Environmental Implications of Hydraulic Fracturing

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Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing, routinely mentioned to as fracking, is a verified technological advancement which permits natural gas manufacturers to securely retrieve natural gas from deep shale formations. This breakthrough has the promise to not only dramatically decrease our reliance on foreign fuel trades, but furthermore to considerably decrease our nationwide carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and accelerate our transition to a carbon-light environment. Simply put, deep shale gas formation development is critical to America's power desires and financial renewal.

Experts have renowned for years that natural gas down payments lived in deep shale formations, but until lately the huge quantities of natural gas in these formations were not considered to be recoverable. Today, through the use of hydraulic fracturing, blended with complicated level drilling, exceptional allowances of deep shale natural gas from over the United States are being securely produced. (Robert et.el, 2003)

Hydraulic fracturing has been utilised by the natural gas and oil industry since the 1940s and has become a key component of natural gas development worldwide. In detail, this method is utilised in almost all natural gas wells drilled in the U.S. today. Properly undertook up to date hydraulic fracturing is a protected, sophisticated, highly engineered and controlled procedure.

Why The Fracturing Process?

Environmental concerns

Cities provide opportunities for large-scale water, energy, and land recycling as well. Recycling grey water—water draining from the shower, washing machine, dishwasher, or bathroom and kitchen sinks—reduces pollution, saves energy, and lessens a community's consumption of water. A simple rain barrel placed under household gutters can prevent a significant amount of water from entering the sewer. This water can then be used to water lawns and other landscaping.

We have thus reached a situation whereby each and every European is consuming 60-70 liters of water and each and every American 200-250 liters each and every day for uses that do not necessarily make that water unusable for other purposes. It is also undeniable that our use of water for personal and domestic hygiene is grossly inefficient, with the average domestic shower unit consuming approximately 12-15 liters of water per minute—more if a shower pump is fitted. Similarly, modern clothes and dishwashing technologies often do not include water efficiency as a design criterion, consuming as much as 120 liters per cycle. The large differential between European and U.S. water consumption is the subject of continuing controversy, but it seems to be largely related to a higher propensity to have water-intensive sprinklers, high-capacity washing, power washers, and other technologies. (Lee, 2002)

So we return, in the 21st century, to the problem of greywater. What can be done to reduce our production of greywater, and what can be done to possibly get more/better use out of the greywater that is unavoidable? It is an oddity of modern domestic architecture that we use the same drinking-water-standard water supply for all uses, whether this is efficient or not. Thus there is a rapidly growing trend, especially in Asian cities and parts of the U.S. Southwest, toward the installation of “purple pipe” systems, ...