New Research: Don't Blame Fracking for Gas Well Pollution

New research reported at the AAAS in Vancouver, shows that the pollution from gas wells is not caused by fracking. Rather it has been caused by ruptured well casings and other problems of human error in handling materials and wastewater. The process of fracking itself is safe and sound, with regard to groundwater concerns.

Don't blame fracking for environmental problems associated with extracting gas from shale. That's the message of a new report from the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, released on the opening day of the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

The US is riding the wave of a shale gas boom driven by fracking, or hydraulic fracturing - in which the rock is injected with water, sand and chemical additives at high pressure to release trapped methane.

Other nations are keen to follow this lead, and lead author Charles "Chip" Groat hopes the report will help regulators worldwide separate "fact from fiction". Reviewing existing studies, Groat's team could find no evidence linking groundwater contamination to fracking operations many hundreds of metres below.

...The problems were not caused by the process of fracking itself, but instead related to issues like ruptured well casings that also affect conventional gas production, or surface spills of chemicals or wastewater.

"We found no direct evidence that hydraulic fracturing itself had contaminated groundwater," says Groat. "We found that most of the violations were at or near the surface." _NewScientist

Fracking in the UK Daily MailMore from the Daily Mail:

During the fracking process, the shale is drilled into horizontally, and water, gas and chemicals pumped in at high pressure, causing the rock to shatter and allowing the gas to escape.

To separate fact from fiction, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin sifted through scientific and other literature on the safety of three large shale gas sites in the US.

They concluded that there is no evidence that fracking directly contaminates groundwater and any pollution is more likely to be due to above-ground spills of water produced by the drilling process.
_DailyMail_via_GWPF

Al Fin energy analysts are sure that the green functionaries within the US Obama regime will be reassured by this report. Particularly when the oil & gas fracking revolution is one of the few things keeping the Obama economy afloat.

But don't expect the dieoff.orgy lefty-Luddite green faux environmentalists to admit their mistake. That is not in their nature. Nor is it in the nature of the thug-monkeys of the skankstream media to admit to having broadcast unfounded fears in the hope of promoting panic and political action.

But at least you will know better.

More: How the US Shale Boom Will Change the World

A New Economic Era?

And here's a scary thought: China likely has larger shale gas resources than North America. With Russia's Gazprom scurrying to China looking for customers in the face of a long-term European drop in demand, what happens to Gazprom when China's vast reserves of natural gas come on line? What happens to global commodities markets in general?