Sunday, October 28, 2018

Information On Clean Fracking Technology

By Jose Foster


Even though it is only presently that faccing is becoming popular, the technology has been in existence for nearly two centuries. Additional terms used in reference to the technology is hydrofracking, hydrofracturing, and faccing. History has it that fracking technology has been in existence since the 1800s. At that time, explosives were used in order to access underground oil shale formations and gas. Here is information one should know regarding clean fracking technology.

Firms later in 1930s made a decision to begin applying non-explosive methods. In the course of the next decade, experiments were done to find out how effectual non-explosive methods could be. The invention of hydrofrac technology was done by 1949. By 1950s, the use of the new technology became much popular. About 3000 wells were adopting the new technology per month at that time.

In the early versions of this technology, 750 gallons of fluid were used. The fluid was composed of gelled crude oil, gelled kerosene, water, and 400 pounds of sand. That amount and composition of fluid would remain in use for a very long time. Today, things have changed a bit, allowing between 75000 and 320000 pounds of sand and 8 million gallons of water to be used.

Advancements in technology have also allowed for the use of different forms of fluid. Some of the common types of fluids in use are slickwater, gels, and foams. Modern fracking fluid is composed of several different ingredients, including guan gum, biocines, friction reducers, diesel fuel, hydrochloric acid, and benzene. Most of these ingredients are highly harmful to the environment. That is why there are calls everywhere demanding that hydrofracking should be made environmentally friendly.

The large amount of water consumed in the process calls for safe disposal to prevent environmental problems. State waterways such as lakes, rivers, and oceans were the final destination of the wastewater used in fraccing before1985. Changes have occurred currently, with wastewater being disposed in deep injection wells. Brine disposal well is also a term used for these wells.

Apart from being disposed in disposal wells, there are private establishments that take and process the wastewater. Although the water can be processed, only some of it can be processed fully. The rest still contain the fluid used in hydrofracking and must be disposed in landfills or injected into the ground. It is being realized that these methods of disposal have negative impacts even though they once appeared flawless.

Polluted drinking water is among the major negative effects that come with wastewater disposal. In one way or the other, the water makes its way into the water systems hence causing contamination. Furthermore, depletion of fresh water has developed as a major impact resulting from heavy usage of water in extracting oil. Finally, there are negative impacts on the environment due to both methods of disposing water and hydrofracking itself.

To minimize the adverse effects of fraccing as a whole, there are suggestions to find ways of reusing wastewater. To this effect, some techniques have been invented that make reuse of wastewater possible. Other ways of minimizing pollution include eliminating methane escape, reducing amounts of fresh water used for the process, and using alternative energy sources other than diesel.




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