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Natural gas is only inexpensive because of fracking. With fracking in the USA at least the people involved can set up an LLC that dissolves after the well runs

Natural gas is only inexpensive because of fracking. With fracking in the USA at least the people involved can set up an LLC that dissolves after the well runs out. They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. It gets pumped back down underground where it could dissipate into the rest of the water system. These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't predict the weather accurately next week. In California now they're using fracking wastewater on crops because of the water shortages. Without disclosing what's in it. And not testing for if that stuff ends up in the food. These people are using loopholes to take the profits now and leave society with the bills for cleanup and the health consequences. That isn't sustainable or IMO fair or just. If the real cost of fossil fuels was clear up front they would not make sense. https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-oil-water-20150503-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-oil-w...

whatshisface 5y ago
>These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't predict the weather accurately next week. The models may or may not be accurate but they have nothing to do with predicting the weather. There isn't any weather underground... It's all slow diffusion and buoyancy. A better starting place might be asking where the model inputs come from.
- mcguire 5y ago
  Doesn't "diffusion and buoyancy" technically describe the weather, too?
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Diffusion and buoyancy are indeed both things about the weather, but the nonlinearity of the navier-stokes equation stems from the ability of convection to transport momentum. Fluids moving through rocks can't go fast enough for that to happen.
- phillc73 5y ago
  https://www.wunderground.com/ https://www.wunderground.com/
5faulker 5y ago
This is definitely more of a do-it-while-you-can model.
ac29 5y ago
> In California now they're using fracking wastewater on crops That's not what your linked article says. The article says treated wastewater is being used. That being said, it appears to be in dispute if the water is treated enough, with the water district claiming that it is and an environmental group claiming its not.
gmadsen 5y ago
while I agree with the sentiment, your analogy about weather is misplaced. We can model the climate decades into the future, which this situation seems more similar to. Obviously the fracking companies would be biased, so I am not siding with them, just that particular argument feels like a straw man
Mewit 5y ago
I don't think it is accurate to say it "dissipates into the rest of the water system". Typically the hydrocarbon formations being fracked are thousands of feet below the water table, separated by thousands of feet of impermeable shale. It's the same, or more so, for disposal zones where the frack fluid that flows back is injected. For the fluid to mix with a potable aquifer, it would have to leak within a wellbore. That's possible, for sure, but it's pretty rare, can be detected through proper monitoring, and can be more or less eliminated as a risk when the well is ultimately abandoned by pumping cement down the well. You don't really need a computer model to tell you what's going to happen: the formations have been separate for millions of years, and they're probably going to continue to be separate for millions more. I hadn't heard about them using the water for crops, that is a little more alarming to me. I suspect it's not being done quite as cavalierly as you're suggesting - they are clearly treating and testing it, as discussed in the article. In my (maybe biased) opinion, all of this should be weighed against the alternatives. Gas is much cleaner than coal, after all. In Europe, they made the decision to ban fracking, and also eliminate nuclear energy (in some countries at least). Some of the gap can be filled increasingly with renewables, but as recent history has shown, not all of it. Most of the gap is filled with Russian gas, which has its own issues. And overall it makes the energy supply less robust, which allowed their current energy crisis to happen, when the wind doesn't blow enough and the Russian supply has hiccups. I don't think it's fair to paint this as oil and gas companies reaping all the benefits while everyone else pays the price: everyone benefits from lower energy prices, directly or indirectly. In my opinion, consumers bear some of the responsibility for environmental issues, as well as the producers.
- humaniania 5y ago
  "impermeable" until there's an earthquake caused by fracking and things shift deep underground where nobody can monitor or track what is happening? Seems exceptionally short sighted to me. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes
  - Mewit 5y ago
    I think it's best to look at the options through a risk matrix. Is it possible that an earthquake is generated by fracking that is big enough to geologically connect a hydrocarbon formation with a surface aquifer thousands of feet above it? I suppose, but I think it is very unlikely. I don't think there are any cases of that on record, and wells have been fracked in the US for many decades (although not as frequently as recently). What is the consequence of that happening? A community (likely a rural community) loses potable drinking water. I would say that is a low probability of a medium impact event. The calculation is going to change if there is a higher probability of drinking water contamination for whatever reason, or if more people live in the area and would be impacted by an event, just as the risk matrix is different building a nuclear power plant in France compared to building one on the Japanese coastline. Of course every jurisdiction makes its own decisions, as is their right, but the consequence of always taking the least risky option can leave a country in a tough situation when those options don't cover their energy needs, like in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe) right now.
