THE Fracking Thread (merged)

[TheDude]

Operation Plowshare.

Operation Plowshare, better known as Project Plowshare, not to be confused with the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement, was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.

Suggested usage
Proposed uses included widening the Panama Canal, constructing a new sea-level waterway through Nicaragua, cutting paths through mountainous areas for highways, and for connecting inland river systems. Other proposals involved blasting underground caverns for water, natural gas, and petroleum storage. Serious consideration was also given to using these explosives for various mining operations. One proposal suggested using nuclear blasts to connect underground aquifers in Arizona. Another plan involved surface blasting on the western slope of California's Sacramento Valley for a water transport project. At the end of the program, a major objective was to develop nuclear explosives, and blast techniques, for stimulating the flow of natural gas in "tight" underground reservoir formations.

Nuclear explosives have not been used for commercial engineering purposes in the United States, but the concept has been tested.

Heinberg said in an interview that they were considering using nukes to fry oil shale or tar sands in the 60s; also possibly diverting the Mississipi for water input...anybody bat around these notions anymore? Think it could be done?

[Opies]

I think, especially on a nuclear level, that carving out the planet for our unsustainable needs it just going to leave more problems for future generations, or for own own generation in the not so distant future. I can't see how this would be anything other than a bad idea all around.

[steam_cannon]

I've heard of these programs before. Interesting ideas, but the process wasn't used due to cost and concerns over radioactive contamination. However, we might see some more of that technology if people get desperate enough. The idea was looked into because radioactivity was considered safer back then. And in a more desperate future, low level radioactivity might be the least of our worries.

"After the test it was found that the blast cavities had not connected as hoped, and the resulting gas still contained unacceptable levels of radionuclides... The contaminated well gas was never channeled into commercial supply lines."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

This for example, it wouldn't surprise me if this Radioactive Natural Gas test field might come back on line for industrial use in the future.

[TheDude]

I'm not in favor of it by any means, just wondering if any work had been conducted on it lately. I wouldn't be surprised to see it implemented anyway down the road. It'd be a lot simpler than trying to build in situ CANDU reactors.

Was listening to Julian Darley talk about some Welsh miners ("brought over after Maggie Thatcher was done with them!" Julian's good fun to listen to) who actually excavated underneath some of the tar sands. That's a good image to bring up when explaining to people what goop this stuff really is.

[Tanada]

IIRC several gas fields and at least one oil field in the FSU used nuclear stimulation quite successfully. I will see if I can find any links and post them if I do.

[cube]

Diverting the Brahmaputra River

There are two parts: One is the construction of the world's largest hydroelectric plant on the Great Bend dwarfing all other similar projects (it will generate 40,000 megawatts, more than twice the electricity produced by the Three Gorges Dam); the second is...

Such a feat would be impossible with conventional methods, engineers stated at a meeting held last December at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics in Beijing. But they added, "we can certainly accomplish this project" with nuclear explosives.

[TheDude]

From the October 2002 Pop Mechanics. Good bit of propaganda for bunker busters!

[lonewolf]

"Natural Gas Drilling: What We Don’t Know"
lengthy article here

'What we do know' is that so long as the connedsumer remains blissfully 'high and dry' (fed, warm and pleasured aka convenienced), virtually NO one gives a 'flying frack' about any damage done or any downstream consequence whatsoever. And never will. Me, Mine, Now, F all other! "Non-negotiable" and Bust

tangentially (non-energy) related:
Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law link

die monkey die

[pstarr]

"Natural Gas Drilling: What We Don’t Know"
lengthy article here
'What we do know' is that so long as the connedsumer remains blissfully 'high and dry' (fed, warm and pleasured aka convenienced), virtually NO one gives a 'flying frack' about any damage done or any downstream consequence whatsoever. And never will. Me, Mine, Now, F all other! "Non-negotiable" and Bust
tangentially (non-energy) related:
Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law link

Another nice short rant. Becoming a fan.

The fract bidness is just one more symptom of peak oil (high-hanging fruit, crappy energy return, etc.) Like a bunch of other recent scams (biofools, tar sands, ultra deep water etc.) this one is riding on the same rusting cheap petroleum infrastructure. That we can afford to waste valuable capital, clean water, time, and big equipment on such a doomed deadend enterprise is dependent on blissfully ignorant 'investors' with the luxury to misunderstand geology, history and even basic finances. $6/bcf seems to be the showstopper if I am correct.

