Fracking Foe Fears Prove Foolish… Again

“… it is certainly possible that some of the environmental concerns are valid…”

Too much ‘reasonable’ caution, like too much perfection, is a mistake.

“kneejerk Nimby know-nothingism”

W-a-a-y better than any Spiroism, especially with the catchy SMS abbreviation KNKN.

Think Saudi money will make it to Greens to fund their fake science against fracking and American energy independence?

And Oh NOES…now severe thunderstorms, caused of course by Global Climate Warming..I mean Change…are destroying the Ozone layer….run for cover…
the CON never stops….

Well, the greens have to try -something- to stop fracking. After all, if the best estimates prove true then cheaper oil means there’s no reason to go to solar, or wind…or for that matter shave down cars even further in the name of fuel efficiency.

Can’t have that.

To the extent there has been contamination of drinking water quality groundwater due to oil and gas operations its largely due to injections well practices done in fields that are older and not up to modern standards or drilling pits. This has largely been eliminated as an issue and is really not anything like the fracking process, both from an engineering and geological perspective.

“I find fracking scarying” Yeah, yesterday you couldn’t even spell injuneer, and now you is one. “I find the exuberance about fracking somewhat irrational” How exactly is it irrational to be happy about becoming the number one energy producer in the world. I mean, other than jumpstarting our moribund economy, and allowing us to stop send billions of dollars to our enemies in Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, whats good about it.

Who need more Oil and gas when we have such an abundance of Hope&Change!?

Felipe, I am a Feild Engineer with a major oil field service provider. I have been fracking wells since 2002 on two different continents.

I may not be able to change your mind, but from my perspective Fracking has about as much chance at poisining the water supply as backing into your mailbox would shutting down the post office.

We are fracking hundreds if not thousands of feet below the water table, in zones locked from the surface by impentrable cap rock. By definition, there would not be oil where we are drilling if that oil could migrate to the surface. The cap rock is what keeps it in place for us to find.

The most powerful fracking techniques only manage to fracture a few acres worth of oil bearing rock around the well bore and then can not fracture the cap rock for the simple reason we can not inject fracturing liquid into the cap rock because it is impenatrable.

I myself can not imagine a scenerio where you could contaminate the water table. Geologically, I do not think it is possible.

Felipe,

The exuberance comes from finding we’re nowhere near peak oil or peak gas, a favorite ruse of the “drill no more” crowd. Fracking and horizontal drilling are allowing the US to become less dependent on unreliable foreign energy. Indeed, a planned LNG import facility on Chesapeake Bay is now being proposed and an export facility. The largest single contributor to our massive trade deficit is imported energy.

The new drilling techniques are allowing far less expensive source of natural gas, currently one fifth the cost of oil. There is a positive correlation between low energy costs and healthy economy in the US.

NIMBY? I think the acronym you are looking for is BANANA. Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

> For example, you seem to be unaware that the majority jobs in the mining industry are not particularly desirable,

That’s true of pretty much every job. That’s why they have to pay people to do them.

But let’s play along. Garbage man is an “undesirable” job. Does that tell us that we shouldn’t collect garbage?

? and that almost everyone would rather not live next to a gas, coal, or oil operation if they have an alternative.

So? Most folks wouldn’t like to live near a steel mill. I wouldn’t like to live next to a elementary school (screaming kids) or a university (bad parking).

Oh wait – there are folks who pay millions of dollars to live near an oil well. It happens to be on the campus of Beverly Hills High School. (Yes, that beverly hills.)

> . As an engineer, rather than a practicing ideologue,

Real engineers talk about quantifiable costs and benefits. They don’t assume unobtanium.

This is a pretty fundamental point.

It will be the return of USA economic robustness when the politicians find their cojones & say:” Go ahead, make my day – Frack It!”

