New Waterless Fracking Method Avoids Pollution Problems, But Drillers Slow to Embrace It

[RiverLover]

New Waterless Fracking Method Avoids Pollution Problems, But Drillers Slow to Embrace It
11/06/2011

Like water, propane gel is pumped into deep shale formations a mile or more underground, creating immense pressure that cracks rocks to free trapped natural gas bubbles. Like water, the gel also carries small particles of sand or man-made material—known as proppant—that are forced into cracks to hold them open so the gas can flow out.

Unlike water, the gel does a kind of disappearing act underground. It reverts to vapor due to pressure and heat, then returns to the surface—along with the natural gas—for collection, possible reuse and ultimate resale.

And also unlike water, propane does not carry back to the surface drilling chemicals, ancient seabed salts and underground radioactivity.

"We leave the nasties in the ground, where they belong," said Lestz.

...An industry executive said propane's expense does make it a tough sell.

"Propane is always going to be more expensive than water," said Roger Willis, president of Universal Well Services, a Pennsylvania company that provides drilling equipment to the industry. "But propane fracking will probably be useful in some situations. ... The economics of doing it would be fairly complicated. You have to weigh the cost and recovery of propane versus the transport and treatment of the water."

The New York Oil & Gas Association, a lobbying group, referred a reporter to Willis after being asked for the group's stance on propane fracking.

New York is anticipating allowing "produced" water to be taken by municipal sewer treatment plants that have been retrofitted and approved by the state to properly handle drilling contaminants. However, no plants New York currently have that approval.

How to safely transport and dispose of millions of gallons of produced wastewater is one of the issues being wrestled with as the New York Department of Environmental Conservation considers opening up the state to hydrofracking.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20111104/gasfrac-propane-natural-gas-drilling-hydraulic-fracturing-fracking-drinking-water-marcellus-shale-new-york

[TexasProgresive]

1. With population growth and water getting short in the west

the price of water may soon equal the price of propane which is around the same as unleaded regular gasoline.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. What about earthquakes?

[RiverLover]

3. Good Q. But most earthquakes are being caused by injecting the frack waste into the earth.

I think the propane gel would be great for water conservancy and greatly reduced toxic waste, but they still have to use high pressure. There are a few cases of small earthquakes from the fracking process itself, but most are from the waste injection wells.

Fracking is still really bad. Its a violent attack on mother nature, earth. It will never be OK. But this would at least make it less of an assault.

We'll see what happens with the waterless fracking well in Ohio.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Thanks for the reply!

And I agree that fracking is bad, period. I can't understand how supporters can't see how it does permanent damage to a finite resource, let alone the other dangerous effects, like toxic pollution and earthquakes, and I am thinking particularly of Ohio. Just because this does less damage and saves water doesn't mean it solves the problem, but you're right that we'll certainly see.

[TexasProgresive]

4. All the fracking related earthquakes I have read about

were from injection wells used to dispose of fracking waste water. I welcome any proof that fracking to produce gas and oil flow is a cause of earthquakes.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Guess we'll see with this new method.

I still think disturbing the ground so deeply is a poor idea.

[RiverLover]

7. Here's your proof~

Fracking In Ohio Triggered 400 Tiny Earthquakes Over 3-Month Period, Scientists Say

by Emily Atkin Posted on October 15, 2014 at 3:13 pm

This certainly isn’t the first time seismologists have reported increased frequency and intensity of earthquakes in areas where fracking is prolific. But what makes this research different from most is that it credits earthquakes to the process of fracking itself — the actual process of cracking underground shale rock with high-pressure fracking fluid.

Most other studies on artificial earthquakes don’t credit fracking itself. Instead, they credit the process of wastewater injection: a.k.a, taking the leftover water used to frack the well and disposing of it by injecting it back underground. Scientists increasingly believe that the underground fluid migrates along dormant fault lines, re-activating them and causing earthquakes.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/15/3580192/ohio-fracking-earthquakes-2/

Fracking Linked to More Ohio Earthquakes
October 14, 2014 05:00pm ET

Another rare case of fracking-caused earthquakes has jolted Ohio.