[lonewolf]

@pstarr - then you may also 'appreciate' another surrogate identity, Dr. Doom, as seen here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-ZNG-tY7_Q

[JRP3]

Here in Central NY there is a big outcry against fracking and the potential damage it can bring.

[shortonsense]

Here in Central NY there is a big outcry against fracking and the potential damage it can bring.

More than half a century of hydraulic fracturing, do you feel the concerns are anything in particular? We've had references to noisy rigs, spilled fuel on the ground near wells, poor air quality, none of which has anything to do with the actual hydraulic fracturing of course, but certainly the hooplah over this seems pretty extensive.

[culicomorpha]

I recently became aware of the issue with the fracking fluids. Came across a news story that implicates Zetaflow, a proprietary fracking fluid produced by Halliburton, in severely poisoning a worker, who then went to the emergency room. The nurse who treated him was hospitalized herself after being exposed for "5-10 minutes" according to the story.

Not surprisingly, Colorado is now discussing the possibility of requiring chemical disclosure of the fracking chemicals, and in this case, Halliburton, the manufacturer of Zetaflow, is threatening to leave the state rather than disclose the composition of the chemical. The issue is also discussed in a diary at Daily Kos.

Just today, I had an interesting experience that is not all that dissimilar to the fracking chemical non-disclosure. At the moment, I'm working for a major tech company. I've been having health issues and I have some suspicion that these problems are directly related to workplace exposures. Partly this is due to the fact that all my symptoms disappeared during the holiday shutdown of 2-1/2 weeks, and then returned after about 4 hours of work this Monday. By today I was starting to get irritated, and decided to actually look at the MSDS's that are in books all over the place. Low and behold, over 90% of the chemicals that are used in large quantities in the facility are listed as proprietary, and further, there is exactly zero health or toxicological data. None. Many of the data sheets have warnings, recommend against inhalation (which is completely impossible given the chemicals are in heated baths with no ventilation whatsoever.) Ironically, many of the chemicals have "RESPIRATORY SENSITIZER" or "SKIN SENSITIZER" written in large letters on the front page of the MSDS. I don't know how to evaluate this, since again, no toxicological data.

I complained to one of the people working in the area about the problem, basically saying: what good is it to have "safety information" when the chemical content is not disclosed, and the toxicological data is completely lacking? While the company can certainly make the claim that the content is proprietary for competitors, to do so for workers exposed to the chemical is clearly to prevent workers from making a correlation between their health problems and their workplace exposures. The woman I spoke with stopped at one point, looked down, and started talking about her friends at the plant who have died of cancer over the years. She pointed out that many of them didn't smoke and then amazingly, she joked that she would probably retire and then croak.

That is the world we now live in. People in power, people in business regularly and routinely lie, obscure, hide, and distort health risks of their products in order to make a buck. From what I gather from my little research into fracking fluids is that the probability of contaminating nearby (and not so nearby) wells is very high. I'm certainly glad I don't live in a region where these fluids are used.

Shortonsense: I do not share your glibness and confidence in the safety of these fracking fluids. For almost 200 years, dentists have been inserting mercury in people's mouths (you know, those "silver" fillings, which are really 50% mercury or more), so the fact that a thing has been done for a long time is absolutely not a proof of its safety.

[JRP3]

What he said. They don't want to tell us what's in these fluids that have the strong potential to contaminate ground water. I actually own some land that might allow me to get some income from gas extraction but until we get a clearer picture of what's involved I'm against it. From what I've seen so far these are not chemicals we want to pump into the ground.

[shortonsense]

Shortonsense: I do not share your glibness and confidence in the safety of these fracking fluids. For almost 200 years, dentists have been inserting mercury in people's mouths (you know, those "silver" fillings, which are really 50% mercury or more), so the fact that a thing has been done for a long time is absolutely not a proof of its safety.

Hydraulic fracturing fluids are primarily water. This fluid is pumped under pressure underground, and then it is allowed to flow back to the surface, where it is captured and disposed of under applicable EPA and UIC rules, the Marcellus frac water for example is being put on rail cars and disposed of in Ohio.