xondono 5y ago
What a great way to not answer what OP is asking. If you don’t like fracking, that’s alright, but sustaining ourselves without it it’s not really an option. Right now our options are: 1) Use coal, accept the consequences of the increased climate change. 2) Keep using gas, reduce the future costs of climate change, deal later with the speculative consequences you mention. 3) Switch to renewables and drastically increase energy costs, which will trap millions of people into poverty, and put millions more in risk.
- humaniania 5y ago
  Energy subsidies for vulnerable people are an option that negates your only argument against the most sane option of switching to renewable and nuclear ASAP, at least in extremely wealthy countries like the USA.
  - lazide 5y ago
    What do you think the odds of this occurring are?
  - xondono 5y ago
    My argument doesn’t care who’s pocket is funding the renewables. As a society, every extra dollar spent on pricier energy is an extra dollar that can’t go to social programs, or to new start up, or anywhere.
    - 8note 5y ago
      Every extra dollar saved on cheaper energy actually goes to lining some billionaire's pockets in some untaxed hole. And then eventually the people who would benefit from said social program will instead have to pay back a climate debt in the future.
      - xondono 5y ago
        If we are going to just made up magic pockets where infinite money lies, then we can justify whatever we please. The point of my comment is that it doesn't matter where the money is. Even if you were to pay it through massive taxes to the rich (assume no loopholes, no funny accounting tricks possible), the ones picking up the tab are the poor people of the future, because even if all millionaires are evil movie villains, taking their money will hurt growth, and growth compounds. Reducing growth now can be a catastrophe when compounded over 100, 200, 500 years.
solarhoma 5y ago
There is a lot wrong with your post. >They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. Majority of water used in hydro fracking is slick water. This is normal water with friction reducers added to it. Typically 1%. Though can change based on the design of the frack. These are maybe not disclosed to the public since they typically are proprietary formulas that each vendor creates on their own. Each wanting to protect their IP from other vendors supplying the friction reducers. >It gets pumped back down underground where it dissipates into the rest of the water system. This is the most inaccurate and hyperbolic part of your response. It is markedly false. The slick water is typically reused after the well back flows. They store the water onsite for the remaining wells. Or transport to another pad for continued hydro fracking use. Any water that is produced during well production is pumped into non-human use reservoirs. These disposal wells are called SWD’s, saltwater disposals. The depths of the wells vary, in our field it was 7500’. Whereas freshwater wells for human and cattle use were 300’. Regulatory bodies strictly manage the creation of SWD’s with significant research and paperwork to show the reservoir you are disposing into is not or has ever been used for human consumption. The water at this reservoir will not magically make its way into the freshwater reservoir. >These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't predict the weather accurately next week. This seems more emotionally driven than anything. Who are ‘these people’. How does this correlate to weather? I have worked with hundreds of wells that are +80 years old still in good standing. If the well integrity is in question a cement bond log is run, along with other logs. If it is found there are any discrepancies they are fixed. Or the well plugged and abandoned, is filled with cement and the wellhead removed. I have not heard of fracking water ever being used for crops. Apologies for any spelling or grammar errors as I am on my phone writing this message.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Keep these mysterious friction reducers the fuck away from my food. I had no idea about this previously but your comment is causing more concern to me than the GP's.
- malchow 5y ago
  He's also wrong about there being a water *shortage* in California. There is water *diversion*, designed by environmentalists to save animals, that strips farmers of water.
drdeca 5y ago
Are you claiming that it is chaotic in the way that weather is? Or, if not, why would such a comparison make sense? Like, why does it make more sense than "the people at the LHC claim they understand well enough to be confident that the LHC wont produce a black hole that swallows the earth, but how can we trust that when computer models can't predict the weather next week?" ? What does one have to do with the other? It is not at all clear to me that the inability to predict the weather is at all a good reason to significantly doubt the accuracy of their models of the impact of the wastewater fluid. There may be other good reasons to doubt it! I'm not claiming their models are good, I know very little about it. But, without a further explanation as to why the two are comparable in this way, I don't see the "but we can't precisely predict the weather for next week" argument as having any non-negligible weight.
engineer_22 5y ago
Tldr; externalized costs of fossil fuels aren't being fully considered by the economy.

