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I was shocked to learn water used in fracking is permanently "gone". Seems like an absolutely atrocious abuse of a resource we have a fundamental dependence on.

by iLoch 10y ago

m3rc 10y ago
Not to mention the incredible amount of nearby water that is poisoned
firlefans 10y ago
Can you clarify what you mean? It gets subducted by plate tectonics and becomes steam when heated, presumably it's still there..
- rosser 10y ago
  Oh, so we'll be able to access that water again over geological time? That changes everything.
jerf 10y ago
Fresh water represents an energy issue, not a materials issue. There's no shortage of H2O molecules, it's the fact that isolating them requires energy that is the issue. If you use some fresh water to get a net gain of energy, you aren't really "spending" the water. The natural next response is to move the goal posts and start talking about carbon dioxide or something, but I suggest resisting that and actually thinking about the real issues for a moment. True as that may be, it's a separate issue. Contrast this with helium, which we really are running out of in a way that, if not necessarily "irrevocable", is certainly going to be much harder to get around if we use it all up.
- nickik 10y ago
  Usually prices increase and we dont use it all up because you can find cheaper alternatives. For the critical stuff you would still have some left. Interestingly, some renewable resources like whales are far easier to "finish" then the traditional onse. Or is their some specific thing about helium that im not seeing? We should really have some helium left for space flight.
contravariant 10y ago
It's not gone it just becomes groundwater. Sure we won't see it back in any of our life times, but it's not as if we're going to run out any time soon. In that respect fusion would be far more permanent.
- DasIch 10y ago
  Isn't the very reason fracking is claimed to be safe, that the water is pumped significantly below groundwater level? If that's the case how does it turn into groundwater, is it rising upwards?
- opendomain 10y ago
  No, I do not think this becomes 'groundwater' Fracking is below the water table and and water used will be effectively lost to the water cycle. If it does leak back up, it will be polluted.
  - contravariant 10y ago
    Effectively lost mean different things on a human and a geological timescale. It could take millennia (or longer) for the water to slowly push through various kinds of bedrock, to finally get above ground again. By that time whatever contaminants were in it will have been filtered away. It's an incredibly slow process, but it's not as if we could somehow drain the oceans by fracking at full speed for several millennia.
fleitz 10y ago
Unless you separate it into hydrogen and let the hydrogen escape into the atmosphere, it's hardly 'gone'.
jessriedel 10y ago
Fresh water isn't a closed system such that sullying water ruins it for next year. Limitations on fresh water come from the amount of rainfall, which is a conversion process being sourced from the essentially infinite ocean. If you waste some of this year's water, this year's crops might suffer but nothing permanent has happened.
- delazeur 10y ago
  This isn't about polluting water, it's about injecting waste water into deep reservoirs from which it will not return to the surface in the meaningfully near future.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    I understood iLoch's comment to be about "losing" the water ('I was shocked to learn water used in fracking is permanently "gone"'), and I was explaining why one-time loss of water is unimportant, because the oceans are limitless and our fresh water supply is a rate that is sourced by the ocean. It doesn't matter if the water is polluted, injected deep underground, or fired into space. If you want, you can replace "sullying" with "burying".
    - delazeur 10y ago
      I suggest you read up on North American hydrology. Fresh water is being depleted at a rate significantly greater than it is being replenished. It's also a stretch to call wastewater injection a "one-time loss of water" when we can expect to be doing it for 30-50 years.
      - nickik 10y ago
        While that is true, thats a purly poitical problem. If their were a prober market solution that priced according to sound resource managment priniples it would not be a problem. The price of water woild still be very low and it would not impact standards of living in any siginificant way. Their are tons of easy ways to save water, pertocularly in farming but that will not happen. Its a classical tragety of the commens. They had to solve the same problem when tjey were moving west, frontier society had very soffisticated systems of water managment.
clock_tower 10y ago
I think we found what to do with the water from melting glaciers. /s (?) (I can't say if I should put a /s on the end or not. If the alternative is drowning Venice, is it a good idea to throw water out of the hydrosphere entirely? ... But if nothing else, look at the scale differences; there's no way that hydraulic fracturing uses as much water as snowpack melting generates...)

