Thackney ? What we will be seeing of the oil and gas industry is that it will get lean and mean.
More stable companies financially will gobble up the smaller and bankrupt one with oil free fall fire sales and build from there something good when the price of oil goes back up, rodger that ?
Thackney ? Can pulverized recycled glass ground into small grains be used instead of mined sand ?
I know they use tons and tons of sand and it isn’t cheap, however can pulverized CHEAP recycled glass be used tossupplement and be used with sand to cut cost ?
The glass could be pulverized at working stations in conjunction with using energy from the natural gas flares.
The companies would save money from instead of flaring the natural gas to pulverize the glass and save money from the regulations imposed on then from flaring.
Also cost could ? Be cut from not having to mine the sand that is used for fracking, instead use pulverized Free Cheap recycled glass.
Many towns, counties, state have glass recycling programs.
Furthermore, costs could be cut using pulverised recycled glass bbecause of less shipping cost because the recycled glass would be almost in the frackers back yard, so to speak.
The environmentalist would be happy ( are they really ever happy ? ) because the recycled glass is just as inate as the sand is, and the recycled glass would not be going into landfills.
The glass could be ? Ground up into smaller particles than the sand ? And would smaller grains of crushed up glass work better for fracking than sand particles ?
I don’t know if glass would be a cheaper alternative than mined sand and then shipping the sand, or crushed up glass could be used to supplement the sand to reduce costs.
It’s worth a thought............ EUREKA man.
The requirements for the proppant is more than just a little piece of something in the cracks. And something reasonably splits and breaks under pressure isn’t well suited for holding open the cracks under the pressure of the rock.
Frac Sand and Proppant Size and Shape
http://www.horiba.com/scientific/products/particle-characterization/applications/frac-sand/
Importance of Size & Shape for Proppants Quality
http://www.astm.org/COMMIT/images/6F_ASTM-D18-26-Proppants-Technologies-GB-IT7.pdf