I completely disagree that a “majority jobs in the mining industry are not particularly desirable”. I worked as a roughneck in the summer near Big Piney, Wyoming when I was going to the U of Wyo. The work was hard, the pay was good, and the days off were spectacular. I knew twenty people or more who would have gladly taken my job, had I been stupid enough to give up a job that in 1985 paid $17/hr for an untrained top chain thrower like me. Maybe engineers don’t want to work in an oilfield (though I never met any of them either), but getting in as a roughneck is pretty sweet.

Re Kevin Baker’s comment on:

(1) NIMBYs–Not in my backyard, and

(2) BANANAs–Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody.

Don’t forget the third cohort, which may better describe what we are dealing with:

(3) NOPEs–Not on Planet Earth

Felipe Pait:
For example, you seem to be unaware that the majority jobs in the mining industry are not particularly desirable

A job with a good salary is “not particularly desirable.” I worked as an engineer in oil and gas well drilling. I would say you don’t know what you are talking about. I found the jobs interesting and well paying.

almost everyone would rather not live next to a gas, coal, or oil operation if they have an alternative. This is a pretty fundamental point.

I was rather glad to lease my 6 acres of mineral rights and later collect production royalties from them. I have heard no complaints whatsoever from others about the drilling. Nor about collecting the royalties.

Granted, I would not want to live next to an oil refinery. Nor would I want to live next to a feed lot.

Felipe,

I don’t know where you’re from, but in Appalachia there are very few undesirable jobs given the past scarcity of jobs of any type. I would be pleased as punch to live with four or five gas wells on my farm. Every time I looked at them I could think about how to spend the next royalty check. You really don’t understand how poor these people are and how much these discoveries have changed their lives. Sure there may noise from the trucks and roads may be deteriorating faster. But now they have money to fix the problem…and the roof of the barn. And I don’t have to pay some barbaric sheik to heat my house. What’s not to like?

Boy I need to edit that!
NOT become fearful and hesitant!

@29, Pettifogger-

If you’ll forgive someone else for pettifogging for a moment…

Not On Planet Earth is clever, I’ll give you that. But there is some irony here. Via Meadia first learned the term BANANA (as far as I can tell) from one of my commets. I had learned it from an Australian mining engineer, with whom I am working on prototyping a 3D printing device that is capable of working in metals at low temperature, which was originally conceived because we wanted one that would work in microgravity.

We’re looking forward to the day — we’re trying to hasten it along in fact — when Not On Planet Earth industries account for as much human wealth as our current terrestrial industrial base does.

We live in interesting times, and as people pointed out about field work, “interesting” doesn’t have to mean “bad”.

As for Felipe– don’t be too hard on him, he’s probably a software ‘engineer’ who works in a cubicle and can’t imagine doing anything with his hands beyond typing and clicking a mouse. I used to do that five days a week — bored me silly — and am much happier now that my days include trips to the production floor. It’s a very limited perspective, though, and leaves you too vulnerable to believing what the “experts” picked by the NYT have to say about anything outside of your own scant experience.

Mead, what is it with you? You reject fracking fears because there’s no evidence but are a global warming alarmist who thinks the science is settled even though the models have utterly failed to predict the past decade’s global temperature trends. Are you blind to the contradiction? Or just ignorant of the facts?

“As we’ve said before, it is certainly possible that some of the environmental concerns are valid…”

Just as it is possible from quantum mechanics that one can walk through a brick wall without damage to the wall or one’s self. Neither is likely.

Casey #17, I understand your argument but I think a more complete understanding from my part is needed. Some people seem to be willing to have a complete definitive opinion without understanding the specifics but I am not one of them.

Corky Boyd #19, you are correct that domestic sources of energy are preferable to imports from geopolitically dangerous places but that is not the only consideration. Also, there are reasons to be skeptical about the wild claims about gas.

Andy Freeman #23, ccsmith #24, and Gringo #31, brush up on the Economics 101 concept of externalities. One person may profitably sells the rights to drilling in their land, and not care when their neighbors’ land loses value.

Diggs #27 and Gringo #31, I am happy about the great job you had but it is still true that most people don’t look forward to a job in mining.

