Fracking has been in the news a lot over the past decade and it’s certainly rife with controversy. Those in the fracking industry often tout the “fracking boom” in natural gas production in the United States, which has created numerous jobs. Meanwhile, there are others who argue that fracking is harmful to the planet and should be banned. Despite the controversy, many people are still wondering, “What is fracking, exactly?”
In this guide, we cover everything that you need to know about fracking, from how it works and what it provides to where it happens. We also cover what the future of fracking may hold and where we are likely to go from here.
What Is Fracking?
Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing. It’s also called hydrofracking or hydrofracturing, though these are less commonly used terms. Hydraulic fracturing is a controversial method for extracting fossil fuels — in the form of oil or natural gas — that are embedded within rock formations deep below the Earth’s surface. It involves fracturing bedrock formations to release trapped fossil liquids and gases by using pressurized fluids. This activity fundamentally alters underlying subterranean rock structures.
Fracking has created a boom of oil production in the United States by allowing it to be extracted from shale rocks, where there’s an abundance of hard-to-reach petroleum. While this has lowered oil prices and given the U.S. more energy independence, there are serious environmental concerns associated with fracking and how it alters the areas in which it operates.
How Does Fracking Work?
Fracking works by first drilling deep down into the Earth to create an avenue to inject high pressure fluids into shale or other types of rock formations that contain hydrocarbons, which are the key components of fossil fuels . Once the desired hole is drilled, a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is delivered directly to the rock area to release the oil and gas trapped within. The newly released hydrocarbons then flow towards the surface for collection.
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How Is Natural Gas Collected In Fracking?
After the high-pressure fluids containing sand, water, chemicals, and other additives are injected into rocks containing natural gas, it flows through the drilled hole towards the well head. When the trapped gases flow through the fractures, they enter collection wells, where they can be collected similar to traditional oil and gas wells.
Is Natural Gas a Byproduct of Fracking?
Natural gas is not a byproduct of fracking in the true sense of the word. Rather, it is the desired product of fracking, along with oil. Fracking creates other byproducts, such as sandy chemical deposits from injecting the high-pressure liquids into the ground. Natural gas, however, is not one of these byproducts — it is simply released from within rocks where it has remained trapped.
Why Is Fracking Controversial?
There are numerous reasons why fracking is considered controversial. The process involves using enormous quantities of freshwater, which not only becomes degraded after it’s injected into fractures (due to contamination with sand and chemicals), but it must also be transported to fracking sites with extra environmental costs.
On top of this, there are earthquake and tremor concerns associated with fracking — and many environmentalists fear that the chemicals used in fracking fluids to help break apart rocks may escape and lead to groundwater contamination around any potential site. As a result, drinking water is impacted.
In response to these concerns, the fracking industry has undergone increasing regulatory tightening, though the risk is still present if something goes wrong.
Why Is Natural Gas Fracking Bad?
Natural gas fracking is considered “bad” for the same reasons that it is considered controversial: fears of environmental contamination, increased seismic activity, and unsustainable water use. In addition to these concerns, there are two other problems that are associated with natural gas fracking: the potentially harmful injection of wastewater deep underground, and fears that increased fracking will lead to cheaper, more abundant fossil fuels — and hinder the growth of renewable or emission-free clean energy, such as solar or hydrogen
What Are the Negative Effects of Fracking?
The most negative effects of fracking are potential contamination of the surrounding environment, excess water usage, and drinking water degradation (especially in water-scarce regions), and increased seismic activity associated with fluid injection.
Many people also worry about air pollution that comes from fracking, including greenhouse gas leakage (such as carbon dioxide and methane), as well as exposure to toxic chemicals in the ambient environment. Waste disposal is another issue that has not been sufficiently dealt with in any meaningful way — wastewater contributes more to fracking-induced earthquakes than the drilling and fluid injection itself.
What Does Fracking Do to Water?
