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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Nov 17, 2014 - 01:48pm PT
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I really don't know what to say to you guys without getting really technical. I have read many of those papers, and the quality is often poor.
Most people with the technical background are working in the industry. And nobody will believe them. Do YOU believe them?
I spent about 6 hours yesterday reading the papers on fugitive methane emissions. The Cornell guys are full of it.
I don't drill shale gas wells personally. I do drill the occasional horizontal, though. I've witnessed a fair number of frack jobs, and they don't vent the amount of gas that the Howarth paper claims. Not because methane is bad. Methane from oil and gas activities is a fairly new idea. It can be dealt with without too much trouble once regulations are in place. The notion that shale gas is worse than coal is almost criminally wrong.
All I can say now is that the emissions from venting during flowback are wildly exaggerated. It is a serious fire hazard working in a cloud of methane and air. I've always seen it flared, even on little vertical wells.
The flow lines go through a piece of equipment called a separator. They are cheap. As the flowback water comes back, the gas is separated and flared. The notion that they vent full IP volume for 9 days is lunacy.
I'm so sorry about this. To address some of the most common, and most stupid, allegations, I have to give you a physics and engineering lesson. There is just so much bad info on the web. It is all over the place. I can't keep up with it.
So I don't blame you guys for buying it. I probably would too, but I know better. It really isn't any big deal in Oklahoma.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Nov 17, 2014 - 01:48pm PT
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http://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_776702.html#axzz3JMblON8d
A very interesting article discussing the hazards old wells pose to polluting the groundwater. There are approx. 180,000 abandoned wells in pennsylvania and they don't know where most of them are.
Rather than defining fracking as something that is not perfect. I think you should compare it to a gold rush; would you define the CA gold rush as not being prefect? It just doesn't fit because it is so complex on so many levels.
The heads of CA regulatory group for fracking DOGGR were "let go" in 2011 because they were not issuing permits fast enough. They wanted more time to review possible groundwater issues.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Nov 17, 2014 - 01:50pm PT
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I should mention that during a year consulting at Chesapeake, I saw that they had their own groundwater hydrologists working the Appalachian Basin. They also have a fat compliance division.
I also didn't know this, but they have been drilling groundwater monitoring wells before drilling for quite some time. That way they have proof of original water quality.
That should be a requirement. I think it is now in Pennsylvania.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Nov 17, 2014 - 02:36pm PT
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"The Cornell guys are full of it"
I played hockey with Howarth years ago.
I currently attend Cornell Cooperative extension Rochester.
Here is his paper,pick it apart.http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/publications/Howarth_2014_ESE_methane_emissions.pdf
BTW:"I think it is now in Pennsylvania".You are correct,they should have done that before the gas rush.
Here in New York,WE did.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Nov 17, 2014 - 09:54pm PT
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PSP also PP...Here's the link to the letter that the State Water Resources Control Board wrote the the EPA RE this issue.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/california_fracking/pdfs/20140915_Bishop_letter_to_Blumenfeld_Responding_to_July_17_2014_UIC_Letter.pdf
Here's the crux from the letter...
Category 1 WD Injection Wells
DOGGR has provided the State Water Board with information for WD wells fitting the Category 1 description that are located in the east side of Kern County, within the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board’s (Central Valley Water Board’s) jurisdiction. To date, no additional Category 1 WD wells located in other areas of the State have been provided to State Water Board staff. Initially, information for eleven WD wells injecting into clearly non-exempt aquifers was forwarded to State Water Board staff (referred to in the attached table as Category 1A). Staff identified 108 water supply wells located within a one-mile radius of seven of the injection wells. Water supply wells were not identified within a one-mile radius of four of the injection wells. The Central Valley Water Board issued 13267 Orders to the well operators for all eleven of these injection wells, but withdrew the 13267 Orders as to two of those injection wells once it was determined by DOGGR that they were injecting into exempt aquifers. The Central Valley Water Board also conducted sampling of eight water supply wells in the vicinity of some of these Category 1 injection wells. Nitrate, arsenic, and thallium exceeded the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) in four of the water samples. The Central Valley Water Board provided the results of these samples to the owners of the supply wells and notified the Kern County Environmental Health Department. TDS exceeded the secondary MCL (SMCL) in 3 samples collected, with maximum concentrations detected at 1,800 ppm.