I think making an issue of it is primarily a political tactic to try and stop it under the usual NIMBY concerns of New Englanders....who would rather pollute the air with emissions from No. 4 fuel oil rather than cleaner natural gas. But the fluid is just a distraction to make a fuss over.

[shortonsense]

What he said. They don't want to tell us what's in these fluids that have the strong potential to contaminate ground water.

Because they can pollute ground water doesn't mean there is a strong potential that they will. Do you have any inside knowledge as to how water can get past a pressure tested cement column some hundreds of feet in height, fill a void space some multiple thousands of feet tall, work its way past another thousand feet of steel and/or concrete to even REACH a freshwater formation?

The design to stop this water from migrating is intentional.

[lonewolf]

I used to think that your chosen moniker was most 'fracking' appropriate, ShortonSense. But not any more. Now you are ShortonSynapses. Which would explain why you exhibit no concern for a pending dieoff - or for anything else for that matter - as your once functional neurons have already died. The few that do remain obviously barely operate your purple helmeted yogurt thrower. Apparently, as a child, you really enjoyed sniffing glue and almost certainly still do.

[pstarr]

I used to think that your chosen moniker was most 'fracking' appropriate, ShortonSense. But not any more. Now you are ShortonSynapses. Which would explain why you exhibit no concern for a pending dieoff - or for anything else for that matter - as your once functional neurons have already died. The few that do remain obviously barely operate your purple helmeted yogurt thrower. Apparently, as a child, you really enjoyed sniffing glue and almost certainly still do.

Come on wolf. Didn't you know that anything we dump into the environment is automatically converted by the marketplace into an economic 'externatlity' and thus rendered harmless through tax write offs etc. There is no need to worry. The marketplace takes care of everything. Any cancers etc. will also be converted into a "cost of doing business" and taken out of said families paycheck. And delivered to Shorty. The investor.

[mcgowanjm]

What he said. They don't want to tell us what's in these fluids that have the strong potential to contaminate ground water.

Because they can pollute ground water doesn't mean there is a strong potential that they will. Do you have any inside knowledge as to how water can get past a pressure tested cement column some hundreds of feet in height, fill a void space some multiple thousands of feet tall, work its way past another thousand feet of steel and/or concrete to even REACH a freshwater formation? The design to stop this water from migrating is intentional.

BWAHAHAHAHA Yeah I got the info right here.

You know "fracking" , means fracturing. It doesn't mean bore hole cased in cement. And the 'sand' used to keep those fractured cracks open? How far do those "cracks" spread?

The Oil Drum | Making holes and cracks around oil and gas wells Nov 22, 2009 ... I have been called in to reorganise a shale gas project in the Horn River Basin which has totally lost all direction. ... And if those aspects didn't make it difficult to quantify the .... The economic value is spread across the board. .... Question 2: How far do the cracks go away from the bore? ...

#NWPOA exploding water well in PA.
5 posts - 3 authors - Last post: Dec 8, 2009
NOT Marcellus Shale gas caused to mingle in the water due to Hydrofracing. .... Re: NWPOA exploding water well in PA. Update 12-8-09 ... http://www.pagaslease.com/forum/index.php?topic=2638.0 - Cached

Wild Horse (and Burro) Warriors: Exploding Water Wells in Colorado ...
Nov 2, 2009 ... Exploding Water Wells in Colorado Town Due to Gas Exploration: Water UNFIT to .... Oil Shale & Tar Sands Information Center · BLM Dept. ...
wildhorsewarriors.blogspot.com/.../exploding-h20-wells-in-colorado-twon.html

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5982 -

[JRP3]

Because they can pollute ground water doesn't mean there is a strong potential that they will. Do you have any inside knowledge as to how water can get past a pressure tested cement column some hundreds of feet in height, fill a void space some multiple thousands of feet tall, work its way past another thousand feet of steel and/or concrete to even REACH a freshwater formation?

The design to stop this water from migrating is intentional.

You don't seem to understand how fracking actually works. Not to mention that after fracking the used fluid sits in open "containment" ponds until they can figure out what to do with it. Sewage treatment plants cant handle it.