Over the
past few years particularly in the UK, the debate around hydraulic fracturing
or fracking has created huge controversy and brought wide-spread of public
attention. Before the controversy kicked-in, the scientific understanding of
fracturing and its impacts were not widely discussed among the general public,
even though it has been routinely practiced by many oil and gas producing
industries in the past. Fracking has been extensively used in-land for the past
several decades in the U.S. Natural gas production from shale deposits in the
U.S alone hit 230 billion cu m in 2012, nearly double 2010’s total, and the
price of natural gas has fallen by over 80% since 2008 (B. Walsh in Time
Magazine, September 16, 2013). Also, in the UK since late 1970s, fracking has
been used in offshore North Sea oil and gas fields. However, the controversy is
far from over; it is now spearheading the global debate on present and future
energy challenges.
Fracking is
a process that involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemical
additives deep into the Earth to target the shale rock formations to fracture,
which subsequently result in releasing trapped natural gas. The mixture of
fluid is extracted and the natural gas is collected through the well and stored
for energy use. It sounds fairly simple and easy process to unlock the gas that
has been trapped in the shale rock formations for millions of years. But, the
entire process is not simple as it seems. The British anxiety recently exploded
in Balcombe in West Sussex, which was the reflection of the risks that pose by
the fracking techniques. Not only in Britain but activists from 26 countries
around the world participated in around 250 protests on last 19th October 2013.
Besides the technicalities of drilling or mining the natural gas, there are
environmental and health effects to be considered, which have been the focal
points of the whole argument.
There is
a long list of potential environmental and health effects of fracking that can
be listed, including the requirement of vast amount of water, backflow of waste
water with the mixture of chemical additives and disposal of the waste water,
fracking induced earthquakes, risk of ground water contamination, risk of methane gas emissions, noise
pollution, risk of soil contamination from the chemical spillage, health
effects (of drilling, fracking, processing and transporting of natural gas) and
the effects on local biodiversity etc. Some of the major concerns of fracking
are the impacts on surface water, particularly where water is a scarce
commodity, and also huge risks of possible groundwater contamination. In
addition, most importantly are the risks from radiation exposure are often
unheard (e.g. naturally occurring Uranium and its radioactive daughter
Radium-226, also radioactive alpha emitting gas Radon-222 and its radioactive
daughters Bismuth-214, Lead-210 and the alpha emitter Polonium-210). Deep down
in the earth there are lot of radioactivity, which is safe for environment and
human health but if they are brought to the surface, then it becomes some serious
risks to human health, safety and to the environment. In the fracking
process, waste water that returns to the surface very often contains
radioactive materials.
Many
American States e.g. Arkansas, Colorado, Michigan, New York, New Mexico, North
Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas etc. had witnessed numerous environmental incidents
primarily drinking water which is contaminated due to fracking. A new report by
the Environment America Research and Policy Centre (October 2013) has reported
that the fracking wells nationwide produced an estimated of 280 billion gallons
of wastewater in 2012 - containing cancer-causing and even radioactive
materials and has contaminated the drinking water sources from Pennsylvania and
New Mexico. The overwhelming imbalances in use of fracking and the
environmental incidents in America may have provided a false assumption that
the fracking is environmentally safe. What is plausibly safe now (as proponents
of fracking claim), which might not be safe in the longer run. Society is
moving forward with the technological advancement faster than ever, which makes
possible to do things that we couldn't do before, but often with far reaching
consequences.
The
fracking technology has been advanced considerably but there is no clean
technology yet that exist which would make fracking process safer. Recently the
UK Government has lifted the ban on onshore fracking, they planned not to
outright prohibition of fracking, instead there will be more focus on the
regulatory aspects. New regulations would be introduced to put tighter controls
on fracking but it is very difficult to encourage local people as no one wants
drilling sites in their backyards. Given the potential risks to the environment
and human health, fracking should be kept desolate - more precisely it should
not be allowed in-land. Technology may have advanced significantly but it
cannot always beat the odds forever.
There is
another dimension to the fracking issue. If it is allowed unanimously then we
would potentially rapidly reach a point where many countries around the world
would start similar practice. Many developing countries still lack of effective
regulatory structures, decisions on fracking and that would require new
regulations to protect the environment, human health and other social consequences.
Otherwise fracking would be a subject to exploitation (e.g. lack of
environmental & social responsibilities) by the domestic and international
actors. Exploitation associated with the conventional crude oil drilling in the
developing countries has been enormous in the past, which created in many cases
inequalities and violent conflicts. It beggars belief that the benefits from
resources extracted through fracking would be fairer to the indigenous and to
the local communities.
It is
divisive yet undeniable truth that we need a combination of mix energy sources to
fulfil the current and future energy demand but more fracking would encourage
more gas burning, which will eventually accelerate the rate of climate change.
We should learn from our past mistakes, it would be totally wrong to go for
mass in-land fracking. We don't need mass fracking to feed an energy hungry
world.
