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jfailing
Trad climber
Terrible Taft
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Apr 19, 2011 - 07:15pm PT
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Base - good to hear from someone with experience in the drilling industry. I read through most of your posts (but hey, they're waaay long), and they nail it pretty well. When it really comes down to it, the probability of aquifer contamination from the actual fractures down-hole is extremely low.
Dick Luger brings up the more important point - where we are taking the contaminated fracking fluid. That's how it's getting into our drinking water. The article he posted is very informative.
Sort of off-topic, but sort of not: it seems that everyone forgets about geothermal energy as a sustainable almost zero emission source of energy/electricity. There is a technique called Enhanced Geothermal Systems that uses hydrofracturing to create fracture zones in "hot, dry rock" that, if someone can figure out how to get it to work, could open up huge potential all over the west for geothermal. Perhaps we can learn from the mistakes we're making now in hydrofracking when using the technique for other avenues...
Edit: Also to add: Studly - the companies that be are constantly monitoring the status of their existing wells, mostly to monitor their output. There's a special wireline caliper tool that can measure the thickness of the casing - if there is a spot in the casing that is showing more wear, or the possibility of cracking, the company will go to steps of repairing it.
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Paul Martzen
Trad climber
Fresno
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Apr 20, 2011 - 12:16pm PT
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Base104, that was fascinating reading. Thanks for taking the time.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Did Base delete his post above defending Fracking?
No wonder the GOP wants to eliminate the EPA
Peace
Karl
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Yeah, I was on a tear of deleting my posts for a while. Sorry.
The problem is that the hysteria is so wrong. They don't even know why the Marcellus in the northeast is a terrible place to frac. I can explain it in two paragraphs. I am working, though.
I am on a long consulting contract with one of the biggest horizontal companies in the country, so I get to sit in on the engineering meetings and all that. I know pretty much every play in the country.
It isn't a problem in TX, LA, OK, ND, etc. We have the infrastructure and good geology to deal with the fluid disposal.
In the northeast they have no way of disposing of the water, which is bad when it flows back because it is mixed with formation water that is high in chlorides. Saltw#ter in the groundwater is the worst. You can't clean it up. I heard that they were using produced saltw#ter to salt roads in Pennsylvania or one of those Marcellus areas. You would go to prison in OK for doing that.
Frac jobs involve moving a lot of fluid around. It isn't that nasty, but I wouldn't drink it.
The real crime here is that 90% of the hysteria is based on zero science. Nobody noticed that Obama opened up the Chukchi and Beaufort Sea to drilling. Much of the Beafort area starts at the three mile limit offshore of ANWR. The eskimos are a maritime people, so they wanted the onshore drilling. They are freaking out about the offshore drilling permits and have joined in lawsuits.
Now. Those places have ice 9 months or so out of the year. How are you going to have a spill plan? The Chukchi is also really shallow, and at least near the shore, the ice bulldozes the sea bottom. I have no idea how they are going to protect the pipelines. That is the reason that the proposed gas line from AK to the lower 48 had its route changed. The Canadians wanted it to follow the coast and pick up the McKenzie Delta stranded gas. Too risky.
All this happened a while back, and nobody noticed. The leases in the Chukchi Sea (north of the Bering Sea) went for billions, so there must be some damn good geology over there.
Gasland is total crap. There is actually one part of it that is a real pollution problem.
Gas prices are in the toilet, so the drilling has really slowed down. It is all oil zones right now.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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B104: That is the reason that the proposed gas line from AK to the lower 48 had its route changed. The Canadians wanted it to follow the coast and pick up the McKenzie Delta stranded gas. Too risky.
Would it not have also picked up oil from the Canadian side of the Beaufort Sea, and perhaps farther east in the Arctic? IIRC, they did quite a lot of exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea, and found a fair bit of oil (and gas), with promise of more. It's been sitting since then, as it's too expensive to safely get out and ship, plus the tar sands came on stream. And no one really knows how much is there, plus our countries continue to squabble over where the Beaufort Sea boundary is.
bump - B104 always adds something informed and useful.
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Rattlesnake Arch
Social climber
Home is where we park it
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Which sources should we develop to run our computers and electric cars?
California has already decided to generate electricity from natural gas and nuclear. Notice how tiny the contribution from alternative sources (except hydro - more dams anyone?)
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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MH,
The proposed line was a natural gas line, not an oil line. The economics simply aren't there for any route at this time. Who knows maybe they'll end up needing the gas to produce the massive heavy oil field that lays under prudhoe bay, but which is currently not technically or economically able to be produced. As it is the gas has been used to help with Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) for the past several decades, so it really has been better to recycle and use a portion of the gas to get the more valuable oil to market then to ship it South.