whatshisface 5y ago

>These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't predict the weather accurately next week. The models may or may not be accurate but they have nothing to do with predicting the weather. There isn't any weather underground... It's all slow diffusion and buoyancy. A better starting place might be asking where the model inputs come from.

mcguire 5y ago
Doesn't "diffusion and buoyancy" technically describe the weather, too?
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Diffusion and buoyancy are indeed both things about the weather, but the nonlinearity of the navier-stokes equation stems from the ability of convection to transport momentum. Fluids moving through rocks can't go fast enough for that to happen.
phillc73 5y ago
https://www.wunderground.com/ https://www.wunderground.com/

5faulker 5y ago

This is definitely more of a do-it-while-you-can model.

ac29 5y ago

> In California now they're using fracking wastewater on crops That's not what your linked article says. The article says treated wastewater is being used. That being said, it appears to be in dispute if the water is treated enough, with the water district claiming that it is and an environmental group claiming its not.

gmadsen 5y ago

while I agree with the sentiment, your analogy about weather is misplaced. We can model the climate decades into the future, which this situation seems more similar to. Obviously the fracking companies would be biased, so I am not siding with them, just that particular argument feels like a straw man

Mewit 5y ago

I don't think it is accurate to say it "dissipates into the rest of the water system". Typically the hydrocarbon formations being fracked are thousands of feet below the water table, separated by thousands of feet of impermeable shale. It's the same, or more so, for disposal zones where the frack fluid that flows back is injected. For the fluid to mix with a potable aquifer, it would have to leak within a wellbore. That's possible, for sure, but it's pretty rare, can be detected through proper monitoring, and can be more or less eliminated as a risk when the well is ultimately abandoned by pumping cement down the well. You don't really need a computer model to tell you what's going to happen: the formations have been separate for millions of years, and they're probably going to continue to be separate for millions more. I hadn't heard about them using the water for crops, that is a little more alarming to me. I suspect it's not being done quite as cavalierly as you're suggesting - they are clearly treating and testing it, as discussed in the article. In my (maybe biased) opinion, all of this should be weighed against the alternatives. Gas is much cleaner than coal, after all. In Europe, they made the decision to ban fracking, and also eliminate nuclear energy (in some countries at least). Some of the gap can be filled increasingly with renewables, but as recent history has shown, not all of it. Most of the gap is filled with Russian gas, which has its own issues. And overall it makes the energy supply less robust, which allowed their current energy crisis to happen, when the wind doesn't blow enough and the Russian supply has hiccups. I don't think it's fair to paint this as oil and gas companies reaping all the benefits while everyone else pays the price: everyone benefits from lower energy prices, directly or indirectly. In my opinion, consumers bear some of the responsibility for environmental issues, as well as the producers.

humaniania 5y ago
"impermeable" until there's an earthquake caused by fracking and things shift deep underground where nobody can monitor or track what is happening? Seems exceptionally short sighted to me. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes
- Mewit 5y ago
  I think it's best to look at the options through a risk matrix. Is it possible that an earthquake is generated by fracking that is big enough to geologically connect a hydrocarbon formation with a surface aquifer thousands of feet above it? I suppose, but I think it is very unlikely. I don't think there are any cases of that on record, and wells have been fracked in the US for many decades (although not as frequently as recently). What is the consequence of that happening? A community (likely a rural community) loses potable drinking water. I would say that is a low probability of a medium impact event. The calculation is going to change if there is a higher probability of drinking water contamination for whatever reason, or if more people live in the area and would be impacted by an event, just as the risk matrix is different building a nuclear power plant in France compared to building one on the Japanese coastline. Of course every jurisdiction makes its own decisions, as is their right, but the consequence of always taking the least risky option can leave a country in a tough situation when those options don't cover their energy needs, like in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe) right now.

