Environmental Implications
New oil and gas technologies have unlocked vast quantities of previously inaccessible resources that yield environmental benefits, consequences and controversy. While natural gas displaces coal as fuel for electricity, skeptics fear that hydraulic fracturing endangers communities living in close proximity to fracking operations.1 Environmentalists particularly deplore advanced fracking techniques that threaten water and air quality. The technique requires blasting huge amounts of water, sand and chemicals deep into underground rock formations and consumes vast amounts of water at a time when numerous regions are suffering from drought.2
Water flows into the Floridan Aquifer. (U.S. Geological Survey Surface Water Photo Gallery)
In a 2014 study published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, seven environmental scientists synthesize 165 academic studies and databases:
“Public concerns about the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing have accompanied the rapid growth in energy production. These concerns include the potential for groundwater and surface-water pollution, local air quality degradation, fugitive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, induced seismicity, ecosystem fragmentation, and various community impacts. Many of these issues are not unique to unconventional oil and gas production. However, the scale of hydraulic fracturing operations is much larger than conventional exploration onshore. Moreover, extensive industrial development and high-density drilling are occurring in areas with little or no previous oil and gas production, often literally in people’s backyards.”3
The National Resources Defense Council echoes these concerns. Over the past decade, it points out, the oil and gas industry, “has drilled hundreds of thousands of new wells all across the country. These wells are accompanied by massive new infrastructure to move, process and deliver oil and gas, together bringing full-scale industrialization to often previously rural landscapes.”4
Ultimately, the team of authors who led the 2014 study cited above conclude that, “Unconventional oil and natural gas extraction enabled by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is driving an economic boom, with consequences described from ‘revolutionary’ to ‘disastrous.’ Reality lies somewhere in between.”5
[1] Mark Golden, “Standford-Led Study Assesses the Environmental Costs and Benefits of Fracking,” Stanford News, Sept. 12, 2014.
[2] Mark Golden, “Standford-Led Study Assesses the Environmental Costs and Benefits of Fracking,” Stanford News, Sept. 12, 2014.
[3] Robert B. Jackson, Avner Vengosh, J. William Carey, Richard Davies, Thomas Darrah, Francis O’Sullivan & Gabrielle Petron, “The Environmental Costs and Benefits of Fracking,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources (August 2014).
[4] “Unchecked Fracking Threatens Health, Water Supplies,” Natural Resources Defense Council.
[5] Robert B. Jackson, Avner Vengosh, J. William Carey, Richard Davies, Thomas Darrah, Francis O’Sullivan & Gabrielle Petron, “The Environmental Costs and Benefits of Fracking,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources (August 2014).