There currently is some production occuring in the Beufort, Endicott Island has been producing for decades, and Northstar has now been in production for a decade.
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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Jfailing wrote
“could open up huge potential all over the west for geothermal. Perhaps we can learn from the mistakes we're making now in hydrofracking when using the technique for other avenues...”
Been some time but maybe two-three years ago they used this system if I recall just north of San Francisco, Napa Valley area? Drilled down to cap geothermal energy and their thinking was using crack systems would work better. Started a few earthquakes in the area and had to stop production so lost investment.
Core drilling for thermal storage is OK there is a difference. Software for soils underneath to show compostion where water and fines,rock and voids.
Doing one here myself will supply heat and cooling for three houses, if I go deeper add more bore holes can have my own utility company and supply 30-40 homes. Passive solar plus electric. Net zero but calculations going for -15. -15 meaning I can sell extra eletricity or have the swimming pool heated during the winter time 24 hours.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 9, 2011 - 12:27pm PT
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Despite having had graduate level courses in Hydrogeology, I dont know enough to have a informed opinion on whether hydrofracking is alright or not. However, using fracking fluid that contains contaminants to our drinking water supplies is just plain wrong. You can't dump unknown fluids above ground or in surface water supplies and trust me, it is way more difficult to clean up if it is in the groundwater. At a minimum, hydrofracking fluids should be regulated to prevent the introduction of contaminants into the ground.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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So Base regarding the EPA findings
Chemicals found in a Wyoming town's drinking water likely are associated with hydraulic fracturing, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday, raising the stakes in a debate over a drilling technique that has created a boom in natural-gas production.
The agency's draft findings are among the first by the government to link the technique, dubbed "fracking," with groundwater contamination. The method—injecting large volumes of water, sand and chemicals to dislodge natural gas or oil—has been criticized by environmentalists for its potential to harm water supplies, which the industry disputes.
Are you saying the EPA is wrong or just a case of a good technique backfiring by being used in wrong places?
What to do? The industry moans about regulation but when unregulated, somebody abuses it until theres a deadly mess
peace
Karl
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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I saw the EPA release this morning. All of that stuff gets sent to me.
My "guess" is that it is probably real. I am pretty sure that where they are working is the Jonah field. That sucker has so many wells in it that it is like a pin cushion. It isn't a horizontal shale gas area, though.
I will tell you this. There is nothing as nasty as an old oil field. Wells that were drilled in the fifties and sixties are usually depleted and plugged by now, but they are famous for groundwater problems. The biggest problem by far is saltw#ter contamination from old water floods. There are huge problems with that, and it is mainly historic.
What freaks all of us out about the EPA is that in the older producing states we have a very strict regulatory structure on groundwater protection. It isn't very expensive to do, so I have never heard a peep.
The base of fresh water is known pretty much everywhere in the producing basins. The state requires that you case and cement off the fresh water. Most wells have several casing strings between the producing casing string and the annulus of the surface casing. The string over fresh water is called surface casing.
Anyway, to even get approval to drill a well, the state gives you orders on casing requirements to protect the groundwater. It is no big deal at all, technology or money wise. It is now super difficult to get approval for a waterflood. That is where you go into an old, depleted, field, and inject produced saltw#ter back into the formation to bring the reservoir pressure back up and then "sweep" it from the injection wells to the producers.
If there is an old well in the area that was drilled from the sixties or earlier, it probably doesn't have adequate surface casing. So as you pressure up the reservoir, that saltw#ter migrates right into that old wellbore and right up into the groundwater. To get approval, you have to go back in and plug those wells properly, which is often not possible because when they plugged a well back then, they threw all kinds of junk down the hole. So if you do have that problem, most companies won't even try it.
There are other things that are state specific. In southern Kansas, there is a salt layer that is 1000 feet thick in some places. It outcrops around Hutchison, KS, and there are big mines there.
So when you drill through it, your drilling mud chlorides go way up and if it doesn't get hauled off and handled properly, you can get chlorides in your groundwater just from leaking through the pit. So the state of Kansas, who has known about this problem from zillions of wells, makes you deal with it in a very specifically regulated way.
Another thing in Kansas. There is a zone in the mesozoic section called the Cedar Hills sandstone. Where it exists, the saltw#ter in it is notoriously corrosive. It will eat through your production casing in three years and you will totally lose your well. So in those areas, you have to run what is called a DV tool or port collar. It is just a device that you screw into your pipe when completing a well. After you do the initial cement job you have to come up and then do a second cement stage uphole over the Cedar Hills.
Also, in dry holes, when you plug them you are required to set a big cement plug over the Cedar Hills, because it is beneath the Dakota and Ogalalla aquifer. It doesn't cost jack to set that extra plug.
