Fracking and global warming
The failure of the Paris Agreement would be the failure of Homo sapiens. If we do not reverse the increase in global warming and do not support sustainability on our planet, we will all be losers. There are clear indications that we are going in the opposite direction to the 2015 agreements, as can be seen in this work. The growing fracking fever, due to the cheaper extraction processes of shale gas and shale oil, added to the enormous deposits found, is not good news. Neither are the millions of liters of water required to activate each well through hydraulic fracturing, a technology that is clearly unsustainable due to the scarcity of the vital liquid that exists in many places.Fracking is on the way to becoming the great obstacle to succeeding in the battle against climate change and achieving the goal of limiting the increase in global temperature to below 2ºC by the end of the century. This requires reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, until their total eradication.
A new world energy chessboard, unsuspected for many
There are two situations that seriously threaten the climate agreements reached in 2015. The first is the fever created around fracking technology, which has completely changed the world energy chessboard, incorporating new players alongside the traditional ones. To get an idea of this, the United States is about to displace Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer, thanks to its exploitation of unconventional oil. The other countries that actively produce shale fuels are China, Argentina and Canada. There are others that are beginning to venture into fracking, including Colombia and Mexico, the latter being the most advanced. There are many other nations that have large unconventional energy reserves.
The second threat is the intention to extract traditional oil in sites hitherto prohibited. The Donald Trump administration “plans to open a large ocean surface to marine exploration and, for the first time in 40 years, allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (…) with some 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude. ”. The appetite for fossil fuels remains alive, as evidenced by the continued discoveries of oil fields and the enthusiasm of the countries “favored” by the findings, which calls into question the credibility of their commitments to the Paris Agreement.
We don't look at what they say but what they do
It has been said that what a person says should not be taken into account, but what he does, when referring to an individual whose performance contrasts markedly with his speech. This also applies to countries. The Paris Agreement was accepted by 197 nations that, by signing their signature, pledged to reduce their GHG emissions in order to reach the 2ºC objective, necessary to stop the increase in global warming. But the news brings information that often contradicts the letter and spirit of the climate agreement.
A clash of constellations is coming
A conflict looms between supporters of fossil fuels and those fighting climate change. A collision between deniers and those who believe in global warming and its foreseeable damage. A mismatch between what is said and what is done. The fracking fever is a phenomenon that already involves billions of dollars in investments, which reinforces the constellation clash hypothesis, which we will be able to evaluate very soon, since the activation of the Paris Agreement is scheduled for 2020, when it will require the commitment of the 197 countries, in addition to the disbursement of the first 100 billion dollars for the Green Climate Fund.
Action to fight climate change is underway
It is to be recognized that there is an important movement to introduce clean energies such as solar energy or wind energy and a Climate Action - so it is called - promoted by the UN through excellent work, organization and dedication, with special emphasis on involving children and teenagers in the matter. It is also mandatory to mention the commitment of the automobile industry to incorporate the electric car into assembly lines, and plans to increase the production of plug-in units annually. On the other hand, Norway has indicated 2025 as the deadline for prohibiting the transit of internal combustion engines, France 2040 and other countries such as India and Germany are studying the issue.But it is also presumed that the abundance of fossil fuels from new technologies and the discovery of huge conventional fields will flood the market with oil and gas so cheap that the solar energy and electric energy industries will have to work hard to be able to compete with gas and oil.
Shale gas and shale oil
Hydraulic fracturing is an unconventional technology, of old date, but in recent years it has seen its expansion due to several reasons: fear of the depletion of traditional hydrocarbon deposits, the laxity of the permits for its exploitation, the decrease in environmental controls and ending the threat of the use of oil and natural gas as geopolitical weapons. On the other hand, the need to compete during periods of low traditional oil prices forced to improve efficiency throughout the process, achieving considerable operating costs, lowering the two end products of fracking: shale gas, also known as gas. shale or shale gas and shale oil or shale oil. All this encourages the fever for the energy sources found under the patio of the house,in countries that were not even conventional oil or gas producers, but are now possessors of enormous wealth. The issue is so intense that a “knowledge market strategy” has been created. For example, China, one of the largest holders of shale beds under its soils, exchanges technology with the United States, a country leader in hydraulic fracturing, in exchange for concessions for the exploitation of its deposits through new technologies.country leading in hydraulic fracturing, in exchange for concessions to exploit its deposits using new technologies.country leading in hydraulic fracturing, in exchange for concessions to exploit its deposits using new technologies.
