6 ms·

Frackers use dangerous chemicals without disclosure due to Halliburton loophole

86 points by myshpa 3y ago

JimtheCoder 3y ago
Obligatory Frackers book recommendation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707481-the-frackers https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707481-the-frackers
- coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
  Full disclosure, I used to work directly for one of those guys mentioned in the book description.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
I have used the FracFocus database for about 6 or 7 years now (been a petroleum/reservoir engineer for ~20 years), and it is quite depressing to look at some of the chemicals they use. While I applaud the study, it would be interesting to see how much cleanup they have tried to do on the data to yield their numbers (OpenFF isn't great). I have written a fairly long cleanup in Python to get some of the data valuable to the industry. Hydraulic Fracturing recipes differ from basin to basin based on geologies/depths/and major product being produced, just to name a few variables. Doing some math, because they have decided to report the numbers in a very convoluted way (they don't give it in barrels or lbs, they give it in volume percentage based on bulk water volume reported - this leads to inconsistent numbers because the carrier fluid isn't just water, it is water and some other chemical, which differs well to well, that increases the density - which will mess with final volume/weight counts on the various chemicals). The other major issue is what you call a chemical. For example, one chemical can have 10 different names, and pumpers (field personnel) are entering the data by hand a lot of time. Some guy, taking mud samples for an oil company, working at a site 50 miles from Midland, isn't really caring how he is spelling "2-acryloyloxyethyl(benzyl)dimethylammonium chloride" at 4 in the morning. So, on top of chemicals with multiple names (and just field reference names), you have spelling errors galore. Also, when going through the database, there is no standardized way to enter percentages...nor do they care if those percentages add up to 1 (100?). The study does what it is supposed to do - identifies "bad stuff goes into the ground", but we really can't judge what the real amount is given how error full the database is. To finish a thought from before, the thing that E&P companies get from the database on competitors is how much sand (what kind of sand/proppant, too) and water they are using to fracture the rock in a well. The completion is the more expensive part of the drilling/completion/facilities cost of a well. If you are interested in seeing what the database looks like, here is the location. I haven't cleaned it in a bit, and it looks like they changed up the site some, so take this link FWIW. https://dev.fracfocus.org/index.php/data-download https://dev.fracfocus.org/index.php/data-download
- coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
  Also worth mentioning, where the article talks about "proprietary recipes" - that isn't just referencing one chemical in many cases. They will just enter that phrase as the full list of chemicals used.
- loa_in_ 3y ago
  If I got it correctly, the units they use represent some upper/lower bounds on chemical mix percentage?
  - coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
    Sample Calculation: Total Base Water Volume (gal) (Total Bulk Volume): 16,489,452 Max Ingredient Concentration in HydroFracture Fluid for water (% by mass): 91.0 Max Ingredient Concentration in HF Fluid for silica (% by mass): 8.6 Gallon of water weight (lbs./gal): 8.34 Barrel (bbl) = 42 gallons Total weight of water (lbs.) = TBV * Gallon of water weight = 137,522,030 Total weight of frac job (lbs.) = Total weight of Water/Water concentration in frac = 137,522,030 / (91.0/100) = 151,123,110 Proppant weight, Silica, (lbs.) = 151,123,110 * (8.6/100) = 12,996,588 Barrels of water = 16,489,452 / 42 = 392,606 So, 99.6% of the frac job is sand (or something like it) and water. The rest is "chemicals". Of course, this number varies wildly based on recipe - 92-99% is usually the range. You would figure out the other chemicals the same way. Problem is percentages could be in percentage or decimal format and/or those numbers could just be straight up wrong, or you aren't provided other info that is relevant in the calc.
hilbert42 3y ago
I have no time for fracking and frackers and I reckon the process ought to be banned except under exceptional circumstances. That said, I don't think this story is very objective in that it unduly pushes the buttons of people who are chemical-phobic and that makes matters worse. Here, ethylene glycol (aka MEG—mono ethylene glycol) is held up as a bogeyman without a satisfactorily explanation of why. When or if MEG gets into the water table how much damage would it do? How much would a person likely consume in say the course of a year and how dangerous would it be? I can't answer that directly as I simply don't have the leakage figures so let's look at MEG's known dangers. MEG is antifreeze that you put in your car engine and it is dangerous if consumed, and it doesn't take much to kill you about 50 to 100ml (a wineglass full if it's concentrated — in antifreeze it's quite diluted). It's also sweet and to deter kids from drinking it, it has Bitrex/denatonium added to make it extremely bitter. OK, it's nasty stuff but what happens when you consume it? Well, it breaks down into oxalic acid and that's what's dangerous about it as oxalic acid is poisonous. But how much so? It just so happens that oxalic acid ocurrs naturally in the leaves of many green vegetables such as spinich, its concentrations are so high in rhubarb leaves that we're told only to eat the stems. The point is that trace amounts of MEG won't do us harm because we're used to normally consuming somewhat more than just trace amounts of oxalic acid in our food. A much greater danger to health are the aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene which is definitely toxic and carcinogenic but you'll notice it doesn't head the list in this article because much less of it is released during fracking. But small amounts aren't as noteworthy as the large amount of MEG released even though it likely poses a much greater health risk over the long run. This is why many articles of this type are both misleading and harmful. They not only distort the facts but they also give the frackers and their ilk ammunition to dismiss reports of their unacceptable activities as being inaccurate and or groundless.
- coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
  You are totally right, the amount of chemical in comparison to the total frac job is small, but when you start putting 8-16 wells in the same space where once we only did 4, then it starts to add up. I used to have a full chemical list somewhere, but can't seem to find it right now. Also, to your point, things like benzene and toluene are in the mix at times - and if a company has a "proprietary" mix there can easily be some really rough carcinogens in that, too. This is a slightly different topic, but the amount of clean water used in the process is an eye opener. Say you will have 8 wells on a 1280 spacing (so 2 mile laterals, roughly), and they use 75,000 bbls of water - fresh water, you can't have any side reactions happening and recycled water adds significant cost to an already pricey well (probably $7.2- $8 million each for drill/completion), that is 25.2 million gallons of water for just one pad of wells. In terms of future water access, coupled with "is that water clean?", it becomes a real issue. Typically frac flowback water is dumped to a lined pit (which, at times, it can leak through to the ground water), and that water is then transported to an injection well nearby to inject at some point below the water table. But you can't always trust people to do that right things when costs come up. There are bad injection wells where the water is absorbed at the water table level.

