Grand Unified Fracking Thread

[Viking]

My understanding is that the exploitation of shale oil requires lots of water. Australia is short of that so I'm doubtful that the news is of much importance 

No, shale oil merely requires more water than regular oil and gas production.

Just so you can get the order of magnitude here right.

http://ecowatch.org/2012/water-for-fracking/

Note this is an anti-fracking source and it doesn't compare like to like given that the rate of water usage and this doesn't give a water use per standard cubic meter of gas produced or anything like that. But, using roundish numbers based on the texas numbers you get 10,000,000 liters per well.

Now, so you can understand the magnitude compared to other activities. The USGS (US Geological survey)

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html

Has water usage at 80-100 gallons per day ~400 liters per day or 140,000 liters per person per year. This is about 71 man years of water usage per well. Given that well can go for 10 years without needing re-completion or re-fracking the rate of water usage is comparable to the personal usage (not total water usage) of the residents of a small town cul de sac for one well or a small apartment building in a city.

Comparing it to beef production.

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/Animal-products

Beef is 15,000 liters per kg. The water usage for one frack is the same as is used to create 667 kg of beef, that is about two cows.

Yes, Fracking a well uses the same amount of water as two cows. Please let this trope die the death it deserves, doubly so since fracking water is usually  brackish water unsuitable for farming or drinking or anything other than being dumped.


Edit; this is my two cows post on the topic. Just to bring it back.

[Viking]

Not sure which thread this goes in. The new NSA center in Utah uses per day the same amount of water as it takes to frack one well.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=25978926&nid=148

New Utah NSA center requires 1.7M gallons of water daily to operate

More secrets, more water? The NSA data center in Bluffdale could require as many as 1.7 million gallons of water per day to operate and keep computers cool.

Initial reported estimates suggested the center would use 1,200 gallons per minute, but more recent estimates suggest the usage could be closer to half that amount.

"Our planning is anywhere from 1,000 acre-feet per year to 2,000 acre-feet per year, and that represents - if it was 1,000 acre-feet per year, that would be about 1 percent of our total demand," said Jordan Valley River Conservancy District assistant general manager and chief engineer Alan Packard.

Packard said that amount of water - while large - could be easily accommodated and was on par with industrial operations such as soft drink bottling plants.

"At build-out, it will be several years before the data center uses that amount of water, so we have the opportunity to prepare for that through both conservation and developing new supplies," Packard said.

Packard said the district was actively working to develop the new supplies - including those at the Southwest Groundwater Project, the Central Utah Project and additional groundwater development in the Salt Lake valley.

"It's no more than we were already planning," Packard said. "Our normal activities are designed to accommodate this kind of demand on our system."

Bluffdale City manager Mark Reid described the NSA project and the new water and electrical infrastructure around it as a significant benefit to the city.

Reid said Bluffdale otherwise wouldn't have had the resources to improve the land all the way to the south end of the city limits. Instead, the government funded $7 million in infrastructure to the data center, and an additional $5 million in infrastructure back from the site that will allow a third of the water used at the facility to be recycled.

The water would be used at the city park and on some of the city's lawns, Reid said.

Reid said the city was now pursuing other technology business to relocate to the south end of Bluffdale.

"We're looking to try and combine with Salt Lake County to make that a jobs area," Reid said.

Upon hearing the initial estimates of the NSA center's water use, some residents were skeptical.

"We live in a desert and so it seems like an excess," said Barbara Ericksmoen. "Am I concerned about it? On the fence."

Terry Keddington said he didn't see a problem with the water use or the growth.

"Compared to what it was when I moved out here 30 years ago, it's just grow, grow, grow," Keddington said. "It doesn't surprise me that it's going to grow a little bit more."

Edit; The NSA water usage post

[Viking]

The UK is a lot smaller than the US, the potential environmental impacts of fracking are much more of a factor there. Who knows whether it'll happen.

