What the Frack

            There are few words in the United States today as heavy as ‘Frack’. Hydraulic fracturing is an extraction technique in which water is combined with sand and a series of chemicals then pumped into shale rock containing natural gas deposits at high pressure. The natural gas is then collected at the surface, processed then used to heat homes and cook Thanksgiving dinner and even power the Los Angeles bus system (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/13/local/la-me-buses-20110112). A fairly straight forward process, right? Wrong. That series of chemical compounds I mentioned earlier? Well, critics of the process assert that the chemicals in this compound contain carcinogens, highly flammable agents, and highly toxic agents. Meanwhile, supporters of the technique look out at North America see a vast, beautiful, drillable landscape, capable of ending America’s energy woes for fifty generations (http://www.aei.org/article/economics/benefits-of-hydraulic-fracking/ ). And falling short of either of these camps is the majority of the American population, whose knee-jerk reaction to the term ‘fracking’ is a somewhat telling lack of reaction. So what are we to believe? That there is an untapped Saudi Arabia underneath Ohio? That huge energy conglomerates are making people very sick in the name of profits? That all of this is just sciencey gibberish and our collective attention should be paid to this week’s episode of American Idol? Fear not, gentle reader; in this blog post I shall bring the truth behind hydraulic fracturing to the surface for all to see. You may, however, want to hold your breath and bring some bottled water.

            There are great arguments in favor of the process. The huge energy potential locked under North America is the most enticing of these. Industry website, the American Enterprise Institute chronicled the massive energy potential, saying, ‘In 1990, the USA produced in total 70.706 quadrillion Btu of energy, a number which remained fairly steady through 2006, when total production was 69.443 quadrillion Btu. After that year, however, as fracking… became more widely spread, total production of the energy sector eventually reached 74.812 quadrillion Btu in 2010, accelerating even faster to 78.091 in 2011.’. Keep in mind that this is being withdrawn from a finite pool of resources. This increase would be like getting better mileage the closer your car got to empty. In addition, industry spokespeople are often fast to point out that there are no documented cases of fracking causing adverse health effects (http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/29/fracking-doesnt-pose-health-risks/).

            Whilst there has yet to be a documented case of people falling ill due to fracking, this is mainly due to the fact that there is no medical diagnosis of death by fracking. There is, however, early onset ovarian cancer, male breast cancer and a plethora of neurological disorders. That chemical cocktail from before? It contains compounds known to act as carcinogens in human beings (http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.3/unpacking-health-hazards-in-frackings-chemical-cocktail). And that’s just from one of the few companies that have disclosed this information. In fact, in 2005 energy companies had the clean drinking water act changed so as to keep from having to disclose which chemicals they use in fracturing agents and even had an amendment added exempting them from following ground water contamination protocols. But, as my uncle used to say, ‘,Just because McDonalds is unhealthy doesn’t mean you should never grill a hamburger!’. And sure he may have been justifying binge drinking, but the fact still stands. We don’t know what is being pumped into the ground, so we can’t know it’s all bad.

            The information available on hydraulic fracturing makes it a somewhat unappealing option, but not a conclusively unacceptable one. One has to wonder, however, if the chemical cocktails used by energy companies are harmless, why they fight so hard to keep the public from knowing what’s in them.