Sometimes the water that returns to the surface after a frack gets spilled, such as when 2.9m gallons spilled from a broken pipeline in North Dakota and “impacted surface and groundwater”, in the largest volume spill recorded by the EPA. There can be problems with the well casings – an issue that is not specific to fracking, and which can affect conventional drilling – such as one incident in Bainbridge, Ohio, where inadequate casing saw natural gas move into drinking water aquifers. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which, in a recent report on fracking’s impact on water, cleared the industry of “widespread” and “systematic” pollution of drinking water, still lists some egregious examples. In many cases in the US, where fracking got up and running before regulation caught up, the local environmental impacts are not just theoretical but well-documented. Others argue it is good news, as gas produces around half the carbon emissions of coal, which it is displacing in some parts of the world. There is also a huge debate – too big to cover in detail here – over whether fracking is bad news for the climate, since it unlocks a whole new source of fossil fuels and some academics say it has emissions even worse than coal once methane leaks (a powerful greenhouse gas) have been factored in. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian Then there are fears over the venting and flaring of methane, industrialisation of rural areas and noise from lorries.Īnti-fracking protest T-shirt in Preston as Lancashire county council began hearings to decide whether to approve Cuadrilla’s plans to drill for shale gas at Little Plumpton and Rosacre Wood. Concerns include contamination of water supplies, seismic activity caused by the fracking itself but mostly by the injection of wastewater deep underground, and fears that the gas glut from fracking threatens to hinder the development of emissions-free renewable sources of power, such as wind and solar. What most critics point to, of course, are the potential health and environmental impacts. Some claim it can even take the credit for America’s falling greenhouse gas emissions, though recent research suggests that may have may have had more to do with the recession than a switch from polluting coal to cleaner gas. Should fracking for shale gas be permitted in the UK? - five-minute video debate Guardianįracking has given America gas prices that are far cheaper than in Europe, created hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs, and has almost doubled crude production over the last seven years. Weighing up whether fracking is bad depends on how you define “ bad”. In the UK, not a single well has been drilled and fracked completely – the only attempt to date, near Blackpool in 2010, was halted halfway after being linked to minor earthquakes.
In the US, up to 30,000 new wells were drilled and fracked between 20. The technology has transformed the US energy landscape in the last decade, owing to the combination of high-volume fracking – 1.5m gallons of water per well, on average – and the relatively modern ability to drill horizontally into shale after a vertical well has been drilled. It involves pumping water, chemicals and usually sand underground at high pressure to fracture shale – hence the name – and release the gas trapped within to be collected back at the surface. The technique is a way of extracting natural gas, which is mostly methane, from shale rock formations that are often deep underground. Yet there is nothing inherently bad about fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. New York State banned it, citing risks to public health. Some countries, such as France and Germany, think it’s bad enough to warrant banning, though the latter is considering lifting its moratorium. Even advocates for the industry admit to examples of people having views near their homes obscured by fracking rigs popping up, or of their homes being devalued by fracking.
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