Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on June 21, 2016
One Way to Solve Fracking’s Water Problem: Don’t Use Water
The shale gas revolution brought the U.S. both energy-superpower status and a short list of headaches. There are engineering challenges, many wells have a disappointingly short productive lifetime, and those lifetimes can vary even within the same field.
Then there are the much-debated environmental trade-offs. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, requires copious water. And while gas-fired power plants produce less CO2 than coal-fired plants, environmentalists are quick to point out that methane itself is a potent greenhouse gas and leaks needlessly from aging infrastructure.
An Australian researcher and two scientists from France, which has banned fracking, now suggest there may be a better way. And it’s a twofer, at least.
Their germ of an idea, published today in the journal Nature Communications, would simultaneously reduce or eliminate drilling’s water footprint, make wells more productive, and trap carbon dioxide underground. How? Substitute high-pressure CO2 for water.
The scientists go to great lengths in the paper and in conversation to qualify their research as preliminary. It’s a theoretical study, run on computer models of molecular behavior, and requires experiments on laboratory scales before anyone ever tries it out on an actual shale deposit.
But it’s a provocative theory.
Fracking is the process by which drillers break apart hydrocarbon-rich underground shale deposits and flood them with water and chemicals to tease out the gas.
The three co-authors use sophisticated software that simulates how molecules interact. What they found in their simulation is that while water initially flushes out the gas, eventually it becomes a kind of molecular seal, trapping the gas in the deposit.
“Even if this effect remains to be established experimentally, it seems to explain a number of facts observed in shale plants, such as the rapid decline in productivity curves,” said Benoit Coasne, a materials scientist affiliated with the French National Center for Scientific Research and MIT and an author of the study.
Substitutes for water may do a better job at liberating the gas. Highly pressurized CO2 not only pushes out the methane molecules without creating the seal that water does, but also might stay underground and out of the atmosphere.
The CO2 must be “supercritical,” a state that’s neither solid nor liquid. That’s not cheap to make, but the researchers are trying to come up with scientifically sound ideas that might reinvent shale gas production, not engineered tools ready to deploy. Not yet. They also studied the physics of propane as a possible fracking fluid.
The study launches from an easy-to-overlook observation: Despite its prominence on the energy scene, fracking isn’t all that well understood at a molecular level. The research aims to lift the veil, or begin to, Coasne said. It was motivated by a desire to help cultivate new directions for debate among the public.
Don’t expect extractive companies to tout the research any time soon. And don’t try this at home.
To the best of his knowledge, Coasne said, “fracking with CO2 is technically possible, although it probably leads to other issues.”
16 Comments on "One Way to Solve Fracking’s Water Problem: Don’t Use Water"
PracticalMaina on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 2:27 pm
Yeah, but you are still cracking rock that contains hydrocarbons under pressure, that can then migrate to a nearby aquifer, its just water. Lack of it is only a significant factor in all corners of the world right now. I am seeing so many reports of Venezuela trying to chalk their crisis up to a leadership issue only. If your damns go dry, and they are the major source of power in your area, you are in a world of trouble.
Dale Pierce on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 3:32 pm
The industry has been doing high pressure foam fracks using CO2 for many years.
Go Speed Racer on Tue, 21st Jun 2016 6:56 pm
Wouldn’t all that CO2 be kind of fizzy? What about if somebody shakes up the rocks and opens the lid real fast.? That could happen in an earthquake. It might produce soda pop instead of natural gas.
murray gray on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 4:17 am
Hydraulic fracturing is done to open more rock face to the actual bore . Imagine the well bore as an Interstate Highway , the hydraulic fracturing builds the feeder roads leading to the main road ( Interstate ) . Water and soap ( in gel form ) are used to carry sand to the producing rock , when the rock is fractured by high pressure the sand is deposited in the crack as a proppant to hold the crack open . The water and soap are pushed back to the surface by the producing formation . Hydraulic fracturing takes place thousands of feet below all fresh water .
Dustin Hoffman on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 6:29 am
If we were not so desperate to keep BAU rolling along this tracking would have been past over….really, do you believe those making these policy decisions are clueless? They have connected the dots are just struggling to keep us alive and fend off collapse.
makati1 on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 6:50 am
Dustin, are they really trying “to keep us alive”? I don’t see it. I do see them prolonging the drain of life blood from the 99% and into their pockets for as long as possible. Nothing more. If anything, they are consciously making it worse every day. Constantly beating the bear and the dragon with multiple sticks. Allowing the home infrastructure to crumble while wasting hundreds of billions on weapons systems that don’t work but are highly profitable for the 1%.
