VACCINES: HISTORY, ARGUMENTS, AND SCHOOL POLICY

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FRACKING: BACKGROUND AND HISTORY Hydraulic Fracturing- aka Fracking: a technique designed to recover gas and oil from shale rock. “Fracking” refers to how the rock is fractured (broken) apart by the high pressure mixture Learning Goal: I will be able to understand the history of fracking and recognize the tension between the adverse environmental impacts and necessity of harvesting this resource for American consumption.

Shale Rock: A fine-grained sedimentary rock, made up of many thin layers, which forms when silt and clay is compacted below the earth’s surface. Some shales have special properties that make them important resources; black shales contain organic material that breaks down to form natural gas or oil.

Black shales obtain their black color from tiny particles of organic matter that were deposited with the mud from which the shale formed. As the mud was buried and warmed within the earth some of the organic material was transformed into oil and natural gas. Some of the oil and natural gas comes out of the shale and upwards through the sediment mass because of their low density, but most remains trapped within tiny pore spaces.

Fracking is letting the United States tap large oil and natural gas reserves that previously were locked away in shale and other tight-rock formations. How it Works: 1. Drill a well vertically down into the earth 1+ miles; then drill horizontally several thousand feet more 2. Inject water (90%), sand (9.5%), and chemicals (0.5%) into the hole; forcing them at the rock to release the gas located inside. This creates micro (tiny) fractures (breaks) in the rock which are held open by the sand.

3. Natural Gas or Oil is then pumped back up through the piping and out to the head of the well. All About Fracking

The Controversy: While the extensive use of fracking in the US has revolutionized the energy industry, it has prompted environmental concerns. Fracking uses huge amounts of water, which must be transported to the fracking site, at significant environmental cost.

Environmentalists say potentially carcinogenic (cancerous) chemicals used may escape and contaminate groundwater and the environment around the fracking site.

There are also worries that the fracking process can cause increased earthquakes Campaigners say that fracking is simply distracting energy firms and governments from investing in renewable sources of energy, and encouraging continued reliance on fossil fuels.

History of Fracking: The birth of modern day hydraulic fracturing began in the 1940s. In 1947, Floyd Farris of Stanolind Oil and Gas began a study on the relationship between oil and gas production output, and the amount of pressurized treatment being used on each well.  In this experiment, 1,000 gallons of gelled gasoline and sand were injected into a gas producing limestone formation with a depth of 2,400 feet. This was then followed by an injection of a gel breaker.  While this experiment failed to produce a significant production increase; it did mark the beginning of hydraulic fracturing.

On March 17, 1949, Halliburton conducted two commercial experiments which were much more successful; after this success, fracking quickly became commercialized. In the 1960s Pan American Petroleum began using this drilling technique in Stephens county Oklahoma. In the 1970s, this extraction method was being used in the Piceance Basin, the San Juan Basin, the Denver Basin, and the Green River Basin President Gerald Ford promoted the development of shale oil resources, as part of his overall energy plan, as a means of reducing foreign oil imports

Modern day fracking didn’t begin until the 1990s.  This originated when George P. Mitchell created a new technique, which took hydraulic fracturing, and combined it with horizontal drilling Present day form of hydraulic fracturing, which uses much higher pressures than earlier processes, is deployed in the Barnett Shale in Texas June 2004: EPA report says fracking fluids are toxic and that some portion of these toxic fluids remain in the ground after a frack job.  However, the report concludes "injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into coal bed methane wells poses "little or no threat" to drinking water supplies.

2005: Fracking boomed after the Energy Policy Act exempted it from compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SWDA), the Clean Air and the Clean Water Act. June 2009: U.S. House of Representatives introduces the Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act to repeal fracking's exemption from the SDWA; but the act never came to vote. February 2010: The House Committee on Energy and Commerce launches an investigation into the potential environmental and health impacts of fracking (said to be completed in 2014).

Article: CNN: Debate over Fracking: Quakes Get Louder Ethical Question to Consider: Should hydraulic fracturing continue to be used to harvest oil and natural gas despite environmental concerns?  HW: Think about the Ethical Question and on the bottom of your notes, list what information you would need to know in order to answer the ethical question.