Although I agree the elevated NO3, As & Tl could be evidence of contamination of a non-exempt aquifer by injection of oilfield wastewater into a nearby Category 1 Waste Disposal injection well, these are preliminary findings form a 60-day investigation, not a comprehensive scientific study. 4 of 8 samples collected from nearby water supply wells exceeded the maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for NO3 > 45 mg/L; Tl > 2 µg/L and As > 10 µg/L. These are all natural constituents of groundwater, so their presence alone does not prove contamination. Once the new monitoring program required by SB-4 is in place, hopefully oilfield wastewater injection wells that are injecting into non-exempt aquifers will be identified and discontinued.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Nov 18, 2014 - 05:34am PT
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" The notion that shale gas is worse than coal is almost criminally wrong."
So you have compared their GHG footprints.One's infrastructure as old as a century,the others being shipped,trucked,piped,drilled for and burned/leaked all over the world.
" To address some of the most common, and most stupid, allegations, I have to give you a physics and engineering lesson. "
No thanks.
" It really isn't any big deal in Oklahoma."
Enough said.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Nov 20, 2014 - 02:51pm PT
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Nitrate and arsenic in Kern county ground water is a common problem for the area injection wells or not. Arsenic isn't all that rare at all in ground water in the whole southern half of the state, but is particularly present in the southern part of the San Joaquin valley. There are several competing technologies for removing it. As water has become more scarce and expensive it's become economically viable to install removal systems. In the last five years or so there have been a dozen or so removal systems built that I know of in Kern Co. Mesquite NV and the area supplied by the Virgin river also has a problem with naturally occurring arsenic contamination.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Nov 20, 2014 - 03:14pm PT
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I found out yesterday that apparently the thallium detection was a false positive, so only elevated arsenic and nitrate were confirmed.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Nov 20, 2014 - 03:25pm PT
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Yes,Bruce
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Nov 21, 2014 - 12:38pm PT
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Article below about water usage From the guardian; Water useage, another major issue not reviewed before they frack. You won't get big oil to address any of the issues until you enact a moritorium. Otherwise it is business as usual, make a mess and leave.
Shale gas and fracking Fracking is depleting water supplies in America's driest areas, report shows From Texas to California, drilling for oil and gas is using billions of gallons of water in the country's most drought-prone areas
Aerial photograph taken on a flight from Dallas to Seattle in June, 2011, reveals a large field of hydro-fracking pad sites in a mountain valley in northwestern Colorado. Photograph: Susan Heller/Getty images Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
Wednesday 5 February 2014 11.01 EST
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America's oil and gas rush is depleting water supplies in the driest and most drought-prone areas of the country, from Texas to California, new research has found.
Of the nearly 40,000 oil and gas wells drilled since 2011, three-quarters were located in areas where water is scarce, and 55% were in areas experiencing drought, the report by the Ceres investor network found.
Fracking those wells used 97bn gallons of water, raising new concerns about unforeseen costs of America's energy rush.
"Hydraulic fracturing is increasing competitive pressures for water in some of the country's most water-stressed and drought-ridden regions," said Mindy Lubber, president of the Ceres green investors' network.
Without new tougher regulations on water use, she warned industry could be on a "collision course" with other water users.
"It's a wake-up call," said Prof James Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine. "We understand as a country that we need more energy but it is time to have a conversation about what impacts there are, and do our best to try to minimise any damage."
It can take millions of gallons of fresh water to frack a single well, and much of the drilling is tightly concentrated in areas where water is in chronically short supply, or where there have been multi-year droughts.