86 points by myshpa 3y ago

Obligatory Frackers book recommendation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707481-the-frackers https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707481-the-frackers

coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
Full disclosure, I used to work directly for one of those guys mentioned in the book description.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

coffeeshopgoth 3y ago

I have used the FracFocus database for about 6 or 7 years now (been a petroleum/reservoir engineer for ~20 years), and it is quite depressing to look at some of the chemicals they use. While I applaud the study, it would be interesting to see how much cleanup they have tried to do on the data to yield their numbers (OpenFF isn't great). I have written a fairly long cleanup in Python to get some of the data valuable to the industry. Hydraulic Fracturing recipes differ from basin to basin based on geologies/depths/and major product being produced, just to name a few variables. Doing some math, because they have decided to report the numbers in a very convoluted way (they don't give it in barrels or lbs, they give it in volume percentage based on bulk water volume reported - this leads to inconsistent numbers because the carrier fluid isn't just water, it is water and some other chemical, which differs well to well, that increases the density - which will mess with final volume/weight counts on the various chemicals). The other major issue is what you call a chemical. For example, one chemical can have 10 different names, and pumpers (field personnel) are entering the data by hand a lot of time. Some guy, taking mud samples for an oil company, working at a site 50 miles from Midland, isn't really caring how he is spelling "2-acryloyloxyethyl(benzyl)dimethylammonium chloride" at 4 in the morning. So, on top of chemicals with multiple names (and just field reference names), you have spelling errors galore. Also, when going through the database, there is no standardized way to enter percentages...nor do they care if those percentages add up to 1 (100?). The study does what it is supposed to do - identifies "bad stuff goes into the ground", but we really can't judge what the real amount is given how error full the database is. To finish a thought from before, the thing that E&P companies get from the database on competitors is how much sand (what kind of sand/proppant, too) and water they are using to fracture the rock in a well. The completion is the more expensive part of the drilling/completion/facilities cost of a well. If you are interested in seeing what the database looks like, here is the location. I haven't cleaned it in a bit, and it looks like they changed up the site some, so take this link FWIW. https://dev.fracfocus.org/index.php/data-download https://dev.fracfocus.org/index.php/data-download

coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
Also worth mentioning, where the article talks about "proprietary recipes" - that isn't just referencing one chemical in many cases. They will just enter that phrase as the full list of chemicals used.
loa_in_ 3y ago
If I got it correctly, the units they use represent some upper/lower bounds on chemical mix percentage?
- coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
  Sample Calculation: Total Base Water Volume (gal) (Total Bulk Volume): 16,489,452 Max Ingredient Concentration in HydroFracture Fluid for water (% by mass): 91.0 Max Ingredient Concentration in HF Fluid for silica (% by mass): 8.6 Gallon of water weight (lbs./gal): 8.34 Barrel (bbl) = 42 gallons Total weight of water (lbs.) = TBV * Gallon of water weight = 137,522,030 Total weight of frac job (lbs.) = Total weight of Water/Water concentration in frac = 137,522,030 / (91.0/100) = 151,123,110 Proppant weight, Silica, (lbs.) = 151,123,110 * (8.6/100) = 12,996,588 Barrels of water = 16,489,452 / 42 = 392,606 So, 99.6% of the frac job is sand (or something like it) and water. The rest is "chemicals". Of course, this number varies wildly based on recipe - 92-99% is usually the range. You would figure out the other chemicals the same way. Problem is percentages could be in percentage or decimal format and/or those numbers could just be straight up wrong, or you aren't provided other info that is relevant in the calc.

hilbert42 3y ago

I have no time for fracking and frackers and I reckon the process ought to be banned except under exceptional circumstances. That said, I don't think this story is very objective in that it unduly pushes the buttons of people who are chemical-phobic and that makes matters worse. Here, ethylene glycol (aka MEG—mono ethylene glycol) is held up as a bogeyman without a satisfactorily explanation of why. When or if MEG gets into the water table how much damage would it do? How much would a person likely consume in say the course of a year and how dangerous would it be? I can't answer that directly as I simply don't have the leakage figures so let's look at MEG's known dangers. MEG is antifreeze that you put in your car engine and it is dangerous if consumed, and it doesn't take much to kill you about 50 to 100ml (a wineglass full if it's concentrated — in antifreeze it's quite diluted). It's also sweet and to deter kids from drinking it, it has Bitrex/denatonium added to make it extremely bitter. OK, it's nasty stuff but what happens when you consume it? Well, it breaks down into oxalic acid and that's what's dangerous about it as oxalic acid is poisonous. But how much so? It just so happens that oxalic acid ocurrs naturally in the leaves of many green vegetables such as spinich, its concentrations are so high in rhubarb leaves that we're told only to eat the stems. The point is that trace amounts of MEG won't do us harm because we're used to normally consuming somewhat more than just trace amounts of oxalic acid in our food. A much greater danger to health are the aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene which is definitely toxic and carcinogenic but you'll notice it doesn't head the list in this article because much less of it is released during fracking. But small amounts aren't as noteworthy as the large amount of MEG released even though it likely poses a much greater health risk over the long run. This is why many articles of this type are both misleading and harmful. They not only distort the facts but they also give the frackers and their ilk ammunition to dismiss reports of their unacceptable activities as being inaccurate and or groundless.

coffeeshopgoth 3y ago
You are totally right, the amount of chemical in comparison to the total frac job is small, but when you start putting 8-16 wells in the same space where once we only did 4, then it starts to add up. I used to have a full chemical list somewhere, but can't seem to find it right now. Also, to your point, things like benzene and toluene are in the mix at times - and if a company has a "proprietary" mix there can easily be some really rough carcinogens in that, too. This is a slightly different topic, but the amount of clean water used in the process is an eye opener. Say you will have 8 wells on a 1280 spacing (so 2 mile laterals, roughly), and they use 75,000 bbls of water - fresh water, you can't have any side reactions happening and recycled water adds significant cost to an already pricey well (probably $7.2- $8 million each for drill/completion), that is 25.2 million gallons of water for just one pad of wells. In terms of future water access, coupled with "is that water clean?", it becomes a real issue. Typically frac flowback water is dumped to a lined pit (which, at times, it can leak through to the ground water), and that water is then transported to an injection well nearby to inject at some point below the water table. But you can't always trust people to do that right things when costs come up. There are bad injection wells where the water is absorbed at the water table level.