Figurative description of the hydraulic fracturing process
The shale or shale consists of a bed of sedimentary rocks that are not very porous or of low permeability, which in their formation process trapped a certain amount of hydrocarbons.The bed has been there for millions of years, hidden several kilometers deep, until discovered by humans. Imagine the Fracking process as a long straw that must break through and penetrate a thick and huge stone formation and then extract its contents. The shale bed is like a gigantic natural container for gas or oil, both with similar characteristics to their closest peers to the surface, but not the technology necessary to extract them. The figurative straw, upon coming into contact with the bed, begins to curve until it acquires the horizontal line, after which it continues to advance in this position for several thousand meters. In its journey, it fracks, breaking the container to release the hydrocarbon, which rises to the surface under pressure.
An approach to fracking based on the exploitation of shale oil in Argentina
Part of the information in this section has been taken from a report made in May 2015 by the Spanish media Eldiario.es, in Vaca Muerta, Neuquén province, in the Argentine pampas. This reservoir, with a geological formation of 30,000 km2, makes the southern country the second with the most unconventional gas resources in the world and the fourth in unconventional oil. The visit was made specifically to Campo Campana, the most important work of hydraulic stimulation outside the United States. The oil company YPF works there in conjunction with Chevron. YPF was acquired by the Spanish company Repsol in 1999 and expropriated by the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2012. The process that we narrate below and the data refer, in some of its parts, to the extraction of shale oil in Vaca Muerta.
The drilling tower is 54 meters high, from which the operators control the work through monitors. The drill bit is six inches in diameter. Once the hole is made, it is covered with steel tubes and sealed with cement, presumably to prevent leaks. In this particular case, a depth of 3,200 meters was reached. Of the details of the fracturing or hydraulic stimulation itself, the information provided by the report is scarce. It only says that upon reaching that stage the activity multiplies, there are up to a hundred people in the well and between 15 and 20 trucks with motors connected to hoses gather, ready to introduce into the well a mixture of water, sand and products chemicals at extremely high pressure. It is the moment of fracking itself,a process highly questioned by environmental groups, which is carried out over four days, between 10 and 15 times, depending on the size of the well. When pressure and chemicals exceed the rock's strength, fracture occurs, in a controlled manner downhole. The force of the water causes cracks in the core of the rock and it is up to the sand to keep the cracks open, so that gas or oil can flow freely to the surface.so that gas or oil can flow freely to the surface.so that gas or oil can flow freely to the surface.
“There are no cinematic scenes of jet streams emerging in the middle of the desert. In reality, everything moves through these pipes that travel tens of kilometers to the plants where fuels are separated and stored ”. In total, it takes two months of work, 24 hours a day, to get a well up and running. In the first three years there is usually "natural emergence", then a pumping device similar to the traditional ones must be used. Once operational, a shale oil well can be in production for three decades, presumably, since no well is old enough to prove it. Specialists indicate that an unconventional well does not behave the same as a conventional one. At first, a very high production curve is seen, but then it drops sharply. Once your homework is done,the tower moves under its own power at around 10 meters per hour, so there is no need to take it apart and put it back together. Wells should be at least 350 meters apart to avoid problems or leakage during stimulation.
The allegations of fracking advocates
They maintain that the technique does not have greater risks than those of other technologies used by the industry. They insist on the economic benefits of the enormous volumes of hydrocarbons only extractable through fracking. They argue that in the cases in which contamination has occurred, it has been due to bad practices, such as failures in the drilling process, cementing of wells or inadequate treatment of wastewater, but not of the technology itself.
Complaints from environmental groups
They refer to the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, which implies contamination of aquifers, high water consumption, contamination of soil, water and air, return of gases and chemicals used to the surface, in addition to probable health effects. They also point to cases of increased seismic activity.
Eighty Olympic pools of water to inject on a single platform
They don't call fracturing hydraulic for a reason. Some sources point out that a platform with six wells 2 km deep and 1.2 km horizontally may need up to 210,000 tons of water, just for the fracture phase, equivalent to more than 80 Olympic swimming pools. If technology expands around the world, the planet's shortage of drinking water will undoubtedly be affected.