It will happen. The "potential environmental impacts" of fracking vis a vis importing natural gas from norway are a red herring. '


Horizon did a good investigation into the environmental impacts, stoutly refusing to draw the conclusion that it is safe but presenting the information to the viewer and asking the viewer to decide if the scientists or random hilbillies have the right facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjgzrmoLc7g

Edit; the link to the Horizon documentary on fracking showing that fracking fluid doesn't leak into water supplies and that gas migration into water supply is not likely due to fracking, but possibly due to normal drilling operations.

[mongers]

I happened to go to a fracking presentation in the conurbation end of last week. It was presented by the local Green parties.

I actually left early as I didn't want to waste any more of my time and figured someone who'd actually worked in the hydro-carbon industry and had helped build the oilfield they were in part talking about, wouldn't be listened to. 

The presentation was somewhat fair about the facts of the process and necessary geology, but it was then spun with slight alarmist comments and asides. 

My overall impression, yet another outpouring of Nimbyism; where exactly do people in Southern England want their electricity and energy resources to come from ?

Around here people object to everything, I guess they're happy for fossil fuels to be mined/burned in poor areas up North or in some 3rd world shithole where they don't have to see the environmental/social impact of industry worst practice.

[Viking]

Fracking is mysterious to people who don't know what it is and what they do know is from alarmist activists rather than the specialists in the field. The specialists are invariably "tainted" by association with the oil industry - since they are specialist on the oil industry obviously they are associated with it. The media doesn't do the job any better since they always have to present both sides in a balanced manner. So the scientist has 25 seconds to explain a complex issue while the activist gets 25 seconds to confuse and slander the issue.

I'm not surprised people don't know what is going on. In the internet age we think we are informed if we have the information. We are not. Being informed requires an ability to sort good info from bad and to understand it's significance and it's context.

[mongers]

Fracking is mysterious to people who don't know what it is and what they do know is from alarmist activists rather than the specialists in the field. The specialists are invariably "tainted" by association with the oil industry - since they are specialist on the oil industry obviously they are associated with it. The media doesn't do the job any better since they always have to present both sides in a balanced manner. So the scientist has 25 seconds to explain a complex issue while the activist gets 25 seconds to confuse and slander the issue.

I'm not surprised people don't know what is going on. In the internet age we think we are informed if we have the information. We are not. Being informed requires an ability to sort good info from bad and to understand it's significance and it's context.

What's bloody funny is if they look out from their nice little seaside city into the glorious sunlight coastal bay, they don't realise there are numerous wells fanning out to within a mile of their precious sandy beaches and have been for years with no environmental impact.

And yes some of the oil-bearing rock strata will, to a degree, have already been fractured. 

[Sheilbh]

Let's re-industrialise the North

If we have to lose Blackpool, Rhyl and Southport then that's a bonus.

Edit: And we can build gas-powered super-ships on the Clyde

[mongers]

Let's re-industrialise the North

If we have to lose Blackpool, Rhyl and Southport then that's a bonus.

Edit: And we can build gas-powered super-ships on the Clyde

You've been drinking from the same cup as Tim.

[Viking]

Let's re-industrialise the North

If we have to lose Blackpool, Rhyl and Southport then that's a bonus.

Edit: And we can build gas-powered super-ships on the Clyde

This isn't going to re-industrialize anything. The cost of industrial power is certainly not a deciding factor when making investment decisions in britain. The main effect will be on service industry for the fracking business and now that the UK has local secure power supply russian politics and algerian terrorism no longer will affect the UK business climate.

[Admiral Yi]

Puff, does every fracked well have to pay a royalty to the dude/company that invented the process?

[Viking]

Puff, does every fracked well have to pay a royalty to the dude/company that invented the process?

Fracking has been done since the 1940's. So, no royalties must not be paid. However, proprietary techniques and technologies are used at every stage of the process, but fracking itself is not patented in any way. You can use the outdated methods without paying royalties... but then again if you want to use the modern methods which are still patented you really need the inventor to do it for you so it really isn't much of an issue.

[mongers]

Didn't realise one of our local well was still the world record extended reach.