09
Dec 15

Debate on Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing is a hot topic issue in the United States.  Proponents point out the immense economic benefits, the potential for energy independence, and the environmental benefits of using natural gas.  The opponents believe that the fracking process is bad for the environment and affects the members of the local community in a negative manner.  Both sides have valid points, but the pros severally outweigh the cons. Frack pro con


07
Dec 15

Hydraulic Fracking Process

Hydraulic fracturing, also referred to as fracking, is a new drilling process that creates pressure underground to release natural gas and oil. This fuel that earlier was deemed impossible to retrieve is now relatively easy to obtain for petroleum companies.  For decades, petroleum companies were only able to drill  vertically.  Due to this, it was difficult to obtain the oil or natural gas that was deep under the ground.  Fracking allows drilling to be done both horizontally and vertically through the richest layers of rock. First, explosives are used to wrench open the rock deep under the earth.  The ground is then drilled and pipes are put under the surface.  A high pressured water stream is then injected deep into the pipeline.  The stream is filled with millions gallons of water, sand, and chemicals. The flow of water cracks open the deposit and allows the oil or gas to be freed into pipes that lead into wells. This new process has allowed large amounts of oil and natural gas to be obtained all over the United States.  Most of the fuel has come from Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, New York, and much of the midwest (Ehrenberg).  The video below gives an in depth description of the fracking process with some of the benefits and risks.


05
Dec 15

Job Creation

Many companies are opening up headquarters throughout the country, which is opening up millions of jobs. These headquarters require the businessmen to run the company, engineers to plan the drilling, administrative assistants, custodians, security guards, receptionists, construction workers and every other occupation that is required to make a business function properly. Then on the actual drilling site, people are needed to operate the bulldozers and other equipment, work on the piping, produce the water, and many other intricate jobs specific to the fracking process.  The chart below shows states that use fracking and the amount of jobs they have created.  In 2014, there were 9,313,478 jobs in the oil and gas exploration throughout the United States.  As fracking is utilized more, the number of jobs will continue to steadily increase, which will decrease the unemployment in this country (Kolb). Click on the picture below for a larger view, same goes for all images in the blog.

Fracking Jobs

Also, the revolutionary drilling technique allows local economies thrive with the increase of population from energy companies.  For example, Outlaws Bar & Grill in Watford, North Dakota  has seen its sales nearly doubling every year due to the fracking boom. There is a huge increase in consumers due to the employees of oil companies throughout North Dakota. Servers at this restaurant make about $25 an hour and kitchen staff employees make around $15 an hour. Local restaurants and stores have to pay high wages in order to keep employees as well as attract people to come to the area to work.  Even McDonalds in North Dakota “pay starts at no less than $11 per hour.”  That is very good pay for what is typically a minimum wage job that can help a lot of people get out of debt (Ellis).


04
Dec 15

Lower Fuel Prices

About a decade ago, many industry experts and government officials feared that the United States was on the path to run out of natural gas. However, after the past few years, the development of fracking has made a lot of natural gas accessible which is dropping the prices enormously. In the beginning of 2008, natural gas cost about $13 per 1,000 cubic feet. In 2012, this price dropped down to $2 per 1,000 cubic feet. An average American household uses 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas in about four days. This is substantial savings for many Americans throughout the country that gives them more money to spend every month that can stimulate the economy (McGraw).  Gasoline prices are currently at a six year low.  OPEC, the organization of petroleum exporting countries, is an oil cartel of mostly Middle Eastern countries that works together to determine how much oil to drill and what price to sell it at.  In a recent meeting, the cartel decided to produce as much oil as possible to try and squeeze the American fracking companies out of the market.  This is causing prices to sink lower and lower which leads to a lot of extra money in American’s pockets.  American oil companies are forced to sell their petroleum for the same price as OPEC.  Domestic oil is cheaper however because it does not need to be shipped across the world.  Frackers are expected to whether this storm  and Americans will continue to enjoy these low oil prices.  This helps businesses as well because shipping prices will be so much lower if the cost of oil continues to decrease which leads to more spending and more tax revenue for  the government (Montevalli).

Country members of OPEC

Country members of OPEC


03
Dec 15

Energy Independence

The United States has a strong reliance on the Middle East and other foreign countries for oil and natural gas. This dependence has led to international affairs that many Americans disapprove of including the Persian Gulf War, Iraq War, and the current fight against ISIS. Many of theses countries have unstable governments that oppose the American democracy.  Terroristic groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS receive most of their funding from the oil industry in the Middle East.  ISIS makes about one to two million dollars a day in oil sales, so everyday Americans are actually helping to support the terroristic group we so badly want to destroy. (Griffin).   The hostility in the Middle East causes fluctuations in both the amount and price of oil that will be produced. At the United States’ import peak in 2005, they accessed more than 60 percent of their oil from outside the borders. It has been projected that within the next five years, the United States has the capabilities to only need domestic and Canadian oil.  Most of the new oil in the U.S. is coming from Texas and North Dakota.  The United States spends a very large sum of money in the Middle East. Princeton University reports, “The United States spends $166 billion annually – or 24 percent of its defense budget – on securing access to oil, according to a 2010 report by Princeton professor Roger J. Stern. The country spent $7.3 trillion keeping U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf from 1976 to 2007”(Wilmoth).  This is an unreal amount of money spent for the access to oil. These costs do not include Americans lives. American soldiers will no longer need to put their lives at risk if the U.S. can obtain energy independence and withdraw from the chaotic, dangerous Middle East. More soldiers could be safe at home or put in combat at more important and safer areas. By extensively utilizing hydraulic fracturing, the United States has the potential to become energy independent. They would no longer need to pay $166 billion a year to secure oil and this money can be used to reduce the national debt or to improve other aspects of the United States such as the cure to diseases or poverty (Wilmoth).  The first graph illustrates how oil imports are slowly decreasing while exports are steadily increasing.  The chart below shows the amount of money is spent on the military and securing oil.

