California, stop fracking with the water!

As many know, there is a major political fight in this nation and it's about to blow up next month with the new revolution in environmental regulations set to arrive. These will largely target coal as the following story explains a bit better..

Obama Set to Release New Carbon Regulations

The alternative currently being supported with the clearest enthusiasm outside the minority %'s contributed by renewable energy sources to the overall power grid is gas. That gas is often now taken in Fracking wells. The problem with fracking wells are two fold for a place like California. First it shatters rock deep into Earthquake fault areas. Of course, we are assured this won't matter. Okay.. I hope so...

The other problem is more serious for immediate concerns. Water. Fracking takes an enormous amount of water.

EPA Information on Fracking and the Water Cycle

Frackings greatest selling point, in a water challenged area, is also it's greatest problem, IMO. Water taken up to do this isn't cycled back through to eventually rejoin the natural flows of water it came from, in most cases. Injection wells for waste water and/or back filling the original well with the waste water is commonly performed now. So, that water isn't coming back.

How Much Water Does It Take to Frack a Well?

Hydraulic Fracturing & Water Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers
^^^ The report on that source appears to be for sale, but the graphics and data used within it aren't, and are available there. It's startling for where and how much has been lost..and in this case very often, truly LOST...to this process.

Now back to California as a specific example... You may ask yourself... 'Self, where are all these wells? Surely there can't be THAT many around quake zones??'. Well, self may not answer but I came prepared with eye candy to show just what the scale of this issue is. Remember...water injected down thousands of feet with the chemicals used in this process is water gone...below the water table. Just Gone.



(GASP!) The legend is below...and those yellow markers hide something below them. Let's turn off that layer and have a closer look, shall we?



(Source)

The yellow markers are waste water injection wells, as the link shows.

Why California..Why? When the water is draining before your very eyes...Is this the best use of so much of it? Oh and I really hope the geologists are 100% correct about the wells in Earthquake country. (shivers)

We are a bit annoyed up north in the UK about fracking...our government always uses the north and doesn't care about us one bit.
I also am concerned about it, to many variables for me for it to be 100% safe.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000
This is a very worrying matter for the USA and now here in the UK. As with all new measures taken to "improve" the process of energy mining there are always two sides to each story. The problem, as has been seen in the past, is that we often have to wait for something to go wrong before any action is taken. Let's all hope that it is as safe as the so called experts are saying and we don't find out that we have all been lied to at the cost of other peoples livelihoods or even lives.

Humans will crack the very ground beneath them in a quest for more energy. Someday someone is going to find the remains of our planet and shake their heads (or tentacles) is dismay at the utter stupidity of our species.

Fraking is not about energy independence, it is about making some people very very wealthy.........

By the way thought I would share this little scene from Man of Steel. Personally I see little difference between what they did to Krypton and what we are trying to do to our planet.

Injecting water isn't a problem, Injecting chemicals into the ground where the water table is, thats the problem.

"They sayers" are company spokes persons reminding us it is not going to affect you.

Rubbish. The water table "down there" is where everything winds up and that Aquifer runs under every lake, down every river and into peoples water pipes or wells.

The spate of local earthquakes, flaming faucets and sickness surrounding these wells is being swept under ground with the chemicals so the squeezing of limited resources can continue.

Hey I just thought this way they can declare all watersheds unsafe to drink and everyone will have to buy bottled water.

Win, win.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Fracking.... The real reason California fell into the ocean....

I'm with you, Wrabbit.It makes no sense, and you don't have to be a genius to figure out fracking is a fast tract to disaster.
Remember when great minds came up with solutions to problems, instead of creating them?

How could fracking near a known major fault line could possibly go wrong?

More immediately, clean fresh water is a scarce resource, especially in California. Fracking destroys clean aquifers. California, so much potential and so much disappointment.

originally posted by: intrptr


Hey I just thought this way they can declare all watersheds unsafe to drink and everyone will have to buy bottled water.

Win, win.

It is scary how true this statement is. Very few truly understand this.

a reply to: nugget1

That's when great people dared think great things and try for great outcomes.

Now weak men think rather crappy things for great retirements and off shore accounts. (Look who California re-elected from deeeeep in their past?)

We kinda came up short on this whole thing. The nation will suffer along with California for anyone who likes things like fresh fruit and produce. No water means a lot less to grow and less for people to eat healthy with.

I don't think most folks have any idea how much comes or..will soon HAVE come from the California fields.

a reply to: jrod

How could fracking near a known major fault line could possibly go wrong?

Like playing with matches in a dynamite shed?

I noted on the map in the OP the three wells along the pacific cost range south of SF… right along the San Andreas fault.

I live here. The spate of quakes in Oklahoma should give these Frackers pause, you think?

Nah… drill baby, drill.