Frickin' frackin'

Oops!

I don't think many people understand where oil, or as we here in Texas call it, "awl", comes from, or what we have to do to extract it. Here's the short version....I do have a point here, bear with me:

Oil comes from living things like plants and algae that die and settle into lake and ocean beds, then over time are covered up by thick layers of sediment (think: silt).  Over millions of years these deposits rot and pressure builds as it "ferments" deep underground.

Contrary to popular mis-information, oil deposits are not big underground lakes of black goo.  Oil is trapped in certain types of porous rock (imagine a sponge holding water) and is usually held in place by layers of heavy less-porous rock on top of it. 

When drill pipe punctures the less-porous rock and gets into the oil saturated porous rock below, the intense built-up pressure of all those rotting fossils is released and sends it gushing back up the pipe. 

But after a while the oil's pressure bleeds off and the oil stops flowing upward naturally.  Picture shaking up a bottle of Coke, then popping the bottle cap.  The Coke fizzes straight up and out the top, right?  But after a few seconds the pressure is gone and the rest of the Coke is just sitting there in the bottle.  You have to suck it out with a straw.  That's essentially what an oil "pump jack" does....it sucks the oil out after the natural pressure drops. 

For all this to work you have to drill down directly over the "reservoir" of oil-saturated porous rock.  Drill a bit too far one way or the other and you get nothing....a "dry hole" they call it. 

Enter hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking".  Today fracking is the method we're using to dramatically increase our oil production.  It involves drilling a hole straight down through the less-porous rock layers and the water table (aquifer), then turning 90 degrees (known as horizontal drilling) and running another 5,000 to 10,000 feet.  Then a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand is injected under extreme pressure down the pipe. The pressure cracks the rock in millions of places, the sand fills the cracks and keeps them open, and the otherwise trapped oil can then escape back up.

Fracking can be a good thing.  Too much of the world's oil is concentrated in places that are not friendly to us.  They will sell us their oil, but if we piss them off they can jack the price up as punishment, or even cut us off entirely.  We need to produce oil here where we can be the masters of our own destiny. I get that.

BUT....

Coming back to that photo on top....it has become apparent that fracking is causing increasingly serious earthquakes. It shows what can happen when intense fracking builds up too much pressure, and/or when the horizontal drilling crosses a geologic fault line.  It can mess up the natural underground geology.  That photo of earthquake damage was taken in South Coffeyville, Oklahoma (NE of Oklahoma City) just a few days ago.  We have small 'quakes register here in my area, too, but they're nothing like that!  So far.

Who's going to pay to fix those streets?  Who's going to pay to fix homes that have foundation damage due to these man-made earthquakes?  It won't be the oil companies, you can be sure.  That's because, like the tobacco industry of decades ago, they deny everything.  They deny that their fracking has anything to do with earthquakes.  "We didn't do it, nobody saw us, you can't prove a thing" they say.  And of course their bought-and-paid-for state oil regulators agree with them.  *wink*

We're walking a tightrope:  Yes, we need the oil.  We need to, by fracking or some other means, get as much oil out of the ground as we can while not destroying everything nearby in the process.  But in many places the public water supply is becoming contaminated (just a coincidence they say) and all that sloppy fracking stuff that the earth regurgitates back up has to be recovered and stored someplace, too.  The process is simply not sustainable long term.

IMO our biggest mistake was not launching an all-out Manhattan-Project-style effort 50 years ago to develop an alternative to our oil addiction.  We're working in that direction now, but it will take decades to make a substantial difference.  In the meantime we're probably just stuck with frickin' frackin'.  We're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.  *sigh*

S

Inhale...exhale...wheeze...inhale...exhale...

"After years of denying the issue existed, the central government earlier this year accepted that pollution was of genuine concern."

Gotta hand it to those Chi-Coms....nothing gets past 'em!  Now if we could just get our Tea Party-ers to step outside and suck in a couple of lungs-full.

And now President O'bama wants American electric generating plants to switch from using coal to using natural gas.  I can see why the coal producing regions wouldn't be too happy with this, but if you look at the Big Picture, it's probably a good thing.  

Especially now that we can produce all the natural gas we need without having to import any.  Now if we can just figure out how to keep the ground from shaking while we're sucking it out.  :)

S

Heads we win, tails they lose

This is a news story I thought I'd never see:  The US is on the verge of becoming energy independent.  That outlook is gaining realistic credibility.  We're that close.  Every White House since Jimmah Cahtaa has put forth their plans to get us there, but their plans usually wound up as bird cage lining.  This is for real.


Now here's the rub....a lot of the new oil and natural gas we're producing is via a process called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" for short, and it's becoming more controversial by the day.  A chemical goop is injected into the ground under pressure, forcing oil and gas back out.   A LOT of oil and gas.  But there's also a lot of scary anecdotal evidence, everything from poisoned drinking water to minor earthquakes, that is giving rise to a bunch of activists opposed to fracking. 


The day may come when we can retire using nasty 'ol coal to produce our electricity (sorry Appalachia) and instead use much cleaner and cheaper natural gas.  This could help revitalize our industries, making them more competitive worldwide.  Think CLEAN AIR and JOBS!  And more than enough gasoline to power our cars and trucks and trains and buses.  We won't have to kiss up to those #$&^*&@ bastards in the Middle East any longer, either.  WooHoo!


Of course, the danger is we'll become complacent and go back to driving our land yachts that get 12 mpg, and put the development of new, clean, less polluting non-hydrocarbon fuels on the back burner.  Are we going to have the political will to impose enough taxes on oil and gas products in order to subsidize R&D looking for these better energy sources for the future?  (I doubt it.  Our politicians have never, in my lifetime at least,  been known for their stiff spines.)


So do we risk it?  Do we plow forward with more fricking fracking (too easy!) and hope we can overcome the pollution problems that come with it, and tell the rag hea....er....Sheiks....in the Middle East to kiss our obese American hineys, or say NO to fracking and just accept the status quo?


In my mind it's touchy, but I say go for it.  What say you?


S