Show me one positive action by any of them to make it better for the 99% or to correct their mistakes of the last 25 years. Just one with creditable references. Good luck.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 9:09 am
Dustin Hoffman, yeah if I didnt have access to fuel to pull a yacht behind my f-350 across the state to try to show off…I would just die.
Murray Gray, no one believes your bullshit, water and soap, right, no solvents, no chemicals, and it is magically all located under a massive rubber membrane that separates our valuable drinking water from the uneconomical poison laden hydrocarbons. Its perfect!
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 9:11 am
If trying to keep us alive, you mean keeping investment bankers and hedge fund managers from leaping off buildings because they invested in the hype, than maybe. Everyone being poisoned by the industrial pollution, they should just make more so they can move out of the way of progress.
Kenz300 on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 9:15 am
Fossil fuels are poisoning the planet……..
Big Oil Could Have Cut CO2 Emissions In 1970s — But Did Nothing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/big-oil-emissions_us_573c9d81e4b0aee7b8e8a046
Oil Giants Spend $115 Million A Year To Oppose Climate Policy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oil-companies-climate-policy_us_570bb841e4b0142232496d97
The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-electric-vehicles_us_56c4d63ce4b0b40245c8cbf6
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 9:28 am
A hyperloop may get built in Russia. https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/21/throughrussiawithlove/
It makes sense to combine these businesses in my opinion. Solar cos are struggling with being at the mercy of the utility’s and storage is the way to fight back.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/21/teslacity/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1730_-5429891510754483695
rockman on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 9:55 am
Practical – “…but you are still cracking rock that contains hydrocarbons under pressure, that can then migrate to a nearby aquifer…”. Actually documented cases of this happening don’t exist. But there are documented cases of frac fluids contaminating drinking water. Very rarely it has happened when the shallow steel casing set to protect the acquirers has failed. But by far the most common cause has been the improper/illegal disposal of produced frac fluids.
And early on the culprits were the local politicians that had companies pay them to take the fluids into municipal treatment center which then released them untreated into the streams. While illegal for a company to do this it wasn’t for the exempted municipalities. At least until both PA and NY passed laws making it illegal.
For years I’ve tried educating folks (including talking directly to those in PA) to stop focusing on the frac trucks/well heads and pay very close attention to those rather harmless looking water tank trucks and disposal companies.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 10:44 am
How could you prove it was happening or otherwise though. You would need very large resources to prove the oil company is not operating safely, and get anyone to acknowledge it, which is the real challenge. Proving BAU is genocidal to the ones benefiting from it is not a popular stance. Look at ExxonMobils climate change cover up, people say it still isn’t proven.
How can you say for sure the only wells that have been contaminated were because of a bad steel install, you can’t, because even with all of your experience in geology, you cant see into an aquifer.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 10:54 am
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/03/29/175042708/Sand-From-Fracking-Operations-Poses-Silicosis-Risk
Also saw an article by the EPA saying they didn’t find widespread water damage, I do not believe them. In the very same article they talk about the hydrocarbons they are extracting as being deep, that is some of Murrays propaganda if you ask me, and this article agrees that many wells are fracked at around 1000 feet. I had an artesian well at my childhood home that was nearly that deep, and that’s in a state that is a huge exporter of bottled water.
Here is the article about shallow fracked wells.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fracking-doesn%E2%80%99t-always-go-great-depths
EPA is corrupt.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 10:56 am
“Some oil and gas wells were fractured as little as 30 meters below ground.” from the above sciencenews article. 30 meters down, at least the puddle on the road might be above the frack fluid depth in the ground.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 22nd Jun 2016 12:05 pm
This is some bullshit, clearly the oil companys should have all the power on both federal and native lands, what a load of crap.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/22/483061014/federal-judge-strikes-down-obama-administrations-fracking-rules
PracticalMaina on Thu, 23rd Jun 2016 8:52 am
Look at these new age hippy home owners complaining about fracking destroying their well.
O actually they are a sweet old couple, the man is a Korean war vet, somehow I doubt they are doing this for personal gain.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-fracking-water_us_576b7a76e4b0c0252e786d5e