Government's all over the world strive to find alternate and cleaner energy sources, such as natural gas. Hydraulic Fracturing, also known as "Hydro Fracking", is a process to extract natural gas. It has been around for a long time, but has exploded in popularity in the past couple of years.
Hydro Fracking works through well drilling. The process entails pumping millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals down the gas or oil well. The mixture is pumped at extreme high pressure to create fractures or fissures in the rock. This allows trapped oil and or gas deposits to flow to the surface and be collected.
There is huge controversy surrounding Hydro Fracking. Like any other extraction process there are positives and negatives that happen.
Pros
Fossil fuels help create most of the energy we use everyday. Unfortunately, fossil fuels such as coal and oil have harmful side effects from burning them. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, but it's much cleaner to burn. Not only is natural gas cleaner, but it's obtained domestically. A large issue for America is it's dependency on foreign oil. Obtaining a fossil fuel domestically helps to lessen this issue. Another benefit of natural gas being obtained domestically is the economy boost it can create. Natural gas is another big industry and big industries create jobs. Workers are needed to operate machinery in all differnt parts of the Hydraulic Fracturing process. People also need to deliver the equiment and materials used for the process, once again creating more job opportunities.
Cons
When these wells are drilled they can hit or be connected to important water sources. So, in the Hydro Fracking process when the mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is pumped it can contaminate the water source. This can lead to possible contamination of drinking water.This contamination is difficult to clean up. During the process, the amount of water used can be millions of gallons, which is very wasteful. Finally, when the natural gas is being released, methane can be released as well. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. The problem with greenhouse gases is that in too large of amounts they can contribute to Global Warming. Global Warming doesn't have all bad effects, but it's negatives are very concerning. Some of those effects are spread of disease, flooding or increased droughts, and polar ice caps melting.
Although the process of Hydraulic Fracturing has been around for awhile, it's still difficult for experts to know whether it's a good enough replacement for other extraction processes. There are many different and easily accessible sources to learn more about Hydraulic Fracturing. A key site to use would be the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Josh Fox created a film called "Gasland", which has become very popular and explores different stories of people directly effected by Hydraulic Fracturing.
However, this film heavily emphasizes the negatives of this process. A few other sources for information include the American Petroleum Institute and Frac Focus: Chemical Disclosure Registry.
