As both an oil guy and a rancher, I’ve never understood why environmentalists dislike fracking.
Fracking is done (now) mainly in horizontal wells, with wellbores that are 1-2 miles long. These wells drain huge areas of land, compared to putting in a a hundred or more little vertical wells.
The way they do it (generally) is a nice straight line across the top of the section (a square mile) with the wells placed either 330 or 660 yards apart. One road, one clean pipeline system, common tank batteries, one set of power lines. Vertical is a 1/2 acre pad every 20 acres, with a bizarre patchwork of roads, powerlines, and crap everywhere.
It’s so much more environmentally friendly.
It’s the same oil that comes up, same water, same CO2. Probably less of a “carbon footprint” because it just takes so many less wellbores.
We just happen to be able to do that in the USA vs. Iran or Saudi or wherever, which I think is the real issue. Qatar funded a bunch of junk science because horizontal wells were cutting into their profit margins; paid Mark Wahlburg to make stupid movies.
If the issue is “less oil”, it does nothing. It’s just from where the oil comes from -— Texas, OK, NM — or from Russia and radical Muslims.
RE: As both an oil guy and a rancher, I’ve never understood why environmentalists dislike fracking.
Well, let me explain what the environmentalists are agruing:
* They claim that fracking can contaminate groundwater, cause air pollution, and contribute to climate change by releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
* Additionally, liberals often view fracking as being linked to earthquakes and other seismic activity.
Because of these, They believe that the potential benefits of fracking, such as increased energy production and job creation, are outweighed by the environmental and health risks involved.