A new study connects some 400 micro-earthquakes in Harrison County, near the town of Canton, to hydraulic fracturing wells. The three wells operated from September through October 2013 in the Utica Shale. Ten of the quakes registered between magnitude 1.7 and magnitude 2.2, but the tremors were too deep to cause damage or to be easily felt by people, according to the study, published today (Oct. 14) in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

The new study is the second report this year of fracking-linked earthquakes from drilling in the Utica Shale.

http://www.livescience.com/48294-fracking-caused-ohio-earthquakes.html

They were microquakes, but still, 400 quakes were caused directly by fracking. They hit a fault line.

[TexasProgresive]

8. Thanks

I'm no fan of fracking but think that points made against it should be factual. I had not seen the articles you posted. So does it still stand that the quakes that were large enough to be felt were caused by injecting waste water? Since I never experienced an earthquake I don't know what can be felt and what can only be measured. The closes I can imaging to an earthquake was being in a 3 story building during a hurricane in New Orleans as a child. I could feel the building shaking through my bed. Pretty scary but as a recovering adrenaline junkie it was exciting.

[RiverLover]

9. I felt a few quakes when in the Caribbean. It really does bring an adrenaline rush

afterwards. Its a big WHOA moment! Wouldn't want to be in a major quake though!! If I want a rush, I'd rather just ride a roller coaster.

Re: your Q, So does it still stand that the quakes that were large enough to be felt were caused by injecting waste water? So far, those are the bigger ones caused by waste injection.

Like the 4.8 Kansas had last week. They had 4 smaller ones this past wkd, still enough to be felt. That brings Kansas to around 90 quakes for year. Caused by fracking waste injection. Its crazy.

[NickB79]

10. Oh great. Our furnace is propane

Should I expect a massive run on propane in the future if this is embraced?

Good thing we also have a high-efficiency wood stove to heat with, which we actually use far more than the propane furnace.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. I wouldn’t worry too much about propane costs

…

Unlike water, the gel does a kind of disappearing act underground. It reverts to vapor due to pressure and heat, then returns to the surface—along with the natural gas—for collection, possible reuse and ultimate resale.

…

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. I have consistently said, “Fracking is a side issue”

If they could get the gas out of the ground by “conventional” means, I wouldn’t want them to do it.

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_13/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Target Atmospheric CO[font size="1"]₂[/font]: Where Should Humanity Aim?[/font]
December 2008

[font size=3]Humanity must find a path to reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide, to less than the amount in the air today, if climate disasters are to be averted, according to a study recently published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of ten scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and France. They argue that such a path is feasible, but requires a prompt moratorium on new coal use that does not capture CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] and phase-out of existing coal emissions by 2030.

"There is a bright side to this conclusion" according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies' James Hansen, lead author on the study, "by following a path that leads to a lower CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] amount we can alleviate a number of problems that had begun to seem inevitable, such as increased storm intensities, expanded desertification, loss of coral reefs, and loss of mountain glaciers that supply fresh water to hundreds of millions of people."

…

The second figure shows that if coal emissions were thus phased out between 2010 and 2030, and if emissions from [font color="red"]unconventional fossil fuels[/font] such as tar shale were minimized, atmospheric CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] would peak at 400-425 ppm and then slowly decline. The peak CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] amount would depend upon whether the smaller oil and gas reserve estimates of IPCC or the optimistic estimates of EIA are more accurate. The authors note that even if the large EIA reserve estimates are valid, peak CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] could be kept close to 400 ppm [font color="red"]if the most difficult to extract oil and gas is left in the ground[/font] via a rising price on carbon emissions that discourages remote exploration and environmental regulations that place some areas off-limits.

…[/font][/font]

Gas that is produced through “fracking” is an examples of “unconventional fossil fuel.”

Hansen & co. told us that we need to keep that gas in the ground to limit the volume of CO[font size="1"]₂[/font] we pump into the atmosphere, not because “fracking” itself is so evil. If we leave it in the ground, we won’t burn it.