What the Frack?
The US shale gas industry is one in which a lot of money has been made. This is attributed to a certain method that was used by the US of A to increase their gas and oil productivity exponentially. It was obvious that this is what attracted a lot of European Countries to this. Some looked to reduce their dependence on other countries for their gas requirements. Others wanted to supplement their declining productions.
But what is this method which had everyone trying it out and why is it so controversial? This method is Fracking or Hydraulic Fracturing.
Fracking is a method of getting the more unconventional natural gas which is much trickier to get. This natural gas is trapped between much finer grained shale rock formations. So for this, a reservoir needs to be artificially created by fracturing the rock and pumping fluid down this bore well until the structure breaks. Thus a shale gas reservoir is created rather than discovered.
Sounds easy enough? But then what was the problem?
Out of the 72 exploration wells drilled in Poland between 2007 and 2016, 25 of them were hydraulically fracked, i.e., a reservoir is artificially created by fracturing the layer of shale. But most of them were declared dry and thus no gas was actually extracted. In the UK, many of the opposition parties had already taken an anti fracking stance on environmental grounds.
With all the advantages that this process brings, it also has some unavoidable backlash. Fracking uses huge amounts of water, which must be transported to the site at significant environmental costs which include loss of land and lots of greenhouse gas emissions. As this process requires fracturing of a solid rock layer, there are always concerns of earth tremors.
Environmentalists are afraid that potentially carcinogenic chemicals may escape and contaminate water bodies. But, most importantly, this process makes the governments and businesses invest money into something extremely risky and not enough in renewable energy sources. This kind of short-cut way of sustaining energy resources won’t last. We need cleaner energy which is renewable and we cannot ever sustain ourselves when we are just adding more fossil fuels to the world.
What is of concern here is that the existing renewable energy sources aren’t accessible to everyone. There is a need for governments and businesses to make renewable energy affordable and reliable as is the Sustainable Development Goal 7 identified by the UN. It is important to realise that, in the near future, we cannot completely distance ourselves from conventional sources of energy, but we must move towards increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. Countries like Ireland, France, Germany and Bulgaria, among many others, have already banned this practice. After all it is us who are in this together. Make sure you do your part by being more aware and conscious about whatever we do. You can start your journey of impact with a single click here.