I was shocked to learn water used in fracking is permanently "gone". Seems like an absolutely atrocious abuse of a resource we have a fundamental dependence on.

by iLoch 10y ago

I was shocked to learn water used in fracking is permanently "gone". Seems like an absolutely atrocious abuse of a resource we have a fundamental dependence on.

m3rc 10y ago

Not to mention the incredible amount of nearby water that is poisoned

firlefans 10y ago

Can you clarify what you mean? It gets subducted by plate tectonics and becomes steam when heated, presumably it's still there..

rosser 10y ago
Oh, so we'll be able to access that water again over geological time? That changes everything.

jerf 10y ago

Fresh water represents an energy issue, not a materials issue. There's no shortage of H2O molecules, it's the fact that isolating them requires energy that is the issue. If you use some fresh water to get a net gain of energy, you aren't really "spending" the water. The natural next response is to move the goal posts and start talking about carbon dioxide or something, but I suggest resisting that and actually thinking about the real issues for a moment. True as that may be, it's a separate issue. Contrast this with helium, which we really are running out of in a way that, if not necessarily "irrevocable", is certainly going to be much harder to get around if we use it all up.

nickik 10y ago
Usually prices increase and we dont use it all up because you can find cheaper alternatives. For the critical stuff you would still have some left. Interestingly, some renewable resources like whales are far easier to "finish" then the traditional onse. Or is their some specific thing about helium that im not seeing? We should really have some helium left for space flight.

contravariant 10y ago

It's not gone it just becomes groundwater. Sure we won't see it back in any of our life times, but it's not as if we're going to run out any time soon. In that respect fusion would be far more permanent.

DasIch 10y ago
Isn't the very reason fracking is claimed to be safe, that the water is pumped significantly below groundwater level? If that's the case how does it turn into groundwater, is it rising upwards?
opendomain 10y ago
No, I do not think this becomes 'groundwater' Fracking is below the water table and and water used will be effectively lost to the water cycle. If it does leak back up, it will be polluted.
- contravariant 10y ago
  Effectively lost mean different things on a human and a geological timescale. It could take millennia (or longer) for the water to slowly push through various kinds of bedrock, to finally get above ground again. By that time whatever contaminants were in it will have been filtered away. It's an incredibly slow process, but it's not as if we could somehow drain the oceans by fracking at full speed for several millennia.

fleitz 10y ago

Unless you separate it into hydrogen and let the hydrogen escape into the atmosphere, it's hardly 'gone'.

jessriedel 10y ago

Fresh water isn't a closed system such that sullying water ruins it for next year. Limitations on fresh water come from the amount of rainfall, which is a conversion process being sourced from the essentially infinite ocean. If you waste some of this year's water, this year's crops might suffer but nothing permanent has happened.

delazeur 10y ago
This isn't about polluting water, it's about injecting waste water into deep reservoirs from which it will not return to the surface in the meaningfully near future.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  I understood iLoch's comment to be about "losing" the water ('I was shocked to learn water used in fracking is permanently "gone"'), and I was explaining why one-time loss of water is unimportant, because the oceans are limitless and our fresh water supply is a rate that is sourced by the ocean. It doesn't matter if the water is polluted, injected deep underground, or fired into space. If you want, you can replace "sullying" with "burying".
  - delazeur 10y ago
    I suggest you read up on North American hydrology. Fresh water is being depleted at a rate significantly greater than it is being replenished. It's also a stretch to call wastewater injection a "one-time loss of water" when we can expect to be doing it for 30-50 years.
    - nickik 10y ago
      While that is true, thats a purly poitical problem. If their were a prober market solution that priced according to sound resource managment priniples it would not be a problem. The price of water woild still be very low and it would not impact standards of living in any siginificant way. Their are tons of easy ways to save water, pertocularly in farming but that will not happen. Its a classical tragety of the commens. They had to solve the same problem when tjey were moving west, frontier society had very soffisticated systems of water managment.

clock_tower 10y ago

I think we found what to do with the water from melting glaciers. /s (?) (I can't say if I should put a /s on the end or not. If the alternative is drowning Venice, is it a good idea to throw water out of the hydrosphere entirely? ... But if nothing else, look at the scale differences; there's no way that hydraulic fracturing uses as much water as snowpack melting generates...)