Posted on 10/01/2010 10:06:53 AM PDT by thackney
General Electric Co. is launching a mobile device aimed at helping natural gas drillers recycle water used in a controversial gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing. The truck-sized, transportable device would cut down on both the amount of fresh water used and wastewater currently trucked long distances for disposal.
The company’s mobile evaporator would allow natural gas producers to reuse some of the millions of gallons of water used to extract natural gas from dense shale deposits deep underground through the so-called “fracking” process. Water is mixed with chemicals and sand and pumped at high pressure thousands of feet below the surface to create fissures in the rock and release the gas.
Fracking uses a large amount of fresh water and produces billions of gallons of wastewater annually, GE said. The company says its mobile evaporator will cut the volume of wastewater and fresh water needed by between 50 percent and 90 percent by recycling water directly at the well site.
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
Fuelfix was created by the Houston Chronicle to replace some of the way they did their articles and I believe shares them with other Hearst Papers.
The article can also be found under their business pages:
http://www.chron.com/business/
What a bunch of felgercarb.
Why those miserable cork-soakers! Those fargin sneaky bastages. I'm gonna take your dworks. I'm gonna crush your boils in a meat grinder. I'm gonna cut off your arms. I'm gonna shove 'em up your icehole. Dirty son-a-ma-batches. THIS IS FARGIN' WAR!
Johnny Dangerously: The name's Dangerously. Johnny Dangerously.
Lil: Did you know you're last name is an adverb?
This may resolve the problem with the contaminated water used in the fracking process held in holding ponds.
One of the fears is that the ponds could overflow and contaminate streams and rivers which supposedly has happened.
All in all, sounds like a very good thing. American ingenuity triumphs again.
Sounds good. Fracking is really taking off here in SW PA.
“Intersting, since the nat gas extractors have claimed the fracking process is not harmful to drinking water.”
Fracking isn’t harmful to water supplies as it is done far away from underground water tables and does not contact them. If you poured frac chemicals into a water supply it would certainly pollute it.
I own mineral rights that have two wells operating at this time. The water table extends down about 700 feet under the surface at the site. The fracking took place at about 5500 feet own and extended about 200 feet up and down from that level.
We aren’t running out of water, but dealing with trucking water to a fracking well is expensive.. massive amounts of water are needed to perform the procedure and you have to treat the water after you are done because it is full off all sort of nasty stuff you don’t want seeping into the water table. A mobile device that can cut down on the volume of water needed and to help clean up the waste water generated is a major win.
Now, for the bonus round.. who invented the fracking procedure to begin with?
This is the first time I’ve ever seen the word “fracking” used correctly in the media. Too funny.
Stanolind Oil and Gas Company (> Pan American Petroleum Corp > Amoco > BP) developed the process then called Hydrafrac. In 1949 this process was then used commercially by the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company “Howco” under an exclusive license until made available to others in 1953.
I knew a college professor that held pneumatic fracturing patents for remediation.
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