John Galt #13, Donald Kotowski #18, AD-RtR/OS! #22, Patrick #30, Jim #37, thanks for the personal attacks. That’s the foundation on which a healthy debate is built on, isn’t it?

@Felipe-

I thought that healthy debate was about opening people’s eyes to possibilities they hadn’t considered.

You really ought to consider that people who “don’t look forward to a job in” mining, drilling, or other sector where you get your hands dirty but produce something of real value for humanity, are missing out and could benefit from a healthier attitude.

You really ought to consider that these jobs are not the old-fashioned “black lung” sorts of jobs… in fact, an increasing number of them involve large amounts of teleoperation. Mining from the comfort of your own cubicle — even you might like it.

You really ought to consider the possibility that the “experts” handpicked by the MSM have more to say about Leftist editors’ desires than about the actual world we live in.

CR says:

“NIMBY? I think the acronym you are looking for is BANANA.”

Yes, but it would not fit the alliteration at the end of the article very well

How about banal bankrupting BANANA bandicoots?

And would the statement “You didn’t build this” the future pluperfect tense of BANANA?

Jim #45, thanks for clarifying, your previous post gave the impression that your idea of debate was personal invective. Actually, your post #45 does give a similar impression, at least the part after the 1st paragraph which states something different.

Bem feito, Felipe.

Milita a boa milícia.

Gringo #43, perhaps there are cases when a man is happy that the neighbor made money out of a lease and he got a nice view of a mining or drilling operation. I doubt they are very common.

Mining and drilling operations have more similarities than differences. In a general engineering conversation, the terms are often used interchangeably. The specifics can be different, but many arguments don’t depend much on whether the fossil fuels are solid, liquid, or a gas.

No honest work is undignified, however most people prefer jobs of one kind over another.

Jazz #52, boosterism doesn’t inspire any confidence in people who want rational arguments. I didn’t think much of Mrs Davis argument but neither did I insult her personally. Oh, if you think people so much love living next to fracking operations, sell me an apartment in Central Park and I’ll give you a couple of acres in West Virginia in exchange. Yards, miles, urban, suburban, whatever you want….

Thibaud, what is it about fracking that brings out the most random arguments? It’s not as if we are talking about sex or religion here…….

Felipe;

Actually, if you look at most microseismic data gathered during fracturing operations, at least that I have seen, confirms the point that Casey made earlier. Most generally, height growth is less than 500 feet upward and usually less than 300 feet.

As an engineer, I just ask that you do the volumetric calculations. Probably about the largest frac jobs I have seen are ~500,000 gallons of water in 5 perforation clusters (100,000 gallons/cluster)with 80% fluid effeciency (20% of the water is pushed into the pore space of the reservoir)is probably a reasonable number for low perm reservoirs. If you assume a frac width of ~0.2″, single planar fractures, and no stress bounding layers, the radial growth of the fracture is ~450 ft. Worst case, if all of the fluid went into one cluster of perforations and no water leaked off to the formation then the radial growth would still only be ~1,130 ft. Even if you doubled the volume with no leakoff and one cluster, the radial growth would still only be ~1,600 ft.

Given that most of the fracs today are ~10,000 ft or more and most fresh water aquifers are ~1,000 ft or less, the volumetrics don’t add up even in the worst case scenarios. In reality, most fractures are not single and planar (from microseismic data). There are usually multiple fractures, thus decreasing the volume per fracture thus decreasing the growth. There is almost always a higher stressed interval above the reservoir of interest. This will tend to make the fracture grow more outward than upward.

The other issue is that most regulatory agencies require protection of the deepest fresh water aquifer with a surface casing set through the aquifer and cemented with good, competent cement back to surface.

Me personally, I have been frac’ing for 20 years (probably ~10,000 fracs) and have never seen any evidence of excessive height growth that would have compromised any fresh water aquifer. In fact, I have designed fracs for drinking water wells for US Public Health. Granted, there were precautions taken.

