The Marcellus Shale It is the largest source of natural gas in the United States, and is located in Appalachian basin which stretches from Tennessee to New York and covers West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The Marcellus Shale has a lot of marine sedimentary rock because of the different sea level changes 400 million years ago that deposited minerals. It contains black shale and lighter shale mixed with limestone .It has many benefits, but it comes with disadvantage disadvantages. For humans to get access to the natural gas they have to drill deep into the ground and create a well which can go from 5,000 to 9,000 feet deep. They use a method of drilling called …show more content…
This is where they put a steel pipe into the ground at around 10,000 feet and turn it 90 degrees so that it is horizontal. Then they send an explosive missile that erupts along the horizontal part to puncture holes through the pipe. They later put a fluid that contains water, sand and other chemicals through the pipe which later goes through the pores of the pipe into the rock. It breaks the rock down and creates cracks leading to the natural gas leaking out through the pipe. There is an average of 5 - 8 million gallon of water used for one Fracking. Vertical drilling is when the pipe goes straight down leading it to only get the natural gas at the end of the pipe which limits it to one area. Horizontal Drilling is more efficient and costly. When you drill horizontally you can have a pipe going along the layer of natural gas leading the well to have more access to natural gas and make it last longer than one vertically. Depending on how long the horizontal pipe is it can have many pores that take in oil. One needs to know where natural gas is and then know the correct area to turn the pipe horizontally. This area is calling the kickoff
What is fracking? Fracking is the process of drilling into the ground and releasing a high-pressure water mixture into rocks in order to fracture them and release the natural gases inside. The water mixture consists of water, sand and chemicals. Fracking is beneficial because it lowers the prices of oil and gas, reduces America’s dependency on foreign oil, and reduces CO2 contribution.
Another professional Shelly interviewed was Dr. Joseph Martin, a professor in Department of Civil, Architecture, and environmental engineer at Drexel University. Her question to the professor was “How is gas drilling compared to coal mining? What is the effect on the environment?” Dr. Martin stated, “The surface impact of this hydro fracking is phenomenally lower than anything you could do. As far as safety issues of natural gas drilling, they’re minimal.
The biggest issues facing my community is the Marcellus and Utica shale gas drilling boom. There are many pros and cons involved. I would like to address a few of them here. The pros are mostly economic advantages like, jobs, increased local tax bases and lower consumer prices for natural gas and other products that come out of the wells with it. Some of the cons are increased traffic on roads that are not designed to handle that volume.
⦁ The map of the Marcellus Shale. ⦁ To penetrate more fracture the use horizontal drilling. Doing so they are capable of drilling millions of cubic feet of gas. ⦁ Issues in the environment
Fracking one well can take millions of gallons of water, but it 's not just water. In the water there are chemicals, helping to break down the rock. According to the article, Fracking Fury, “ the fluids consist of millions of gallons of water, chemical additives, and proppants” (2 AT). Chemicals like benzene, toluene, and ethylbenzene are shot down into a well. The author claims that, “Critics are nervous the cocktail of fluids will leak”(2.3).
FRACKING AND ITS CRITICISM Since the mid-80s, The First Nations and their leaders have raised numerous concerns about the failure of the government and industries in Canada to properly consult them before developing any of their lands. Fracking is a technique used in stimulating the fracturing of rocks through the use of pressurized liquid. The fluid used comprises of hot water, sand, and proppants that are thickened using appropriate agents. The fluid enters the deep-rock and makes it possible to have natural gas, petroleum and brine flow up. If the pressure is removed, the grains in the proppants are capable of keeping the fractures while open.
The fact that Coalhouse exhausted all his legal means of obtaining justice before resorting to the violence that would later be associated with him led to anger being pent up inside of him. He acted respectful, and throughout his initial push for revenge he demonstrated exceptional patience towards others. However, his very persistent and exceptionally optimistic view of American society proved to be the nail in the coffin for his descent into violence. Father observed that Coalhouse’s insistence on impossible justice was such a foolish thing to have happened. In fact, society viewed Coalhouse’s plight as “his fault, because he was Negro and it was the kind of problem that would only adhere to a Negro.