Fracking uses a lot of water, and if drilling or fluid injection are not done properly, this can contaminate surrounding water supplies. This is because fluids injected into rock to free the trapped gases contain chemicals, which can leach into groundwater and enter nearby aquatic ecosystems, such as lakes and rivers. Additionally, if any drilled borehole is not properly cased, it can enable leaks, allowing contaminated water to seep into any aquifers in the area.
Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?
In short, yes: fracking causes earthquakes. Highly pressurized fluid injection breaks apart bedrock, causing small seismic events when the surrounding rock is altered. It’s a necessary part of producing fuel from shale gas formations, as the porous space containing gases is essential to release them.
That said, fracking typically causes only very small earthquakes with less than 1 magnitude, and usually less than 0.5 magnitude. However, this controversial process has been linked to larger earthquakes, such as the M4 in Texas, which was the largest known earthquake in the United States to be caused by fracking.
While fracking frequently causes small earthquakes, most fracking-induced earthquakes are not caused directly by hydraulic fracturing itself. Instead, the increased amount of earthquakes associated with the increase in fracking is primarily caused by the disposal of waste fluids back into the ground, which is a byproduct of oil production.
Wastewater disposal wells are where the used fracking water is deposited — and these typically operate for longer durations, with much more fluid injected than during the direct fracking process itself. This makes the disposal wells much more likely to induce earthquakes, as they tend to have an even bigger impact on altering bedrock composition below ground.
For example, in Oklahoma — the state with the most induced earthquakes in the U.S. — only 2% of earthquakes are linked directly to the hydraulic necessary to extract oil and gas. The remaining induced earthquakes are the result of wastewater disposal
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Where Does Fracking Take Place In the World?
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), only four countries across the world produce any commercially viable gas or oil that comes from fracking: Canada, China, Argentina, and the United States. Of these countries, the U.S. has the fastest-growing fracking market, with the shale formation reserves in North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Colorado providing a globally significant amount of fossil fuels extracted from bedrock.
Although the aforementioned four countries are the only ones with commercially viable quantities of trapped gases to exploit, there are many other countries that could soon develop fracking operations. Mexico and Colombia are both currently exploring fracking opportunities within each country, with Algeria and Russia also looking at the possibility of starting exploration in the relatively near future.
In all, there are nearly 50 countries with probable or even proven shale fuel reserves, though not all are exploitable. Some of these cannot be exploited for technical limitations, while others lack the necessary hydrocarbon quality.
Australia is one country with proven reserves that has not developed them because of a nationwide ban on fracking. The government has recently explored lifting this ban to combat rising gas prices, though environmental opposition remains strong across the country.
The United Kingdom is another country that currently has fracking on pause, with plans to potentially reopen operations to lower gas prices and reliance on importation. South Africa, on the other hand, has no major political opposition to fracking — but the intense water shortage that Cape Town faced in 2018-2019 has forced the country to not proceed with fracking, which requires millions of gallons of water.
It’s unsure how many other countries will either ban fracking or move towards its use for natural gas extraction and development. Not only is fracking closely watched by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but it contradicts the Paris Agreement to combat climate change that nearly all countries signed on to uphold.
Fracking hinders climate action by extracting more carbon-based fossil fuels and from the process of extraction itself — but countries also need to make sure they have enough energy to meet the needs of their people. For this reason, it is possible that more fracking will open up in the months and years ahead.
Will Fracking Be Around In the Near Future?
Given the environmental impact of fracking that ranges from extreme water usage and seismic disturbances to greenhouse gas emissions and chemical seepage, it would stand to reason that fracking is on the decline. Overall fracking operations declined in 2019, and dramatically in 2020, though the latter was due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the oil and gas industry still plans for more than $70 billion of new investments into gas-fired power plants through 2025, according to two separate reports from the Rocky Mountain Institute. This shows that although environmental pressure is mounting, natural gas will still play a major role in the energy needs of the near future — and fracking is the most direct way to extract this resource, especially from shale reserves in the United States.
Companies such as Tara Energy take into account the source of the gas and other resources for power generation, ensuring that all of the proper environmental regulations are followed along the way.
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