1.

In connection with the technique of deep horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing permits
natural gas to be extracted from so-called unconventional reservoirs, where the gas does not
flow spontaneously, but is trapped in minute pores in the rock (EPA 2011a; Wood et al. 2011).
This procedure consists of a fluid being injected into the borehole at high pressure. This fluid
then penetrates the perforations in the pipe in the horizontal borehole and induces cracks in
the formation rock. The fracking fluid contains proppants, i.e. sand or ceramic beads about 1
mm in diameter. Their function is to ‘‘prop’’ the pores open after pressure release, when the
liquid medium is withdrawn. Very often, water is employed as the liquid medium. In order to
keep the proppants suspended in the liquid phase on their way down to the horizontal pipe
and until they are deposited in the cracks, fracking fluids contain chemical additives, usually
added to the water on-site at the drilling location.

Extraido de: Hydraulic fracturing a toxicological threat for groundwater

2. The term fracking is used more or less broadly to refer to various aspects of oil and gas
extraction. Most narrowly, it is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a well stimulation technique
that uses pressurized liquids to induce cracks in rock formations in order to maximize
recovery of hydrocarbons. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defined this
process more broadly to include the “acquisition of source water, well construction, … and
waste disposal,” in addition to well stimulation (EPA 2010, 1). Most broadly, the term fracking
can refer to the intensification of hydraulic fracturing and its convergence with other
exploration and production innovations such as 3-D seismic imaging and horizontal drilling.
Beginning roughly at the turn of the twenty-first century, this intensification and convergence
has made oil and gas production from unconventional reserves (shale gas, tight gas, tight oil,
and coal seam gas) economically viable. This has led to an increase in oil and gas production,
especially in the United States, where roughly 90 percent of natural gas wells are now fracked.
The boom is also spreading to other parts of the world, bringing with it a number of policy and
ethics-related controversies (see DOE 2009; Howarth, Ingraffea, and Engelder 2011). There is
also controversy about the spelling of the term. Alternative spellings include hydrofracking,
frac’ing, and fracing. Indeed, fracing is an industry use that predates the mediadriven addition
of ak to prevent mispronunciation of the term (which rhymes with cracking). This entry adopts
the spelling with a k, because it is now most commonly used (a Google search for fracking
returns roughly eighty times as many hits as a search for fracing).

Extraido de: Fracking

3. Devon Energy, Chesapeake, Halliburton. All had assembled to help the agency determine
whether fracking, accused of infusing toxic chemicals and gas into drinking-water supplies in
various states, is guilty as charged.The answer lies at the center of escalating controversy in
New York State, Pennsylvania, Texas and Colorado, as well a Australia, France and Canada. The
basic technique of “hydraulic fracturing” has been used in conventional- style wells since the
late 1940s. When a vertical well shaft hits a layer of shale, chemically treated water and sand
are blasted down at high pressure to crack open the rock and liberate natural gas. Only
recently, however, has the technique been combined with a newer technology called
directional, or horizontal, drilling—the ability to turn a downward plodding drill bit as much as
90 degrees and continue drilling within the layer, parallel to the ground surface, for thousands
of additional feet. The result has been a veritable Gas Rush. Sequestered layers of methane-rich
shale have suddenly become accessible. The U.S. is estimated to have 827 trillion cubic feet of
this “unconventional” shale gas within reach—enough to last for decades—although industry
e-mails published by the New York Times in June suggest the resource may be more difficult
and expensive to extract than companies have been claiming.

Extraido de: The truth about fracking

 4. Natural gas from shale is widely promoted as clean compared with oil and coal, a ‘win–win’
fuel that can lessen emissions while still supplying abundant fossil energy over coming decades
until a switch to renewable energy sources is made. But shale gas isn’t clean, and shouldn’t be
used as a bridge fuel. Shale rock formations can contain vast amounts of natural gas (which is
mostly methane). Until quite recently, most of this gas was not economically obtainable,
because shale is far less permeable than the rock formations exploited for conventional gas.
Over the past decade or so, two new technologies have combined to allow extraction of shale
gas: ‘high-volume, slick-water hydraulic fracturing’ (also known as ‘fracking’), in which high-
pressure water with additives is used to increase fissures in the rock; and precision drilling of
wells that can follow the contour of a shale layer closely for 3kilometres or more at depths of
more than 2kilometres (see ‘Fracking for fuel’). Industry first experimented with these two
technologies in Texas about 15 years ago. Significant shale-gas production in other states,
including Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, began only in 2007–09. Outside North
America, only a handful of shale-gas wells have been drilled. Industry sources claim that they
have used fracking to produce more than 1 million oil and natural gas wells since the late
1940s. However, less than 2% of the well fractures since the 1940s have used the high-volume
technology necessary to get gas from shale, almost all of these in the past ten years. This
approach is far bigger and riskier than the conventional fracking of earlier years. An average of
20 million litres of water are forced under pressure into each well, combined with large
volumes of sand or other materials to help keep the fisures open, and 200,000 litres of acids,
biocides, scale inhibitors, friction reducers and surfactants. The fracking of a conventional well
uses at most 1–2% of the volume of water used to extract shale gas.

Extraido de: ¿Should fracking stop?

5. Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is a technique for tapping unconventional oil and gas reserves
that are otherwise inaccessible. In the early 2000s, energy companies began combining
horizontal (or directional) drilling with hydraulic fracturing to tap these reserves (Armstrong
etal., 1995). The process involves drilling horizontally through a rock layer and injecting a 4
pressurized mixture of water, sand, and other chemicals that fractures the rock and facilitates
the flow of oil and gas (Pye and Pye, 1973). These combined methods have allowed for
expanded oil/gas development in shale and other formations in the U.S., Europe, Asia,
Australia, and elsewhere (Clarke et al., in press; Walser and Pursell, 2007). The rapid
expansion of fracking is projected to make the U.S. a net exporter of natural gas in the coming
years (David, 2013) and potentially the world’s largest oil producer by 2017 (Mackey, 2012).
Shale gas, which currently accounts for 23% of the nation’s natural gas production, is projected
to increase to 49% by 2035 (US Energy Information Administration, 2012).

Extraido de: “Fracking” controversy and communication: Using national survey

data to understand public perceptions of hydraulic fracturing