Fracking: Cuz We Gotta Get Our Fix
It was a smallish article in my local broadsheet. Yet, to me at least, it said so much.
“Fracking caused quakes,” the headline declared. Below, a Canadian Press story explained that the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission has determined fracking – “a controversial technique used to extract natural gas from shale rock” – was the key factor behind a series of tremors in a corner of the westernmost Canadian province.
B.C. isn’t the only place where the link between fracking and unusual seismic activity has been found, or at least posited. In Oklahoma, for instance, quakes and fracking appear to be linked even if scientists don’t think fracking caused a magnitude-5.6 earthquake in the state last November. And hydraulic fracturing “has been linked to two minor earthquakes in northwest England, very likely by lubricating an already stressed fault zone and thus making it easier for the land to shift,” Scientific American reported.
Fracking is a means of getting natural gas out of places where we humans (fossil fuel junkies, all of us) previously couldn’t get access to it. Basically, an enormous volume of water, sand and chemicals is put down a well with great force to cause fractures in shale. The fracturing releases natural gas to be drawn to the surface.
Note that I didn’t specify what chemicals are in the fracking mix. That’s because the answer varies. Energy companies have their own proprietary fracking formulas and closely guard the precise mixtures they use. We do know that the chemicals have included benzene, methanol, sulfuric acid and hydrogen fluoride.
It wouldn’t be safe for you to drink an ounce of benzene or sulfuric acid, yet we know fracking chemicals do find their way into household tap water.
Defenders of fracking say the risks are more than acceptable when weighed against the benefits of getting more precious fuel for our homes and offices.
I, on the other hand, look at it as another manifestation of humans’ desperate junkie behavior. Like heroin addicts robbing to pay for more smack, our species is going ever farther in pursuit of more oil and gas. Besides breaking up shale deep below ground level, we’re also drilling for oil as far out in the oceans as we can. The BP Deepwater spill illustrated how risky that is.
And most of us are in denial about what our addiction is doing to us, or at least the extent of the harm. No frackin’ doubt about it, in my heartfelt opinion.
3 Comments
Having experienced one of those Oklahoma earthquakes, a surreal shaking that was so unheard of in the area that everyone’s reaction was …. “Was that an earthquake? No way….”, the results of Fracking cannot be denied.
While the connection between fracking and earthquakes is “still under study” and “no connection can be made”… if you dig a little further on the subject, one can find that there IS a connection and there was a corporation in the UK that admitted as such and quit their fracking.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/11/fracking-firm-admits-caused-earthquakes/
Mike, it’s a perfect analogy. The actions of a junkie that will stop at nothing to get a fix, destroying all those things around it in the process.
Earthquakes will shatter your reality. More so than the most violent storm, even more than the twisters I’ve been near. Fracking has been ok-ed in NY state. It’s ok-ed by Obama, along with coal burning … you’ve heard of the ‘clean’ coal? right ? and more drilling on both sides of my state. Do you know about the ‘ring of fire’? Essentially the Gulf and FL… going down due to drilling hitting the right pockets…. a formidable earthquake. And all the rest.
Ah yes, clean coal. Another surprising thing for Obama to embrace. At least, it should be surprising if you go by 2008 Obama standards. He is the “great compromiser” in U.S. presidential history.