What the Frack?!

For this blog, I plan to focus in on a relatively new way of mining called "Hydraulic Fracturing" or "Fracking." This is a technique that is used to gather natural gas or other fossil fuels from underground reservoirs that would otherwise be unreachable. The process is rather simple. Once a wellbore hole is drilled to the reservior, they inject a fluid mixture at high pressure to create fractures in the rock. Then they add sand to this mixture to keep the fractures open while the wanted materials are extracted. There are two types of Fracking. The first is called Low Volume Fracturing, which uses between 20,000 and 100,000 gallons of the fluid. It is used on areas that are already highly permeable, such as sandstone, and is sometimes called well stimulation. The second type is called High Volume Fracturing. This method does retrieve considerable amounts of otherwise inaccessible fuel reserves, but it can come at a cost. The process can require up to 3 Million gallons of fracturing fluid which can include acids, dissolved nitrogen, and solid particles to fracture and maintain the opening. There are many environmental concerns regarding this. The most important worry is groundwater contamination, either of the fracturing fluid or the released fuels. Other concerns include the migration of these fluids and gases to the surface, the release of gases into the atmosphere, and the mining process itself. In the coming weeks and months, I will go more in depth into this story, citing both positives and negatives, in hopes to gain a better understanding of this process. Hopefully you will be able to come to your own conclusions as well based on the information I provide!