One major issue is whether the US federal government should get more involved in fracking regulations. Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued rules requiring oil and gas companies to limit air pollution from fracking operations, and it is currently studying groundwater contamination. But, for now, the feds have tread lightly. And Congress has exempted fracking from certain provisions of the Clean Water Act.
Some states and localities, meanwhile, have proposed blanket bans on fracking. New York state, for instance, has had a moratorium since Here's a longer list of regulations in the United States. Fracking itself has rarely been linked to earthquakes though Ohio is investigating this. But the disposal of all the wastewater used in fracking has been known to cause tremors. Once a well is fracked, there are thousands of gallons of wastewater left over.
Companies often dispose of that chemical-laced water by pumping it into separate underground "injection wells. If those rocks lie near a geologic fault, that could trigger a tremor. At least, that's the theory. One study by the U.
Geologic Survey found that earthquakes were on the rise in areas where wastewater injection was increasing. A follow-up study found that wastewater injection likely caused a earthquake in Oklahoma. It's worth noting that not all injection wells are associated with earthquakes, and many of these events were minor tremors. Still, there are plenty of questions about whether these earthquakes could get stronger as fracking expands.
As of , the United States had billion barrels of oil and 2, trillion cubic feet of natural gas that was "technically recoverable. This is oil and gas that we currently have the technology to access. But that doesn't mean we'll actually extract all that oil and gas. A lot depends on economic conditions. If prices go higher, then it will become more profitable for companies to drill for more oil and gas.
But if prices fall, it becomes less profitable and they might just leave it in the ground. That's why many analysts focus on a different measure, known as "proved reserves" — the stuff we could recover given existing technology and economic conditions. By that measure, there are 29 billion barrels of oil and To put that all into perspective, the United States consumed about 7 billion barrels of oil and 26 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in So that means we have anywhere from a 13 years' supply of natural gas to an 84 years' supply.
It all depends. Lots of things. About 93 percent of the fuel we use for transportation comes from oil. And natural gas is currently used to provide about one-third of the nation's electricity. Here's a more precise breakdown:. Oil: The U. Roughly 87 percent is turned into fuel for cars, trucks, and airplanes.
Some of the oil is refined into home heating fuel. The rest is used for a wide array of industrial purposes to make chemicals, paints, plastics, greases, asphalt, and so forth.
Natural gas: The United States consumed about 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in About 36 percent of that was used to generate electricity at power plants.
Another 28 percent was used to heat homes and buildings. And the rest was used for various industrial purposes generating electricity or heat to help produce everything from steel to paper to food. For the past few decades, the United States has been a major importer of oil and natural gas.
But thanks to the fracking boom, the country is now in a position to sell some of its newfound abundance to other countries. But that would require changing certain laws — and doing so is controversial. Natural gas: If companies want to ship natural gas to other countries, they need to get a permit from the Department of Energy to do so they get one automatically if the United States has a free trade agreement with that country.
More and more companies are applying for export permits these days and building shipping terminals. Opponents of these plans say that increased exports could lead to increases in the price of natural gas for Americans, hurting consumers and domestic manufacturers. See here for more detail.
Oil: Ever since the s, it has been illegal for companies to export crude oil abroad with a few exceptions. In the wake of the fracking boom, many oil companies want to revise these laws, claiming that these restrictions are depressing prices and hurting their business.
Opponents of exports argue, among other things, that this could raise gasoline prices for some drivers in the Midwest. Right now, the United States imports 40 percent of the oil that it consumes. That number is expected to shrink to about 32 percent in the decades ahead, thanks to increased production and the fact that we're driving more efficient vehicles.
But it still means plenty of imports :. Even if we could reduce our imports all the way to zero, however, the United States still wouldn't be totally independent of foreign countries. That's because oil prices are set on the global market.
So instability in the Middle East or rapid growth in China would still drive up global oil prices — leading to price spikes here in the United States. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, and when we burn it for electricity, we produce carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. But natural gas is much cleaner on this score than coal is, producing just half the carbon dioxide per unit of energy. So when we replace coal with natural gas, we're contributing somewhat less to global warming.
That's what's happening in the United States. The glut of cheap shale gas has persuaded many electric utilities to switch from coal to natural gas. That was one reason why U. There's a catch, however: The whole process of fracking for and transporting natural gas can lead to emissions of methane, another potent greenhouse gas. No one's quite sure how big those methane leaks are — there's a lot of disagreement among researchers.