The problem is that you can't re-enter old dry holes in that area of Kansas because when you are drilling out the cement plugs to get down to some old, by-passed pay zone, the drill bit will not stay in the hole. It will hit that cement plug and kick off into the Cedar Hills 75% of the time. So nobody even tries it. They just drill a new well.
There is all kinds of specific stuff like this that the old producing states know about. In the modern age, nobody wants an environmental problem. It isn't a fine from the EPA or state you worry about. It is a landowner lawsuit for trashing his groundwater. Those are enourmous lawsuits and can bring a small company to its knees. They are a nightmare for big companies because it makes the press and the bad news is also a nightmare.
I tell ya. The bigger companies who drill in the U.S., which are almost all big "independents," have massive environmental compliance departments. If there is a blowout or spill, they show up all moon suited up within hours.
Bullwinkle has a link upthread to a shale gas well that somehow got loose when it was flowing its frac water back. That was a mess, but it was contained and cleaned up.
The big independents are the ones who developed the shale gas technology. Now the majors are in on it as either joint venture partners or by buying an existing company.
I hate watching the Exxon commercials about how we have all of this safe natural gas around. Well, yeah, we do have all of this natural gas in certain shale formations that we can now recover, but the guy has a sneer like a used car salesman. Plus, I don't like the major companies too much anyway. A lot of these companies are run by true believers who rip global warming and all kinds of environmental concerns.
Hell, I have been reading stuff on climate change for twenty years. I believe it. I certainly feel that it can't be discounted willy nilly like Rush Limbaugh does.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Iran provides a good example. In the middle east, and specifically Iran, there are truly monstrous natural gas fields. Since there is not much of a market for stranded gas that far from a market, it just sits there.
Iran's production has peaked and is now declining. Well, they make all of their money from oil exports. So they are converting to natural gas as a transportation fuel and selling the oil that would have been used domestically.
We are in a similar situation, although our energy requirements are huge. We are swimming in natural gas. It makes a great fuel, but you have to fill up your tank much more often.
Fleet vehicles like USPS, UPS, buses, etc. are all moving into natural gas if they haven't already done it.
Now. Burning any hydrocarbon or coal puts carbon into the atmosphere. Natural gas is the least carbon intensive, so it makes sense to switch to natural gas while waiting on cleaner technologies.
Trust me. I shout from the hilltops that we need to stop burning hydrocarbons. The problem is that no matter how expensive oil gets, it always seems to be cheaper than alternatives.
Biofuels are just a way to make fake oil. No good. All you wood burners are even worse.
It makes me ill to see all of the SUV's and other gas guzzlers out there on the road. Just count them as you drive.
Like anything, you have to educate yourself on issues just to be able to climb above the bullsh#t. Frac jobs are no problem in most places. When a problem is discovered, it should be acknowledged and fixed. Simple.
Now imagine some kid lording over your drilling intent documents who doesn't know jack about how anything works. That is why we like the states, who have been dealing with this issue forever. A rule for the Cedar Hills in Kansas doesn't apply for a well in the Arkoma Basin. The Cedar Hills was never even deposited there.
That is why we fear the EPA. They will take a normal well and then turn it into a paperwork circus that accomplishes nothing.
That said, in the Marcellus Shale in the NE, some of the states have little history of oil and gas production. So they don't have a regulatory arm that is worth a damn. On top of that, they have no way to deal with the used frac water, although they are trying to recycle it and other crazy things.
But drilling isn't inherently bad. The reason that I am so opposed to drilling in ANWR is almost asthetic. I have been there quite a few times. I would hate to see it industrialized. That and the reserve numbers are always inflated or imaginary. I have read the 2 CD set on the USGS assesment.
But hey! Obama just opened up the offshore up there. Dealing with a spill on land is easy. Dealing with a blowout on land is easy. In water, everything is harder. In an area covered with ice most of the year, I can't even imagine how a problem will be dealt with.
So everyone is crying about frac jobs and in the meantime you haven't heard a peep about that.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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As usual, thanks BASE104. Thanks too, wes, for a hydological perspective. It pains me to see how few people try to understand these sorts of issues by learning about the science, and how many just rely on hysterics -- pro or con -- for their positions. One of the big reasons I enjoy OT threads on ST so much is that the climbing community is broad enough to include people who actually know what they're talking about in a large variety of issues.
Thanks again.
John
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Yeah, I was on a tear of deleting my posts for a while. Sorry.
The problem is that the hysteria is so wrong. They don't even know why the Marcellus in the northeast is a terrible place to frac. I can explain it in two paragraphs. I am working, though.
