79
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. J. Soeder, Fracking and the Environment,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59121-2_5
Chapter 5
Fracking and Air Quality
The environmental impacts of fracking on the atmosphere are complex, and in the
minds of many people, the concerns associated with the fracking process are part of
the broader concern about climate change and the use of fossil fuels. These are
really two separate issues, especially when related to air quality. The first issue is the
air pollution caused by the hydraulic fracturing process itself, when pump trucks are
releasing diesel smoke, heavy equipment is raising clouds of dust, and chemicals
and returned fluids may be off-gassing significant quantities of volatile organic
compounds into the air.
The second issue has to do with the greenhouse gas (GHG) released as a combustion product of fossil fuels, primarily carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) that results in global
warming and climate change. This has something, but not everything to do with
fracking. Certainly natural gas and petroleum recovered by fracking do contribute
to global GHG concentrations when produced and burned. But a far larger contributor is the combustion of coal, and the production of coal has nothing whatsoever to
do with fracking. This chapter focuses on the direct impacts of the fracking process
on air quality. The larger issues of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change
from the use of fossil fuels are presented and discussed in later chapters.
Potential air quality impacts from fracking and other phases of unconventional
oil and gas development have been investigated in a number of oil and natural gas
production areas in the United States, mainly in northeastern Pennsylvania, eastern
Colorado and the Denver region, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas (HEI
2019). Both direct measurements and modeling approaches were used, including
personal sampling, mobile and stationary sampling at the ground surface, and measurements collected from aircraft and satellites. Most of the studies were focused on
air quality near oil and gas operations (e.g. Eisele et al. 2016; Banan and Gernand
2018), although several investigators have also looked at the degradation of air quality from fracking activities within a larger regional context of urban air pollution
(e.g. Bari and Kindzierski 2018; Garcia-Gonzales et al. 2019).
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. J. Soeder, Fracking and the Environment,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59121-2_5
Chapter 5
Fracking and Air Quality
The environmental impacts of fracking on the atmosphere are complex, and in the
minds of many people, the concerns associated with the fracking process are part of
the broader concern about climate change and the use of fossil fuels. These are
really two separate issues, especially when related to air quality. The first issue is the
air pollution caused by the hydraulic fracturing process itself, when pump trucks are
releasing diesel smoke, heavy equipment is raising clouds of dust, and chemicals
and returned fluids may be off-gassing significant quantities of volatile organic
compounds into the air.
The second issue has to do with the greenhouse gas (GHG) released as a combustion product of fossil fuels, primarily carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) that results in global
warming and climate change. This has something, but not everything to do with
fracking. Certainly natural gas and petroleum recovered by fracking do contribute
to global GHG concentrations when produced and burned. But a far larger contributor is the combustion of coal, and the production of coal has nothing whatsoever to
do with fracking. This chapter focuses on the direct impacts of the fracking process
on air quality. The larger issues of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change
from the use of fossil fuels are presented and discussed in later chapters.
Potential air quality impacts from fracking and other phases of unconventional
oil and gas development have been investigated in a number of oil and natural gas
production areas in the United States, mainly in northeastern Pennsylvania, eastern
Colorado and the Denver region, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas (HEI
2019). Both direct measurements and modeling approaches were used, including
personal sampling, mobile and stationary sampling at the ground surface, and measurements collected from aircraft and satellites. Most of the studies were focused on
air quality near oil and gas operations (e.g. Eisele et al. 2016; Banan and Gernand
2018), although several investigators have also looked at the degradation of air quality from fracking activities within a larger regional context of urban air pollution
(e.g. Bari and Kindzierski 2018; Garcia-Gonzales et al. 2019).