Liberal University Destroys Anti-Fracking Talking Point

B-I-N-G-O. They nailed it. Finally, an unbiased academic study that reiterated what we’ve been advocating all along on Powering America Radio.

The University of Colorado, Boulder, by no means a bastion of pro-fracking advocacy, studied that dastardly substance that many a seasoned environmentalist have repeatedly used to demonize American Energy Independence: Frack Fluids.

Their finding? What’ goes down the well is no more hazardous than what lies beneath your sink, or sits atop your laundry closet.

This was the first-ever scientific report anywhere, and was conducted by a team of researchers from CU Boulder. They studied wells in Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Texas. The results showed that the chemicals found in the fluid samples showed they were the same chemicals found in fluid samples from everyday household products found in your home. Specifically mentioned were toothpaste, laxatives, detergent and even ice cream.

We created an infographic that puts it in simple language and you can see it by clicking this link.

I feel relieved. We knew this all along from the multiple vendors with whom we work closely. We knew these folks weren’t dumping random toxins down into the earth. These are highly regulated processes, overseen by multiple PhD level scientists, carefully tracked by multiple state agencies.

Environmentalists have turned fracking into a boogieman for several reasons. American Energy Independence from the shale revolution stalls their agenda of advancing exclusive renewable energy. Problem is, have you ever seen an airplane run on solar panels? Or better yet, a windmill? No thanks on that one.

Fracking is a generally safe process that is performed without incident some 18,000 times a year. It’s created hundreds of thousands of direct jobs, and well over a million non-direct support roles. It has the Saudi’s nervous and is providing hope that America can power itself with it’s own fuel.

I’m thrilled to see science, especially from a liberal University with excellent credentials, issue a non-biased report. Keep Frackin’ America.

If you mean potable drinking water, I believe that is true. Too much salt content as you get lower, but there is certainly water lower, it is in the oil/gas fields as well.

For the most part, absolutely correct.

I worked one well in Nevada where we tested and got water with <200 ppm chlorides (fresher than most well water) below 2500 ft. (it looked a lot like oil on the resistivity logs, it was that low in dissolved salts).

Sadly, that was in the middle of the desert on BLM land, and they demanded the oil company plug the well because they did not have a permit to drill for and produce water.

That's one well in a 35 year career with possibly potable water at depths greater than 1000 ft. None of the rest had that.

IIRC, there is no point in pressuring up the entire casing string during a frac. That's a waste of pressure, anyway.

First off, the casing should have been tested by pumping against it with the BOP closed and seeing if the pressure would bleed off (before drilling out of the new casing string into new formation. After drilling out of the new casing, cement, float, and shoe, and a few feet (10-20) of new formation, the BOP is again closed, and a Formation Integrity Test run to determine if the formation can withstand the sort of hydrostatic pressure needed to control the highest likely well pressure at depth. So the casing has been tested hydrostatically, the formation also, and the well drilled. Logs are run through the casing where cemented to check for a uniform and solid cement bond between formation and casing (known as Casing Bond Logs, or simply, Bond Logs. These will show weak spots in the cement job if such are present, and these can be remediated before a frac or production is attempted.

For the frac:

Better to set a packer in the production casing, usually far below the extent of surface casing, which was run after the last aquifer in the area had been drilled.

After setting the packer, the rest of the wellbore from the packer to total depth (or selected sections of the wellbore, sealed off from the rest of the wellbore inside the production liner and outside in the event of a staged frac) can be fracced.

This way, displacement calculations are simpler, the production fluid above the packer acts as a BOP keeping hydrostatic pressure on the 'top' of the packer, and less frac fluid is used versus pressuring up the entire casing string. Where the fluid goes out into the rock can be monitored, as well as the pressure needed to induce fractures, amount of fluid pushed into the formation, amount of proppant, etc.

Pressures (lithostatic pressure outside the casing, hydrostatic pressure from the column of completion fluid inside the casing above the packer, and the frac pressure in the production liner (segment) are all closer to equal and the chance of a failure is significantly reduced--and any failure that occurs will be inside casing, at depth, unless it is a failure in the surface equipment.

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