Posted on 03/05/2014 11:15:59 AM PST by thackney
A common criticism of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is that it wastes water. Los Angeles just became the largest U.S. city to vote to ban fracking. One of the main justifications was water conservation during the current California drought. L.A. Councilmember Mike Bonin said that fracking “uses excessive amounts of water in a drought.” Some lawmakers are even pushing for a statewide ban.
However, as the following table shows, fracking uses much less water than other energy sources. To produce one million British Thermal Units (MMBtu) of energy, natural gas from fracking uses an average of 1.25 gallons of water. Biofuels use over 2,500 gallons of water per MMBtu. If the concern of environmentalists is saving water, they should attack biofuels and synfuels.
Fresh water is necessary for fracking since it creates the clean fractures which allow oil and gas to flow upwards to the wellbore. As drilling technology has advanced, companies have begun using more recycled water and this trend is expected to continue.
It takes twice as much water to maintain a golf course for a month than to frack a natural gas well. Put another way, fracking a well only takes the equivalent of 4.5 Olympic swimming pools.
Rusty Todd, professor at the University of Texas (Austin) wrote in the Wall Street Journal this summer that, “Nationwide, the EPA estimates that landscape irrigation consumes about nine billion gallons of water a day. That’s more than three trillion gallons a year, or more than 20 times its highest estimate for the amount of water used annually in fracking.”
Fracking advances have propelled the oil and gas industries which have been the backbone of recent growth in GDP and employment. Without the $300-$400 billion yearly increase in output from oil and gas production, economic growth would still be negative. This economic boom is not confined to the oil and gas industries. Access to cheap, reliable energy has positive ripple effects throughout the rest of the economy.
Five years after the beginning of economic recovery, U.S. employment is still 850,000 jobs below 2007 levels. However, jobs related to America’s oil and gas industry have been booming. Jobs in the oil and gas sector have increased by 40 percent since 2007.
After 30 years of employment declines, more than 400,000 jobs have been created in direct production of oil and gas since 2003, and two million more in indirect employment. Now, one million Americans work directly in the oil and gas industry, and ten million jobs are associated with that industry.
These economic benefits that are supporting the U.S. economy are threatened by overzealous regulations which, as the case with water usage, are based on misleading statistics. Fracking bans only serve to push energy production to more water-intensive sources. L.A.’s recent decision is misguided; hopefully the California state legislature will not follow its example.
About a gallon of water for a million BTUs ?
This doesn’t even sound like an issue.
They’re probably looking at the fact that fracking fluid is mostly water, but the real question is what you get as a result of using that water in this way.
Fracking A’
amazing verifiable information at that link
and maybe most of all is the 1.5 MILLION jobs created in the biz since 2003, none of them needing gov’t help
Great link thanks
Honestly until I read this I was worried about waste of water in fracking
In the spirit of being honest in the comparisons, at this time, much of the water used for hydraulic fracturing is injected into deep disposal wells and removed from the fresh water supply.
Most of the other, is evaporated out, rains, much eventually gets to an ocean, evaporates and repeats.
But for the GoreBull Warmest crowd, hydraulic fracture helps keep the oceans from flooding...
;-)
What creates more lasting value, cracking a well or watering a golf course?
Do you want my opinion, an engineer working oil/gas, or my Dad’s, retired and working part time at a golf course?
;-)
(he only works enough to get free golf...)
So if we can get a million BTUs of energy from 1.25 gallons of water, surely a portion of that energy can be used to desalinate or otherwise filter water, thus resulting in no net water loss, while having the remaining BTUs still available to fill the energy needs of this country.
Frack here, frack now, pay less.
Energy policy? All of the above. Pro-nuke, pro-fracking, pro-solar, pro-wind, pro-crude. Anti-government subsidy.
Kinda misleading if you are in a drought where almost all surface water supplies are dried up and they are drawing off the same aquifer your potable drinking water comes from.
2 1/2 million gallons for the typical 10 stage frac job in a typical horizontal well. Not all wells here are horizontal but approx. 600 wells per month are drilled and completed in our neck of the woods. All 600, unless dry, are frac’d.
Unpotable salty water can be used but all but one production company I know will not drill the 600 foot deep wells because of cost, $300,000.00 +.
bttt
bm
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