Hacker News Reader

Comment by chris_va | Hacker News Reader

"The research paints a picture of unsafe practices including the dumping of drilling and production fluids containing diesel fuel, high chemical concentrations in unlined pits and a lack of adequate cement barriers to protect groundwater."

... So it isn't the fracking per se, but toxic waste disposal and leaking in transit.

View on HN

Pavilion is a pathological case. It's the rare area where producible oil is only hundreds of feet below the surface, at the same depths as groundwater [1]. All other plays of interest in the US are one to two miles deep. It's irresponsible to permit fracking in Pavilion. At the same time, polluting groundwater in Pavilion does not condemn fracking operations miles below the surface.

[1] http://trib.com/business/energy/fracking-absolved-of-blame-e...

polluting groundwater in Pavilion does not condemn fracking operations miles below the surface

Still, this is an excellent example to point out that current regulation fails.

At best it shows that regulation in Wyoming failed. And even then there is debate: http://energyindepth.org/mtn-states/stanford-researchers-rep...

There is always "debate" when an industry's profits are involved.

As I understand it shale formations holding petroleum are often 500 to 1000 feet down. Add that these are also fracked horizontally over hundreds of feet as well and I'll suggest there's a real worry to deal with. I also think there are too many people in the industry relying upon information derived from older history and not taking into account just how different fracking really is under the shale revolution.

> As I understand it shale formations holding petroleum are often 500 to 1000 feet down.

So I just recently left a job doing downhole tool design and everything I was hearing was high temperature, high pressure, high shock & vibe. I saw plenty of well plans that were 10k feet down and then 15k feet sideways, and little else.

I'm not saying that other things can't exist, but the cookie-cutter wells that drillers were doing as of a year or two ago were largely down deep and long sideways.

Yeah, sadly there doesn't seem to be a free and publicly available body of data we can get a true picture from. It would be nice to have a list of all horizontal wells drilled in the last 5 years with target depths and lengths, but I doubt that will ever be available.

I will say this: I spent years reading geological logs looking for bypass pay and I know there's plenty work being done or to be done in the depth range I mentioned. So in my mind the worry is real and people do need to get their heads wrapped around it.

Each state offers a free or small fee service where you can view detailed well information. I work at a company that aggregates that information.

There are 475 oil and gas drilling rigs running in the US today. The shallowest well is permitted to 1600 feet. The next shallowest is 2600 feet. In all, only fourteen of these actively drilling wells are permitted to depths shallower than 5000 feet.

Which does not surprise me. Under the current economic conditions only the most prolific wells are going to be drilling. That's why I suggested the last 5 years. Also, I eluded to the work that is "to be done". So when the low hanging fruit is taken then the other opportunities will show a broader range of depths.

All of this ignores the salient point I've made - That the risk is very real. If not from wells drilled today then from past or future drilling.

Note I'm not suggesting that people should freak out, but I am suggesting that industry players are spending too much time downplaying the risks and not taking a serious look.

Oh. Yeah, that's Bad then. I would heartily agree - they should then not do that.

Yes. As I understand it (chemical engineer, not a petroleum engineer), fracking for oil and gas (in addition to normal oil drilling) is USUALLY done thousands of feet below the water table. For some reason here they were fracking at a much shallower depth, in addition to doing things like "dumping of drilling and production fluids containing diesel fuel, high chemical concentrations in unlined pits" (from TFA).

Fracking is like setting a bomb off underground, but you can imagine there being something a city block or two of solid rock between where the bomb's going off and the water table.

>.. So it isn't the fracking per se, but toxic waste disposal and leaking in transit.

Which is terrible but also easily controlled through technology and regulation.

Shhhh, that's not consistent with the "narrative"

..as a result of fracking..

...in an unsafe manner...

The statements by the researchers are intended to give the impression that fracking is inherently dangerous. Their data do not back that up; rather, their data show that fracking is a process that can be very dangerous and environmentally damaging when not done properly and regulated to ensure it is done properly.

Except without any regulation or enforcement there is no incentive or companies to care about the environmental impact.

So yes, if you do fracking nicely and care about the impact then there is no problem. The reality is that no one involved in fracking cares and it's all about the bottom line so screw the environment.

But yes, it's totally safe otherwise.

> Except without any regulation or enforcement there is no incentive or companies to care about the environmental impact.

I specifically said, "and regulated to enforce it".

> The reality is that no one involved in fracking cares and it's all about the bottom line so screw the environment.

That is not the reality, and I challenge you to demonstrate that.

But keep in mind that many forms of drilling use these tailings ponds to deal with contaminated water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sands_tailings_ponds

There exist portable treatment plants that solve the whole problem, should prices ever return to allow their use again.

That doesn't make it okay

"cement barriers" are not fracking. It's general to all drilling and oilfield operations.

Growing up my dads best friend was CEO of Alcoa... And there has long been the debate about fluoride in water.

I was told that fluoride is a by product of aluminum production, and it is extraordinarily toxic/acidic...

They can't dispose of it... So they found that small quantities in water wasn't toxic, per se, but helped with "tooth health" - but what I was told next stayed with me to this day "what better place to store it than in your liver"...

The earth is a lot more - but it's certainly the liver of humanity.

Basically they use toxic waste to force out the profitable product.

If one glass of beer makes you feel good but having too much can kill you, does one ban beer? Fluoride is basic, not acidic (H-F has a specially strong covalent bond) and the ion used as the source of fluoride in dental supplementation is not usually straight fluoride. Furthermore, the beneficial concentration is very different from the one which is toxic.

That wasnt my point...

My point was that you take toxic waste, Flouride, and distribute it amongst a massive population of deposits (people) - even if its beneficial.. and you find a way to dispose of waste.

I personally dont have an opinion on the safety of fluoride in water - I just know that in the early 80s this is what I heard hanging around the CEO of ALCOA...

They're not the same thing.

Finding a novel way of storing a bunch of toxic waste spread all across everything is the same thing.

Fracking fluids can basically be made from anything, so just randomly pumping random chemicals into the ground to store them there is the same as spreading the volume of aluminum production byproducts across a vast population is the same thing.

Further, with respect to fluoride - like I said, the CEO of Alcoa said this to my dad... So that comment holds some fucking merit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com