But those leaks could potentially undermine the climate benefits of natural gas, unless companies find ways to fix them. Here 's a rundown of potential fixes. In the long run, however, natural gas is still a source of greenhouse-gas emissions, and efforts to avoid drastic global warming will likely require the world to sharply curtail its use of gas in the next few decades. So natural gas, by itself, isn't a solution for global warming.
See here for more detail on this. A few countries have been using fracking for some time — particularly Canada. But shale fracking hasn't yet caught on anywhere the way it has in the United States. Plenty of countries abroad have their own shale gas and shale oil resources. That includes China, which appears to have nearly twice as much shale gas underground as the United States does:. But fracking has been slow to spread overseas, for a variety of reasons.
Some countries, like France and the Netherlands, have banned fracking for fear of water contamination. Others, like Austria, have such strict regulations that drilling is uneconomical. Even countries in favor of fracking have seen sluggish progress, in part because working with shale can be extremely difficult and complicated.
In Poland, there's still plenty of work that has to be done to understand the region's geology. And, in China, the spread of fracking has been hampered by a variety of factors — complex geology, a dearth of water supplies in key regions, and a burdensome layer of regulations that hamper innovation. This card stack is very much a work in progress. The Marcellus Shale region is particularly attractive to gas drillers because it's a rich supply of natural gas — some call it " the Saudi Arabia of natural gas " or " Frackistan " — and because many of the region's rural communities are economically depressed and eager to attract an energy industry that enjoys handsome profits.
Proponents of fracking claim that the drilling technique is a safe and clean method of securing essential sources of power that will meet U. But opponents say the industry is whitewashing fracking's real effects, a long list that includes air pollution, groundwater contamination, health problems and surface water pollution. Recent history supports some of their claims: A fracking well in Bradford County, Pa. Researchers from Duke University tested drinking water at 60 sites throughout Pennsylvania and New York; their research was published in in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers found that drinking water near fracking wells had levels of methane that "fell squarely within a range that the U. Department of Interior says is dangerous and requires urgent 'hazard mitigation' action," ProPublica reports. There may be more cases of water that has been contaminated by fracking, but legal settlements and nondisclosure agreements usually prevent access to any documentation of these incidents, The New York Times reports.
A federal study , released in July by the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory, did find no evidence that chemicals from the fracking process had contaminated groundwater at one Pennsylvania drilling site. In addition to water quality issues, fracking wells release compounds into the air, such as benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and n-hexane; long-term exposure to these has been linked to birth defects, neurological problems, blood disorders and cancer.
These findings were shared after NIOSH studied full shift air samples at 11 hydraulic fracturing sites in five states. Benzene, for example, is a known carcinogen, according to the American Cancer Society. In , researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health released a study showing that air pollution caused by fracking could contribute to immediate and long-term health problems for people living near fracking sites.
Research by over studies suggests that chemicals released during natural gas extraction may harm human reproduction and development. A study also found that living near a fracking site might increase a person's risk of developing mild, moderate or severe asthma. Additionally, many areas of the United States not considered earthquake-prone, such as Ohio and Oklahoma, are now experiencing relatively strong seismic activity; a study found that the chances of a damaging earthquake occurring in parts of Oklahoma and some neighboring states are just as likely as they are in quake-prone California.
Fracking is believed to be the cause of Oklahoma's strongest recorded quake in and more than tremors in Texas between and To start off , an area of North Texas had nine confirmed earthquakes in a hour period. Fracking is being investigated as the cause. This whole process of developing a well typically takes from months and includes the following activity:. This initial three- to five-month investment has the potential to deliver a well that will produce oil or natural gas for 20 to 40 years, or more.
When all of the oil or natural gas that can be recovered economically from a reservoir has been produced, the land is returned to the way it was before the drilling operations started. Wells will be filled with cement and pipes cut off feet below ground level. All surface equipment will be removed and all pads filled in with earth or replanted. The land can then be used again by the landowner for other activities, and there will be virtually no sign that a well was once there.
Onshore oil and gas operators commit to offer a range of benefits to the communities they work in. Telephone: Email: info ukoog. A typical drilling process has the following stages:. Vertical Drilling A hole is drilled straight down into the ground. Horizontal Drilling What makes drilling for hydrocarbons in a shale formation unique is that it is necessary to drill horizontally.
This whole process of developing a well typically takes from months and includes the following activity: a few weeks to prepare the site eight to twelve weeks to drill the well one to three months of completion activities including between one and seven days of stimulation. Display: 5 10 15 20 25 30 50 All. Onshore extraction Learn about the long history of onshore oil extraction in the UK which dates back to
0コメント