xondono 5y ago

What a great way to not answer what OP is asking. If you don’t like fracking, that’s alright, but sustaining ourselves without it it’s not really an option. Right now our options are: 1) Use coal, accept the consequences of the increased climate change. 2) Keep using gas, reduce the future costs of climate change, deal later with the speculative consequences you mention. 3) Switch to renewables and drastically increase energy costs, which will trap millions of people into poverty, and put millions more in risk.

humaniania 5y ago
Energy subsidies for vulnerable people are an option that negates your only argument against the most sane option of switching to renewable and nuclear ASAP, at least in extremely wealthy countries like the USA.
- lazide 5y ago
  What do you think the odds of this occurring are?
- xondono 5y ago
  My argument doesn’t care who’s pocket is funding the renewables. As a society, every extra dollar spent on pricier energy is an extra dollar that can’t go to social programs, or to new start up, or anywhere.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Every extra dollar saved on cheaper energy actually goes to lining some billionaire's pockets in some untaxed hole. And then eventually the people who would benefit from said social program will instead have to pay back a climate debt in the future.
    - xondono 5y ago
      If we are going to just made up magic pockets where infinite money lies, then we can justify whatever we please. The point of my comment is that it doesn't matter where the money is. Even if you were to pay it through massive taxes to the rich (assume no loopholes, no funny accounting tricks possible), the ones picking up the tab are the poor people of the future, because even if all millionaires are evil movie villains, taking their money will hurt growth, and growth compounds. Reducing growth now can be a catastrophe when compounded over 100, 200, 500 years.

solarhoma 5y ago

There is a lot wrong with your post. >They are not required to disclose the contents of the fracking wastewater fluid. Majority of water used in hydro fracking is slick water. This is normal water with friction reducers added to it. Typically 1%. Though can change based on the design of the frack. These are maybe not disclosed to the public since they typically are proprietary formulas that each vendor creates on their own. Each wanting to protect their IP from other vendors supplying the friction reducers. >It gets pumped back down underground where it dissipates into the rest of the water system. This is the most inaccurate and hyperbolic part of your response. It is markedly false. The slick water is typically reused after the well back flows. They store the water onsite for the remaining wells. Or transport to another pad for continued hydro fracking use. Any water that is produced during well production is pumped into non-human use reservoirs. These disposal wells are called SWD’s, saltwater disposals. The depths of the wells vary, in our field it was 7500’. Whereas freshwater wells for human and cattle use were 300’. Regulatory bodies strictly manage the creation of SWD’s with significant research and paperwork to show the reservoir you are disposing into is not or has ever been used for human consumption. The water at this reservoir will not magically make its way into the freshwater reservoir. >These people claim that it's safe for decades when our computer models can't predict the weather accurately next week. This seems more emotionally driven than anything. Who are ‘these people’. How does this correlate to weather? I have worked with hundreds of wells that are +80 years old still in good standing. If the well integrity is in question a cement bond log is run, along with other logs. If it is found there are any discrepancies they are fixed. Or the well plugged and abandoned, is filled with cement and the wellhead removed. I have not heard of fracking water ever being used for crops. Apologies for any spelling or grammar errors as I am on my phone writing this message.

ummonk 5y ago
Keep these mysterious friction reducers the fuck away from my food. I had no idea about this previously but your comment is causing more concern to me than the GP's.
malchow 5y ago
He's also wrong about there being a water *shortage* in California. There is water *diversion*, designed by environmentalists to save animals, that strips farmers of water.

drdeca 5y ago

Are you claiming that it is chaotic in the way that weather is? Or, if not, why would such a comparison make sense? Like, why does it make more sense than "the people at the LHC claim they understand well enough to be confident that the LHC wont produce a black hole that swallows the earth, but how can we trust that when computer models can't predict the weather next week?" ? What does one have to do with the other? It is not at all clear to me that the inability to predict the weather is at all a good reason to significantly doubt the accuracy of their models of the impact of the wastewater fluid. There may be other good reasons to doubt it! I'm not claiming their models are good, I know very little about it. But, without a further explanation as to why the two are comparable in this way, I don't see the "but we can't precisely predict the weather for next week" argument as having any non-negligible weight.

engineer_22 5y ago

Tldr; externalized costs of fossil fuels aren't being fully considered by the economy.