Is Water-free Fracking the Answer to The Concerns of Those Against Hydraulic Fracturing?
Hydraulic Fracturing has been used commercially in the natural gas industry since 1949. In recent years, the process’ impacts on the environment have become a major concern for executives within the industry as well as residents of towns where the technology is used.
Now new waterless-fracking technologies are being introduced in the industry. Instead of water, the new techniques make use of propane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen or other chemicals.
Advocates of water-free fracking highlight these major benefits:
- Drilling chemicals are not brought back up the surface- this solves one of the major environmental impacts of traditional fracking and is reason enough to switch to water-free fracking.
- It makes fracking feasible in arid regions- because traditional fracking requires considerable amount of water, the method is not always possible in towns where there is limited water resource.
- Propane can be reused- propane can be collected again and reused. This is usually not done with water used in fracking.
- Increased production- because propane and other elements do not block hydrocarbons, the yield is higher.
However, the water-free fracking is not without its disadvantages. Drillers are slow to embrace the new technologies due to the following reasons:
- Higher investment cost- because the technology is relatively new, it may require higher capital cost than traditional methods. Aside from the cost of the propane, there is also the additional cost involved with transporting propane in trucks.
- Other elements used in fracking are highly compressible- this presents the issue of building pressure to fracture rocks. Water is practically incompressible so the required pressure to fracture the rocks is easily reached.
- Road damage and pollution- brought about by propane transportation to the job sites using trucks.
There is a risk of explosion- while conventional fracking is not without its risks, explosion is not one of them. While propane used in fracking is usually in gel form, there is still the risk of vapor clouds forming and exploding.
Terry Smeader
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