What is Fracking?

Do you know where your household electricity comes from? Chances are, at least some of it is produced by burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels come from the remains of ancient animals and plants. Coal, oil, and natural gases are the most common fossil fuels. 

But where do these fuels come from? You might have heard of methods like oil drilling, coal mining, and fracking. What exactly is fracking, though? And why has it attracted so much attention?

Deep underground, over millions of years, large deposits of natural gases have become trapped inside layers of rock.  Methane, propane, and butane are examples of these natural gases. Shale formations are especially likely to contain vast amounts of natural gases. Shale is a rock composed of clay and various other minerals. Deposits in shale are a huge potential source of energy. But shale is extremely deep and impermeable. It will not let fluid pass through. This makes it difficult to access those natural gases.

Did you know?

The shales in the Horn River Basin of British Columbia are estimated to be from the Devonian period. That makes them around 385 million years old!

What is fracking?

Hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, is a process for extracting natural gases.  Fracking involves drilling a well into the ground. Usually, those depths are over 1 500 metres. Fracking fluid is a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals. It is injected into the well at extremely high pressure. This breaks the underground rock apart and creates fissures, or cracks. These fissures allow the natural gases to move into the well. Eventually, these gases flow up to the surface.

What are the pros of fracking?

People who support fracking say it creates jobs. In Canada, it increases domestic energy production. That means we can produce energy here in Canada instead of importing energy resources from other countries. 

Fracking also gives people access to large reserves of natural gas. Natural gas is a fuel that burns cleaner than coal or oil.

That all sounds pretty good. But is there a downside?

What are the cons of fracking?

People’s concerns about fracking are mostly environmental. People are worried about the effect of fracking on climate change. Fracking can release methane. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas (GHG). It is responsible for about 25% of the warming caused by human activities. Methane is also responsible for about 15% of Canada’s GHG emissions. 

Did you know?

Methane in the atmosphere traps approximately 30 times as much heat as carbon dioxide.

People also worry about how fracking affects water. For example, people worry about water conservation. Fracking uses a lot of fresh water. Fracking a well can require between 5.7 and 56.8 million litres of fresh water. Usually, most of this water is not reusable. It becomes wastewater. This wastewater can also leak into local lakes and rivers.

People also worry about water contamination. Drinking water often comes from aquifers above shale formations. Normally, this water is safe from the methane trapped deep below the Earth’s surface. But fracking creates new pathways in the rock. New pathways can let gases pass between rock layers and into these water sources. People worry that these pathways will allow methane to leak into people’s water wells.

Scientists at Duke University studied water contamination near the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. They found that 82% of homes close to fracking wells had high levels of methane in their drinking water. The closer a home was to the well, the higher the concentration of methane in its drinking water.

Did you know?

Some fracking occurs in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. But most fracking operations in Canada take place in Alberta and northeastern British Columbia.

People who work in the natural gas industry say the risk of this kind of contamination is very low. There are typically several hundred metres feet of impermeable rock between aquifers and the shale deposits. However, some companies prefer to use shallow fracking wells.

People who work in fracking point out that contamination has only occurred in rare cases. In these cases, something went wrong. For example, the well was not drilled properly. Or, there was something wrong with the casing on the pipes. The casings prevent the gas from escaping from the pipes. 
Governments are creating tougher water regulations. Some companies have even developed waterless fracking techniques.

Fracking fluid itself is also a bit of a mystery. It’s 99% water and sand. But its exact composition is classified as a “trade secret”. This means that companies don’t have to disclose the formula. So far, many chemicals have been identified in fracking fluid. Many of them are toxic. 

Fracking can have other effects. It is hard to predict rock fracture lengths. That is especially true if they hit naturally-occurring fault lines. Also, the injection of fracking wastewater back into the ground can trigger seismic activity, or earthquakes. A 2019 study in British Columbia found that there are a number of different factors that impact how likely it is that fracking will cause an earthquake. The main factor is the tectonic makeup of an area. For instance, the area directly east of the Canadian Rockies is much more prone to seismic activity than the majority of Saskatchewan. That is because of the location of the tectonic fault lines. 

Did you know?

In the Central and Eastern United States, over 600 low-magnitude earthquakes related to fracking activities have been recorded up to 2019.  

Still, opponents say the risks outweigh the benefits. So for now, the debate continues!