I am on a long consulting contract with one of the biggest horizontal companies in the country, so I get to sit in on the engineering meetings and all that. I know pretty much every play in the country.
It isn't a problem in TX, LA, OK, ND, etc. We have the infrastructure and good geology to deal with the fluid disposal.
In the northeast they have no way of disposing of the water, which is bad when it flows back because it is mixed with formation water that is high in chlorides. Saltw#ter in the groundwater is the worst. You can't clean it up. I heard that they were using produced saltw#ter to salt roads in Pennsylvania or one of those Marcellus areas. You would go to prison in OK for doing that.
Frac jobs involve moving a lot of fluid around. It isn't that nasty, but I wouldn't drink it.
The real crime here is that 90% of the hysteria is based on zero science. Nobody noticed that Obama opened up the Chukchi and Beaufort Sea to drilling. Much of the Beafort area starts at the three mile limit offshore of ANWR. The eskimos are a maritime people, so they wanted the onshore drilling. They are freaking out about the offshore drilling permits and have joined in lawsuits.
Now. Those places have ice 9 months or so out of the year. How are you going to have a spill plan? The Chukchi is also really shallow, and at least near the shore, the ice bulldozes the sea bottom. I have no idea how they are going to protect the pipelines. That is the reason that the proposed gas line from AK to the lower 48 had its route changed. The Canadians wanted it to follow the coast and pick up the McKenzie Delta stranded gas. Too risky.
All this happened a while back, and nobody noticed. The leases in the Chukchi Sea (north of the Bering Sea) went for billions, so there must be some damn good geology over there.
Gasland is total crap. There is actually one part of it that is a real pollution problem.
Gas prices are in the toilet, so the drilling has really slowed down. It is all oil zones right now.
Base - 1st, I gotta say sorry for no believing a word you've got to say about the subject of hydrolic-fracturing. If you get paid to do it, then it seems to me that you would probably say just about anything to keep the money flowing. Just like hookers want to legalize prostitution.
I'm also sorry if it seem that I am making smaller an issue out of this than it is (to you/others)
I go on the basis of a few easy steps/questions to get to the bottom of wether I feel the search and extraction of underground natural gas is a good thing or a bad thing.
My biggest question comes down to water: How long has the water been flowing cleanly? After a frack operation is put in place is the water safe? If I had access to the GreedEO I'd hand him a glass of fresh tap water from the places that he drills in and ask him to take a drink.
Second question is: If its so safe… then why are there any questions about any of it? In other words if you dig a hole in my next door neighbors backyard and pump water/chemical slough into the ground and get all kinds of gas/goodies out of the ground and I don't know about it…? Would I have a problem? NO!!!! I'd not have a f*#king problem with that because I have not been effected. However, in the same situation I find that within months my tap water has a funny taste/smell/fumes….? THEN I HAVE A F*#KING PROBLEM!!!!!
If it was all that safe nobody would really know too much about it. But because it isn't safe.. we've all already heard enough.
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golsen
Social climber
kennewick, wa
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 9, 2011 - 03:44pm PT
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In 50 years the original protective casing will rust out and voila, there is your pathway between aquifers. Very few energy/engineering companies want to do those corrosion/material evaluations as they will then show negative results that must be dealt with. It is simple for companies that are out to turn a profit. If you don't want to know the answer, then don't ask the question.
Aside from the above issue, Base, what is your position on injecting proprietary fluids into the aquifer in order to frack?
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tolman_paul
Trad climber
Anchorage, AK
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It can be safe or it can be dangerous, depending on the formation and who does the work and how carefully. The real quetion is, what form of energy has the least environmental impact? There is no green energy source, neither is there a source that has no environmental impact. In many cases natural gas is a good source of energy that can be produced w/o trashing the environment, but not in all locals.
Just like climbing, some people shouldn't climb because they'll best their azz even on a G rated route, whereas there are others that can lay it on the line even on the diciest routes.
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jfailing
Trad climber
Lone Pine
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However, using fracking fluid that contains contaminants to our drinking water supplies is just plain wrong.
I'd be more worried about gas and hydrocarbons making their way up through the microfractures over a longer period of time, rather than just the initial fracking fluid.
Once a well is drilled, the companies will often pump steam and water down the wellbore to help extract the gas from the formation (am I right Base?). Doing this over a period of several years strikes me of having more of an effect on an aquifer than just the initial fracking.
Also Golsen - for what it's worth, yes wellbore casing can rust through, but companies are generally required by law to "plug and abandon" wells that have too much environmental risk or are just tapped out. Generally operators have a pretty good idea of the condition their well casings are in. If anything, they'd fix a bad casing job because it means more resource from the formation ($$$), rather than for environmental concerns...
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