches in diameter and is drilled 5,000 to 8,000 feet down. The well then levels out, parallel to …show more content…
"1) identify a shale formation and drill a mile-deep well into the rock; 2) inject a mix of water, sand, and chemicals, known as fracking fluid, into the well at high pressure to break down the shale rock to release trapped natural gas (usually methane); and 3) relieve the pressure so the natural gas can be collected along with the waste water that must be treated or carefully disposed of. Although the fracking fluid is over 99 percent water and sand, the remaining one percent of organic and inorganic chemicals is critical to improve the fluid's viscosity, reduce friction against the well and rid it of clogging bacteria, and act as a solvent to dissolve rock and remove natural gas more efficiently process in