7 replies to this topic

[FamilyTreeClimber]

Last year France put a ban on fracking.  Though, they have shale oil reserves, they decided not to allow fracking because of the danger the method poses to drinking water.  It was a victory for environmental groups in the country.

Today, France agreed to allow research into alternative methods to removing shale oil other than fracking.  The article doesn't list any possibilities.

There are so many controversies surrounding fracking.  My question is if they are determined to get at the shale oil do they have other options available to them?  Will their research group have to devise new methods?  Or, is this a feeble way of saying there are no other methods, then lift the ban on fracking?

http://www.businessw...-shale-fracking

[E3 wise]

I have been thinking about your question for a few days now and honestly the only other technique that I know of is CO2 injection which still uses a noxious mix of pollutants to accomplish the same task, but at only about 65% of the efficiency of fracking.  The reason is the high pressures that can be achieved with water.

Personally we are highly apposed to fracking primarily because of the pollution of water sources and the need of disposing of that polluted water to injection wells.  Doing so takes clean water and foules it for future use.  We just feel that this is trading a threatened natural resourse (water) for a finite resource of natural gas.  Considering all the natural sources of methane that could be made avalibe from sources such as land fills, anaerobic water treatment, and plant and animal based bi reactors, we feel that these would be better sources for natural gas (methane) production.

The root causes of frackings success is first the current relatively cheep cost of water, and the amount of subsidies to the oil ang gas industries changing either of these factors would raise the costs of fracking to make it much less attractive economically.

Finally one last solution could be Syn gas production of coal to produce methane, but it has its own set of dirty polluting factors, so I guess what I am saying is the best way to eliminate fracking is -ALTERNATIVE ENERGY.

[FamilyTreeClimber]

E3, Thanks for time to think it over.  I don't think it is an easy problem to solve which makes me wonder if France is serious about finding an alternative.

The more I learn about fracking the more it disturbs me about the amount of water that is being used on this method.  They are fracking in California in the Central Valley.  This is an area of California that is constantly in water battles because there is not enough water for agriculture, to keep the rivers at their necessary level to survive, and for residential/business use. Sometimes the pumps to the agriculture land have their flow decreased because it is a dry year and the rivers are starting to die out.  It then becomes a huge battle over who has more rights--the farmers, the commercial fishermen, or the people who need drinking water. To know that they are wasting a ton of it to pump it underground to bring up oil seems like an outrage when sometimes there is not enough water for human consumption or to maintain the river ecosystems.

[yoder]

Looks like fracking doesn't bring the jobs that the fracking industry, the media, the government and a whole host of others have been promising "cross their hearts and hope to die, stick a needle in their eye".

Maybe if they pinky swear...

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Kind of like all the jobs they say we'll get from the XL pipeline aka pipedreams.

[E3 wise]

The best alternative to fracking is using natural gas from water purification, landfill gas, and sorces that dont pollute millions of gallons of water.

[Antoineguilly]

How about Mentos and Coke? Viable alternative? Although Iam not sure if Coke is any better than the frac fluid they're using now?

I realize a lot of articles and conversation around these issues can get intensly circular, but I ike a little "weight lifted" off the issue from time to time.

[falconridgeoil]

There are several alternative technologies to fracking for environmentally safe oil and gas extraction. Big oil companies can slowly switch to using other methods. There are several water jetting and snake like drilling technologies that work well that do not "crack" the earth. Terra Slicing is the method we use, and it's the only technology that out performs all the rest.