Hydraulic Fracturing What Is Wrong With This Picture Essay

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Anthropogenic Technologies Such as Fracking on the Environment

The people living in the Midwestern United States and most especially Oklahoma have become increasingly alarmed by the number of earthquakes they have experienced in recent months due to the efforts of the oil and gas industry to extract every last ounce of petroleum from the ground using hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") technologies.. On the one hand, these efforts can be viewed as laudable since they optimize the amount of natural energy available, but on the other hand, these extractions methods have caused unprecedented earthquake activity in regions that have not experienced any earthquakes for more than a century. What is particularly problematic about these events is the fact that regulatory agencies have failed to implement effective policies that could potentially prevent these manmade disasters. For instance, according to a recent report by Cook (2015), "Although injection induced earthquakes have become commonplace across broad swaths of the central and eastern United States over the last few years, building codes -- and the national seismic hazard map used to update them -- don't currently take this increased hazard into account" (1). To determine the facts in this situation, this paper reviews the relevant literature concerning the practice of hydraulic fracturing and its potential impact on the environment.

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Review and Discussion

The processes that are involved in horizontal hydraulic fracturing are relatively straightforward. Fracking requires that a mixture of various chemicals, water and sand to be injected into oil and gas wells that have been depleted to recover natural gas and oil from shale deposits (Beckrich 10). This mixture of chemicals, water and sand is termed "fracking fluid" which is injected at high pressure underground to fracture the shale contained trapped natural gas and oil deposits (Beckrich 11).

While this practice may seem innocuous at first blush, the harsh reality of fracking is that these methods have caused unprecedented seismic activities in parts of the country that have been immune in the past. While it is understandable that policymakers in the U.S. must maximize the energy reserves available, what has become questionable is just how many adverse effects must be tolerated in the process. For instance, Booher (2015) emphasizes that, "There is growing concern that earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') could damage nearby dams, locks, and levees, threatening human lives, the environment, and the integrity of the nation's waterways" (235). This means….....

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"Hydraulic Fracturing What Is Wrong With This Picture" (2016, June 15) Retrieved May 18, 2024, from
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"Hydraulic Fracturing What Is Wrong With This Picture", 15 June 2016, Accessed.18 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/hydraulic-fracturing-wrong-picture-2159254
   

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