194
development could return Russia to the status of top natural gas-producing country
in a few short years. At this writing, the Russians are lining up future markets by
negotiating to supply energy-hungry China with natural gas. They must be planning
to get it from somewhere.
Although calls for a ban on fracking may be a potent campaign message and fireup the political base, such bans don’t actually solve the environmental problems
related to fossil energy and may in fact make things worse. Human civilization does
indeed need to move away from fossil fuels, but in a manner that will be minimally
disruptive and acceptable to most people. Naïvely labeling all the evils of fossil fuel
as “fracking” is incorrect and unhelpful. There are worse things than natural gas and
petroleum obtained through hydraulic fracturing, namely burning more coal and
importing more oil. If fracking is to be banned, there must be solid government policies in place that force industry to transition into new and cleaner forms of energy.
Just banning fracking without such policies and allowing the free market to make
decisions about the kinds of energy that will replace the resulting shortages of
domestic natural gas and petroleum will be a disaster.
10.2 Can Fracking Be Greener?
“Greener” fracking has been a goal of many state regulators who don’t want to ban
the practice outright, but would like to mitigate some of the environmental damage
being done. Many of the chemical additives currently in use are indeed quite hazardous, and if some or most of these could be replaced with safer alternatives, the
environmental impacts would be reduced in the event of a leak or spill. However,
any green substitute must perform as well as or better than the chemical it is replacing, and it must cost the same or less, or it won’t get used (Thomas et al. 2019). Too
many grand ideas for alternative frack fluids and additives fail to consider the issues
of performance and cost, and as such, they are ignored by industry.
One focus in particular is on the biocides. These are hazardous compounds by
design, because they are designed to kill the microbes that get injected downhole
with the frack fluid (Kahrilas et al. 2015). The water used for fracking is typically
taken directly from surface streams without treatment, and whatever microbial flora
and fauna happen to be present end up getting injected into the subsurface during
the frack.
Some of the bacteria are known as “sulfate reducers.” As part of their metabolism, they will take a sulfate compound like sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ), strip off the
oxygen atoms and reduce it to hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S). Hydrogen sulfide is noted for
its “rotten egg” smell and deadly toxicity. It is a gas, so it comes to the surface with
the produced natural gas. H 2 S is also corrosive and makes the gas “sour.” The concentration allowed into pipelines is very low, so expensive treatments are required
to remove the H 2 S before the gas can be sold. The best way to deal with sour gas is
not to have it in the first place, so the biocides are added to prevent this.
10 Mitigation and Remediation
development could return Russia to the status of top natural gas-producing country
in a few short years. At this writing, the Russians are lining up future markets by
negotiating to supply energy-hungry China with natural gas. They must be planning
to get it from somewhere.
Although calls for a ban on fracking may be a potent campaign message and fireup the political base, such bans don’t actually solve the environmental problems
related to fossil energy and may in fact make things worse. Human civilization does
indeed need to move away from fossil fuels, but in a manner that will be minimally
disruptive and acceptable to most people. Naïvely labeling all the evils of fossil fuel
as “fracking” is incorrect and unhelpful. There are worse things than natural gas and
petroleum obtained through hydraulic fracturing, namely burning more coal and
importing more oil. If fracking is to be banned, there must be solid government policies in place that force industry to transition into new and cleaner forms of energy.
Just banning fracking without such policies and allowing the free market to make
decisions about the kinds of energy that will replace the resulting shortages of
domestic natural gas and petroleum will be a disaster.
10.2 Can Fracking Be Greener?
“Greener” fracking has been a goal of many state regulators who don’t want to ban
the practice outright, but would like to mitigate some of the environmental damage
being done. Many of the chemical additives currently in use are indeed quite hazardous, and if some or most of these could be replaced with safer alternatives, the
environmental impacts would be reduced in the event of a leak or spill. However,
any green substitute must perform as well as or better than the chemical it is replacing, and it must cost the same or less, or it won’t get used (Thomas et al. 2019). Too
many grand ideas for alternative frack fluids and additives fail to consider the issues
of performance and cost, and as such, they are ignored by industry.
One focus in particular is on the biocides. These are hazardous compounds by
design, because they are designed to kill the microbes that get injected downhole
with the frack fluid (Kahrilas et al. 2015). The water used for fracking is typically
taken directly from surface streams without treatment, and whatever microbial flora
and fauna happen to be present end up getting injected into the subsurface during
the frack.
Some of the bacteria are known as “sulfate reducers.” As part of their metabolism, they will take a sulfate compound like sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ), strip off the
oxygen atoms and reduce it to hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S). Hydrogen sulfide is noted for
its “rotten egg” smell and deadly toxicity. It is a gas, so it comes to the surface with
the produced natural gas. H 2 S is also corrosive and makes the gas “sour.” The concentration allowed into pipelines is very low, so expensive treatments are required
to remove the H 2 S before the gas can be sold. The best way to deal with sour gas is
not to have it in the first place, so the biocides are added to prevent this.
10 Mitigation and Remediation