Hydraulic Fracturing-A controversy without facts? – get the truth with long-term continuous ground water monitoring using osmotic sampling techniques. Obtain real-time fluid movement images with onshore EM – http://www.deepimaging.com/
Bluebird Geoscience has been talking with the academic world about this long standing controversy. For a technique that was first used in the USA and the UK in the 1920’s‚ the staff at Bluebird wanted to find out what the fuss was suddenly about this technique. We had found it hard to get facts and only found a huge amount of propaganda about the pros and cons of “fracking”.
Injecting fluid under pressure (gas or liquid) was developed partly by accident in the 1920’s because the valuable oil from any well also was produced with water or gas‚ and usually in quantities of 3‚ 4‚ or 5 times the amount of oil. Disposing of oily water even then was not considered to be environmentally sound. So a non–producing well was an ideal and environmentally friendly solution (ref Hardstoft Oilfield – the very first oilfield in the UK‚ BGS data). The idea of keeping up reservoir pressures to allow production without lifting was then extended to the idea of clearing of mud cake in producing wells with pressured water insertion‚ and the birth of hydraulic fracturing‚ or “fracking” as we know it now arrived some 60 years ago!
This caused no concerns and warranted no public attention when wells were vertical and the influence on total production was small. Then‚ with the ability to directionally drill and drilling long-reach horizontal wells‚ the economic effect of fracking could be fully exploited as the length of the well in the potential producing horizon was hugely increased. This was done as an environmentally sensible reduction on the surface impact of multiple wells all from the same pad. Again the public and the media appreciated the change. But when the impact of this technique was more recently fully appreciated by the industry‚ the excitement of those involved including the claim from so many that their method was ‘special’ and their ingredients ‘secret’ may have been a commercial success. But it was a PR disaster.
So‚ why all the concern now?
Well‚ it appears that perhaps some fracking was done in inappropriate locations including a few areas with shallow worked coal seams forming ready pressure release and flow of fracking fluids to lower pressure areas. But by definition if the pressure cannot be maintained‚ the fracking will not work and the methodology will have failed. We know from the huge increase in production––initially of gas in the Barnett‚ Marcellus shales etc.‚ but since 2014 mainly in the oil–prone Eagle Ford and Bakken shales and others––that the method certainly does work. So if the fracking fluid and sand plus the ‘proppants’ that were often no more sophisticated than commercial surfactants otherwise used in foods‚ cosmetics or household cleaning materials https://www.chemservice.com/news/2014/11/surfactants–from–fracking–may–not–be–as–harmful–as–previously–thought/ do their jobs the sand is forced into fractures formed by the increased pressures that will then be permeable to the hydrocarbons for production because the exposed surface area has been greatly increased.
So how can we be sure that fracking is not affecting the environment? The simple answer is to monitor the environment. There is a neat system called osmotic sampling developed by west coast scientists and available at very reasonable costs. It keeps an ongoing record of fluid chemistry as the fluid passes an osmotic barrier and a historic time–defined sample set can be obtained. Significant aquifers can be monitored throughout the pre and post fracking timeline. Individual groundwater and surface water sampling has been carried out extensively to monitor fracking and have led to the federal announcement of the lack of evidence of a general pollution threat from fracking. Osmotic sampling can improve on intermittent sampling and provide continuous monitoring of ground water quality ‘time stamped’ to enable clear culpability or non-culpability to be established.
If pollution potential can be controlled‚ monitored and avoided‚ what about the seismic risk? The recent Oklahoma earthquakes‚ believed to be primarily from waste water injection rather than the fracking process itself‚ look likely to constrain fracking in the future in that state. The fracking concept produces minor imperceptible seismic events which at present is the most commonly used method of monitoring its effectiveness with microseismics The DIT EM monitoring https://deepimaging.com provides a new method of observing fluid flows and the potential for a better understanding of how any changes in seismic risk may occur. Changes in pore pressures are so often the only measurable property that will warn of such seismic activity being likely.