Hydrofracking


Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know®
by Alex Prud'Homme

Main Points:

  • Natural gas has taken the world by surprise in recent years, plunging in price close to $5/MBTU. This book explores hydro fracking in the context of the growing energy sector, its inner workings, where in the US the fracking is occurring, the case for and against, and a glimpse into what is in store for the future. 

  • The case for fracking claims that the US will be fully energy independent and no longer have to rely on foreign oil resources for transportation. In addition, there will be 600,000 jobs created in the US for gas related transportation or steel casings for drilling. Proponents say that the total water usage will still be less than that used by agriculture or nuclear reactors, and that methane will cause lower impact on global warming than coal emissions.

  • The case against fracking claims that the US has limited water resources and that at 70-140 billion gallons of water used per year we will be damaging water-struck regions. Also the cause of water pollution due to the chemicals in the fracking fluid (including ethyl glycol, 2-BE, silica, sand, etc.) can cause serious health effects. Additionally, the pressure buildup below the earth can cause micro-seismic activity. We still have no plan on how to adequately dispose of this flowback fluid and to properly dispose of it (either in pits or in pools by wells). 


How does fracking work? Watch this Ted-Ed video for a brief introduction on the controversial technology that has led to the Shale Gale.

Listen to T. Boone Pickens' talk about an Alternate to Alternative Energy or listen to his talk at the Yale School of Management on his career with natural gas!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Consider a Spherical Cow

Image
Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving by John Harte Main Points: What is the "spherical cow" joke ? The phrase comes from a joke about theoreticians I first heard as a graduate student. Milk production at a dairy farm was low so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the farmer received the write-up and opened it to read on the first line: "Consider a spherical cow..." The Approach : The spherical cow approach to problem solving involves the stripping away of unnecessary detail, so that only the essentials remain. Of course, approaching the complex world from the spherical cow perspective
Read more

Should We Risk It?

Image
Should We Risk It? by Daniel M. Kammen & David M. Hassenzahl Main Points: " I began by trying to quantify technical risks, thinking that if they were 'put into perspective' through comparison with familiar risks we could better judge their social acceptability. I am ashamed now of my naivety, although I have the excuse that this was more than 20 years ago, while some people are still doing it today. "- Harry Otway (1992) Background: Daniel Kammen teaches a course at UC Berkeley called "Environmental Classics" where they rotate through key papers/books like Amory Lovins' paper "A Road Not Taken", the Wedges paper. They read the original items- the critiques that came at the time and the critiques that come after. Only Silent Spring  becomes a fixture in the course year after year.  Take a look at Kammen's lab RAEL and BREG  for sustainability tools and what tools we need to alter the dialogue around clean energy or sus
Read more

Read one Book a Week

I once participated in an energy club in grad school. The club was composed mainly of grad students from several departments and disciplines - engineering, business, and law. Our mission was to foster a diverse energy community and enable interdisciplinary collaboration, knowledge exchange, and professional development. Over the course of two years, the club grew in size from 20 to over 100 students, creating its first alumni mentoring program, taking tours of several energy companies, hosting its first energy case competition, installing the largest solar panel array in the local neighborhood, building a vertical axis wind turbine, and collaborating with several organizations around the nation. I loved it. Mainly because of all the great friends who made my time in the club truly memorable. Much of what we were trying to do was to understand the energy environment from those who worked, taught, and preached about it daily. While talks and small group dinners got us interested, I fe
Read more