Fracking Energy I

 

 

 

 

Fracking Securing Oil


02
Dec 15

Rebuttals To Anti-Fracking Activists

Hydraulic fracturing is often looked down upon due to its possible environmental issues. There is no denying that fracking requires an enormous amount of water, but compared to many other industries the water utilized is rather minimal. According to Hydrogeologist David Yoxtheimer of Penn State’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, fracking and other natural gas developments use a very small percent of the state’s water. Out of the water used daily in Pennsylvania in 2013, fracking used 1.9 million gallons a day (mgd), livestock used 62 mgd, mining used 96 mgd, and industry used 770 mgd. There are better places to be focusing on water usage other than fracking. Environmental engineering professor Jeanne VanBriesen notes that much of the water that fracking is using is just replacing dying industries such as steel and manufacturing in Pennsylvania. This means that no more water is actually being used; it is just transferring from one industry to another (Mcgraw). Fracking does not use as much water as many people think, and will only become cleaner and more effective as the years pass.  As the diagrams below show, fracking actually uses less water than most drilling techniques, which in the long run could benefit the environment and natural gas is more efficient than coal.
Fracking waternaturalgassa

Hydraulic fracturing is not a perfect process. It is a relatively young technique of drilling and needs time to be improved. People are afraid that methane leaks from the drill site and hurts the environment. Industry officials are willing to admit that one to three percent of the methane leaks during the process, but that methane is not necessarily detrimental to the environment.  Even though there has been a huge increase in natural gas production across the United States, the amount of methane (CH4) spilled has actually decreased with the use of fracking as the figure below shows.  This is because the older methods of drilling allow more methane to leak than fracking does.  Industry officials are confident that these leaks can be prevented by aggressively sealing condensers, pipelines, and wellheads Also, the chemicals and water techniques used will continue to progress to be safer and better for the environment. The technique will become safer, cleaner, and more effective by advancing the technology even further (McGraw).

Fracking methane


01
Dec 15

Environmental Benefits

Natural gas is plentiful throughout the United States and is a clean fuel to burn. Natural gas emits only half as much the carbon dioxide that oil or gasoline does.  Also, it emits one fifth the amount of nitrogen oxides and only one percent as much sulfur oxides as coal combustion. A study by the Department of Energy found that if the United States switched from gasoline to natural gas for transportation, the nation’s carbon-monoxide emissions would decrease by 90 percent and the carbon-dioxide and nitrogen-oxide emissions would also decrease significantly (Mcgraw). The cleaner burning will help the United States with many issues. First, the issue of global warming can be helped resolved because there will be a decrease in greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere Also, with the fear of running out of oil, natural gas is a very sufficient replacement as Penn State students see every day with the CATA bus which runs solely on natural gas. There is natural gas all over the country and there is no sign of production slowing down.

CH4

The figure above compares the burning of                                                                                                                              natural gas to coal


30
Nov 15

Summary

The United States should increase their usage of hydraulic fracturing because of the extreme economic benefits, the potential to encourage energy independence, and its environmental benefits. Fracking creates millions of  high paying jobs that help people climb out of debt and get back on their feet.  Also, becoming energy independent would give Americans more security.  Terroristic groups such as ISIS would no longer get as much funding for the oil industry and the United States would have no economic ties to the Middle East.  Natural gas has environmental benefits that reduces the emissions of greenhouse gases and can help prevent global warming.  Americans all over the country will benefit from the low fuel prices fracking will create and the country can be great once again with a booming economy.


29
Nov 15

Works Cited

Ehrenberg, Rachel. “The facts behind the FRACK.” Science News. 08 Sep. 2012: 20.. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

Ellis, Blake. Double your salary in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota. CNN, 20 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015. <http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/index.htm>.

Griffin, Drew. Self-funded and deep-rooted: How ISIS makes its millions. CNN, 7 Oct. 2014. Web. 8 Dec. 2015. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/world/meast/isis-funding/>.

Kolb, W, Robert.. “The Natural Gas Revolution and the World’s Largest Economies.” Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies. 01 Dec. 2012: 415. eLibrary. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

Mcgraw, Seamus. “Drilling Down: Fact vs Fiction in the Great Fracking Debate” Popular Mechanics. 01 Sep. 2011: 104. eLibrary. Web 26 Oct. 2015.

Montevalli, Golnar. OPEC Opts for No Limits After Marathon Meeting. Bloomberg, 4 Dec. 2015. Web. 7 Dec. 2015. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-04/opec-unity-shattered-as-saudi-led-policy-leads-to-no-limits-ihs9xu51>.

Wilmoth, Adam. “Energy independence: What are the benefits?.” N.p., 1 Oct. 2012. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.


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