Drilling in Alaska “ In reality drilling is the slowest, dirtiest, and most expensive way to solve our energy crisis”-Lois Capps. This quote explains how there different ways to solve our problems and drilling is not the right way to solve this. In addition to costing a lot of money, it would also destroy animal habitats.
Offshore Drilling Every year, in the United States alone, 565 million barrels or oil are extracted as a result of offshore drilling; totaling a startling amount of roughly 1.5 million barrels a day. Consequently, these threatening practices are negatively impacting marine mammals, sea birds, sea turtles, and fish. Although drilling offshore provides access to expensive resources such as oil, it heavily contributes to the extinction and endangerment of animals, and the disruption of marine ecosystems, thus these practices should be prohibited and viewed as unethical. To begin, new techniques of horizontal drilling allow for even greater amounts of oil to be extracted from a single well, producing problems in infrastructure on land.
According to Climatecentral.org, “fracking for natural gas used to produce electricity may make Texas more drought resistant as the state shifts from coal power generation to natural gas power generation” (Magill). This could be a major breakthrough for Texas because not only would we produce electricity and save our environment, but we would also save millions of gallons of water. The amount of water we could save by shifting from coal to natural gas plants “is up to 50 times the amount of water lost in fracking to extract the natural gas from underground shale formations. According to the article, “The study’s authors estimate that for every gallon of water used to frack for natural gas, Texas saved 33 gallons of water by using that gas for electricity generation rather than producing the same amount of power with coal” (Magill).
One of the most controversial projects for the United States to decide on was whether or not to build the Keystone pipeline. This topic forces the government to decide if economic development is worth the cost of endangering the environment. Though this pipeline will allow the United States to rely less on foreign oil, the pipeline’s lasting effects prove to be a factor that cannot be easily overlooked. The Keystone pipeline should not be built because it endangers the environment and has the ability to create catastrophic damages through pollution and habitat desecration. Pollution is a major factor that has to be considered when referring to the Keystone pipeline.
Researchers have “requested data from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Texas, all states heavily involved in the recent surge of oil and gas drilling, about complaints related to hydraulic fracking for oil and gas” for their research on fracking (Dechert). The research collected was shocking, over 2,000 complaints in Texas alone and several cases on well water contamination within the states mentioned in Decherd’s article. People need to be alerted about how real fracking is and the damages it is doing. These complaints and cases should be a wakeup call to the world and say that we should put it to a
It covers around 240,000 km2 in the United States, including parts of New Your, Maryland, and six other States. (Kargbo et al., 2010; U.S. Department of Energy, 2009) The estimation of gas amounts in Marcellus Shale is uncertain, however, current productivity indicates that the potential recoverable resources from the Marcellus Shale could be promising. (U.S. Department of Energy, 2009; United States Energy Information Administration, 2012) The Marcellus Shale is poorly permeable, which makes gas productive level is low.
In an environmental perspective, “[a] 2014 New York state health department report…finding serious concerns in areas including respiratory health, drinking water, seismic activity, soil contamination, and impact of new roads and infrastructure on local communities” (James McBride, Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking), cfr.org). Drinking water is at risk of being affected because, as previously mentioned, the opened fractures within the shale bedrock potentially allow wastewater and other chemicals to travel into groundwater. The eruption of increasing seismic activities after a fracking event, as stated by the aforementioned article by McBride, “…is a concern because both the fracking process and the practice of injecting wastewater into deep wells
Coal has a huge negative influence on the environment including: ● emissions of carbon dioxide sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that cause air pollution ● dumping of garbage and mining for coal both cause water contamination ● Mining activities cause habitat damage and land disruption Coal's detrimental effects on human health include the following: ● lung cancer as well as other lung diseases are brought on by air pollution ● Due to exposure to hazardous compounds from coal mining and combustion there is a higher risk of heart disease neurological diseases and congenital abnormalities ● Working with or around coal for production can be very hazardous Now how does natural gas compare? The advantages of using natural gas as a source of energy