Half of the 97bn gallons of water was used to frack wells in Texas, which has experienced severe drought for years – and where production is expected to double over the next five years.
Large hoses run from hydraulic fracturing drill sites in Midland, Texas. Fracking uses huge amounts water to free oil and natural gas trapped deep in underground rocks. With fresh water not as plentiful, companies have been looking for ways to recycle their waste. Photograph: Pat Sullivan/AP Farming and cities are still the biggest users of water, the report found. But it warned the added demand for fracking in the Eagle Ford, at the heart of the Texas oil and gas rush, was hitting small, rural communities hard.
"Shale producers are having significant impacts at the county level, especially in smaller rural counties with limited water infrastructure capacity," the report said. "With water use requirements for shale producers in the Eagle Ford already high and expected to double in the coming 10 years, these rural counties can expect severe water stress challenges in the years ahead."
Local aquifer levels in the Eagle Ford formation have dropped by up to 300ft over the last few years.
A number of small communities in Texas oil and gas country have already run out of water or are in danger of running out of water in days, pushed to the brink by a combination of drought and high demand for water for fracking.
Twenty-nine communities across Texas could run out of water in 90 days, according to the Texas commission on environmental quality. Many reservoirs in west Texas are at only 25% capacity.
Nearly all of the wells in Colorado (97%) were located in areas where most of the ground and surface water is already stretched between farming and cities, the report said. It said water demand for fracking in the state was expected to double to 6bn gallons by 2015 – or about twice as much as the entire city of Boulder uses in a year.
In California, where a drought emergency was declared last month, 96% of new oil and gas wells were located in areas where there was already fierce competition for water.
The pattern holds for other regions caught up in the oil and gas rush. Most of the wells in New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming were also located in areas of high water stress, the report said.
Source: Ceres Some oil and gas producers were beginning to recycle water, especially in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania, the report said. But it said those savings were too little to offset the huge demand for water for fracking in the coming years.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 19, 2015 - 05:27pm PT
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It can take millions of gallons of fresh water to frack a single well,
Typical hyperbole.
The common unit of measurement for water and wastewater is MGD (millions of gallons per day)
1MGD= about 700 gpm that's so small a well that most water agencies wouldn't even bother drilling one at that capacity.
For some perspective MWD's Colorado aqueduct has a capacity of 861mgd so all of those years of fracking wells amounts to what, 100 days worth of what LA uses?
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Oregon
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Jan 19, 2015 - 06:10pm PT
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100 days of what LA uses is more than half of the total Owens Valley aquifer.
And actually, LA takes more than that. Some estimates say LA takes 90% of that watershead's water.
That's 328 days.
The reserves in the aquifer are decreasing, as witnessed by the fall in lake Mono.
So LA would have to be some where's between 3 and 4 Million smaller to keep the status quo in water consumption per capita.
I wouldn't dismiss it so easily.
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couchmaster
climber
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Jan 19, 2015 - 07:45pm PT
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Yup, Colorado is damned dry too. That shale throughout the Rockies (Colo and Wyo.) ain't gonna dig itself up either. However, people are choosing to drive them pickemup trucks 'cause drinking water is always on tap. So to speak.....
Question: Has anyone here complaining about fracking given up driving their car yet? How about house heat? Turning off all electricity? Yeah......me either. I like it warm, lit up and most important: affordable. I drive a high(er) mileage vehicle, but driving to go climb (a totally self-indulgent thing) makes me pause and consider my role in this issue. Doesn't matter I suppose, we can keep digging coal and burning it for power to keep the Wilbeers of the world (who hate fracking) happy. Till all the damned trees die.
It's really about choices.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Apr 24, 2015 - 12:08pm PT
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Never noticed it back then, but Lorenzo has LADWP and MWD confused.
The original LA (Owens) Aqueduct has a capacity of 313 mgd.
The second one added another 187 mgd
It's completely separate from MWD's Colorado River system.
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