As far as mining and drilling operations being so similar, I disagree 100%. I am a petroleum engineer, my wife is a mining engineer, my dad was a miner, and many of my relatives were miners or work in the oilfields. The only thing close to a similarity in mining and drilling as far as I can tell, is the fact that there is some limited drilling in open pit mining operations. However, those drilling operations are quite different. There is no way to hold an intelligent, coherent conversion on either mining or drilling with oilfield and mining people together other than on a basic level with a lot of detail and explanation. Please expand on your contention that mining and drilling operations have more similarities than differences as I would love to be enlightened.

As a final note, on the economic side of things, oil companies want height growth to be as limited as possible. The fracture growing out of the hydrocarbon reservoir does nothing to enhance the production of a well while increasing cost. Most generally, if a fracture enters a zone that has moveable water in it, it usually severely reduces the production in the well. Companies go to great lengths to stay out of these wet zones.

Felipe:
Gringo #43, perhaps there are cases when a man is happy that the neighbor made money out of a lease and he got a nice view of a mining or drilling operation. I doubt they are very common.
The problem with that answer regarding O&G wells is that if you can see a drilling rig from your land, the odds are pretty good that you are on the lease- unless the mineral rights to your land belong to someone else.

There have been more than one million oil and gas wells drilled in Texas since 1919. If the relation between mineral rights owners of producing wells and landowners who didn’t own mineral rights for producing wells was as antagonistic as you presume, there would have been a huge civil war in Texas by now. Hasn’t happened.

You know next to nothing about oil and gas production, or about oil and gas leases, yet you have the gall to pontificate on these issues.

Felipe#12
For example, you seem to be unaware that the majority jobs in the mining industry are not particularly desirablle.
Gringo #50
Please inform me why those jobs are not particularly desirable. WHY? WHY?

Couldn’t answer that, could you?

It is rather ironic that you bring forth the “I AM AN ENGINEER” meme when you don’t know jack about oil and gas production,nor about oil and gas leases.

I would not have the gall to presume to pontificate about electrical engineering, because that is not my field.

Gringo #57, environmental damage can extend further than line-of-sight.

Also, there was no need to join the crowd whose mode of argument is personal invective. There is no point giving rational answers to the rest of you questions, which were merely rhetorical anyway. Since that is how you prefer it, I’ll join the crowd and say you are all hat and no cattle.

Gringo [previous comments]
It is rather ironic that you bring forth the “I AM AN ENGINEER” meme when you don’t know jack about oil and gas production,nor about oil and gas leases…..

BTW, stating that “you don’t know jack about oil and gas production,nor about oil and gas leases,” is not a personal attack. It is a statement of fact.

Felipe
Also, there was no need to join the crowd whose mode of argument is personal invective.

Anyone who conflates mining with O&G extraction proves my point about not knowing jack.[#12]. See my Colorado School of Mines comment [#58].

Have you ever seen the paperwork for an oil and gas lease, or an actual on the ground oil and gas lease?

Have you taken any courses in Petroleum Engineering?
Have you ever belonged to the Society of Petroleum Engineers?
Have you ever worked as an engineer in the oil field?

I answer yes to all four.

Ciao.

Gringo, I admire your patience with Felipe, when you could simply address him in the following perfectly acceptable manner: “In view of the quality of your previous arguments I feel no need to reply to you”. After all, one can hardly come up with an analysis more reflective of quality engineering thought than: “I find fracking scarying”.

In which case, the last word was and is “scarying”.

Gringo #66, I am sorry that you took a statement of fact about mining jobs as a personal insult, which it was certainly not meant to be. It is a fact of life that people prefer jobs in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or Hollywood, to give examples, to work in potentially dirty or dangerous environments. Not that the latter work is demeaning, much the contrary indeed. The sacrifices people make in order to extract from the ground the fossil fuels that all of us consume are admirable.

[Please refrain from disparaging other commenters.]