Thick books have been written on the subject of water. Here we will see just two examples, enough to illustrate the seriousness of the problem. In China, which is betting on fracking, water scarcity is a key concern. Experts warn that the country will face growing water shortages in the coming years.Water-intensive industries, such as mining, compete for increasingly scarce sources of the vital liquid. The lack of rainfall in the northwest of the country, “where much of the shale is believed to be, means that these areas will have to rely on limited and finite groundwater. Given this shortage, China established (…) a cloud seeding program in 2012 ”. In South Africa, according to a news item dated 03/30/2017, we read that the government approved the use of "fracking" in the Karoo desert, with the expectation of extracting more than 1.4 trillion cubic meters of shale gas. The contradiction is remarkable when we read a news item on 01/31/2018, in the NYT, about “day zero” in Cape Town, in which the South African capital will run out of water reserves in less than three months,due to a severe drought that has lasted for three years, considered the worst in a century.
Tons of chemicals and toxic products at the bottom of the well.
Between 98% and 99.5% of the injected fluid is water and sand at a pressure between "345 and 690 atmospheres, equivalent to the pressure under the sea at depths between 3450-6900 m". The remaining percentage is equivalent to between one and two tons of chemicals, some of them highly toxic.
Contamination due to the return of a part of the chemicals with the wastewater
Another problem is the management of the return fluid that rises to the surface next to the shale. The unrecovered part remains in the subsoil from where it could emerge towards the surface and on its way contaminate the aquifers. The compound is highly toxic and continues to flow in certain quantities for long periods, with risks of contamination and disease for nearby populations.A report issued in 2011 by the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, concluded that fracking produces an "emission of pollutants into the atmosphere, affecting groundwater due to flows of fluids or gases caused due to leaks or spills, leakage of fracturing liquids and uncontrolled discharges of waste water, as well as the use of more than 600 chemical products to release natural gas ”. That same year, “the Department of Public Health at the University of Colorado and Duke University also pointed to methane contamination from hydraulic fracturing processes. The contamination of the aquifers by methane has adverse effects on the quality of the water, and in some extreme cases it can even cause an explosion ”.The methane that escapes into the atmosphere, even in small amounts, can increase global warming, since its contribution to the greenhouse effect is 21 times greater than that of CO2. In 2014, the European Commission issued recommendations to guarantee adequate protection of the environment to member countries that wish to produce unconventional hydrocarbons, using hydraulic fracturing.
Countries where fracking is prohibited or there is a moratorium on its implementation
In France, the hydraulic fracturing technique was banned by the parliament on June 30, 2011. Also in Bulgaria, on January 18, 2012. In May of the same year, the German government decided to temporarily halt its plans to implement fracturing. hydraulics. In Spain, in 2012 and 2013, the autonomous communities of Cantabria and La Rioja, respectively, prohibited hydraulic fracturing in their territory and Valle de Mena (Burgos) was declared a municipality free of hydraulic fracturing. Switzerland has banned the use of the technology through a national moratorium. In Italy, two shale gas exploitation projects were paralyzed, one through social protest and a second by the government itself. In Northern Ireland, in 2011, Parliament voted in favor of a two-year moratorium on fracking.The Senate endorsed it in June 2017. In Ireland, in 2013, the government established an informal two-year moratorium on the exploitation of shale gas. In the United States, some states and cities have banned the use of the technique. This is the case of the state of Vermont in 2012. That same year, the state of New Jersey prohibited the deposit of waste from shale gas extraction in its territory. Other states and cities have declared moratoriums on fracking, including New York state. In England, Prime Minister Theresa May, in 2016, decided to break the moratorium and give a boost to fracking, and incidentally to nuclear energy, while abolishing the Department of Energy and Climate Change. One of the first licenses granted was to the Cuadrilla company in the county of Lancashire,precisely the scene of the battle against fracking carried out by environmental groups.
Sources:
Wikipedia. Shale oil. Recovered from
Eldiario.es. This is how you work in a 'fracking' well. Recovered from
Hydraulic Fracture No. What is shale gas and fracking. Retrieved from
Neila's Villa. Hydraulic Fracture Recovered from
The Diplomat. The «Fracking» Revolution Comes to China. Recovered from
Bloomberg. The Dark Side of America's Rise to Oil Superpower. Retrieved from
Wikipedia. Hydraulic fracturing. Recovered from
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