Halliburton Exec Takes Swig of Fracking Fluid...

You know, I could contact my buddy who used to work as the head of the Frack department for Haliburton and is both a Frack and Coil Tubing engineer, and see if he'd like to come post on here.

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


I would like to see him drink this fluid every day for a year or two. I wonder what he would have to say then.

Originally posted by Egyptia
reply to post by Chrisfishenstein

 

I would like to see him drink this fluid every day for a year or two. I wonder what he would have to say then.

I would think it odd that anyone would want to eat the same thing every day...even ice cream.

reply to post by Egyptia


First it is video or it didn't happen.....Then it is this stuff is terrible for a water supply, then it is he would drop dead if he drank that stuff, now it's "tell him to drink that every day for a year and see if he is alive"?? Man I thought people had much better arguements and thoughts on here......Wrong again!!

It's also worth pointing out that Jack Nicholson didn't have any problem with taking a bath in the stuff. In the first Batman movie the "tub of goo" that Jack Nicholson falls into that was set up to look like some face-eating acid goo stuff was actually benign fracturing gel with some kind of green glowy coloring added to it. The gel was designed for the movie makers by Halliburton. It was perfectly safe.

A cornstarch mixture is the equivalent of most fracturing gels. It's starchy water. That's what it is.

And we haven't even got into the fact that 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 5 miles is in between the depth where fracturing takes place and the water table. It's not like there's a big fountain of starchy water flowing back up to the water table. Zonal isolation has been employed since at least the 1920's and required in virtually every state in the Union to protect drinking water.

The fracturing gel can't get back to the drinking water. And the fracturing gell is not left in the well or the reservoir of the payzone. The gel carries the proppant to the fracture, then the gel "breaks over" (i.e. loses its gel strength) and becomes watery. It is then "reversed" out of the well leaving only the proppant in the fractures. To say that hydraulic fracturing means that the hydrocarbons at the pay zone 5000, 10,000, 15,000 or even 25,000 feet below ground will get in the drinking water is to say it would have anyway. The only way that can happen is if there is a breach in the integrity of the casing, cement sheath (and there are multiple zonal isolation layers between surface and the payzone). Basically the whole damned well has to fall apart before that happens

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


There are no arguments to make here, simply because it cannot be proven that this person drank the fluid. If he did it was only a swig. The article and the action are both unconvincing and really do not meet any point. What is known is that frakking fluid is an infiltration of toxic chemicals regardless of who ever decides to take a swig for PR purposes. What one must consider are the other factors associated with the impact frakking has on the environment.


www.popularmechanics.com...
www.earthworksaction.org...

A Documentary on Frakking "Gasland"
topdocumentaryfilms.com...

reply to post by Egyptia


I WILL ONLY SAY THIS ONCE MORE......(this is specific to you!!)

I POSTED THE VIDEO A FEW POSTS UP.....IT IS A NEW FRACKING FLUID!!!

PLEASE READ AND WATCH THE VIDEO BEFORE POSTING ANY OTHER USELESS INFORMATION!!!!!

reply to post by Chrisfishenstein


Clearly you have no idea what is involved in frakking or how it impacts the environment. Regardless of changing the frakking fluid to a less toxic recipe the actual impact of frakking is monumental to the environment.

reply to post by Valhall

The problem is that there are a huge number of accidents involving fracking:

Contrary to gas drilling industry claims that hydraulic fracturing is “accident free,” Texas-based XTO Energy has racked up 31 violations at 20 wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania in 2010. XTO’s latest accident involved a leak of up to 13,000 gallons of chemically contaminated drilling wastewater that polluted a stream and a spring in north-central Pennsylvania’s Lycoming County, says the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The leak was caused by a valve which was left open.

The basic methodology may be environmentally sound, but the gas companies are not adhering to the minimum standards in order to protect the environment.

Pennsylvania officials have issued 8,309 industry-related violations since 2007. The Pennsylvania Land Trust Association found 1,056 serious environmental violations tied to drilling in the shale between the start of 2008 and Aug. 20 of this year. Gas companies improperly sealed their wells 50 times, potentially causing gas to migrate into groundwater.

Source

Here is a link to a fracking accident map:
Link to Map

Popular Science has a few articles that gently warn their readers that frackin is probably detrimental to our little planet.

Because fluid injection changes seismic dynamics underground, fracking has the potential to set off minor quakes. A study in the journal Earthquake Science pinpointed the location of more than 150 microearthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing, and the Dallas–Fort Worth region of Texas—a fracking hub—experienced 11 mini quakes in less than a month between November and December 2008. Granted, such mini man-made earthquakes are harmless, but some critics are concerned that there may be a small risk of more hazardous quakes—such as a 5.5-magnitude quake outside of Denver, Colo., in 1967, that resulted after chemical waste was injected deep into the ground for several years as a disposal method. (An SMU study suggests the quakes may have been triggered by the underground wastewater fluid disposal that accompanied the hydraulic fracturing.) Read more: Hydraulic Fracturing - Fracking Natural Gas - Popular Mechanics

Source
Pennsylvania Fracking accident

More Links:
Gas Drillers Recycle Wastewater
More Problems with fracking and some solutions

reply to post by navy_vet_stg3


He won't die, ha, they have the best medical coverage money can buy. Also we won't hear about it if they are admitted to the hospital.

If someone drinks gasoline does that mean it's safe to put in the water? And what does Haliburton have to do with this? Do they have some level of trust the public should see in them? Or the opposite, mostly mistrust.

I think perhaps to really send the message home to us little peon-ettes, they should also add a shot of fluoride treated drinking water, a dash of aspartame, a handful of GMO soybeans topped off with some sweet tasting high fructose corn syrup and a pinch of MSG. Now there's a cocktail the FDA can be proud of.

Originally posted by deltaalphanovember
reply to post by Valhall

 

The problem is that there are a huge number of accidents involving fracking:

Contrary to gas drilling industry claims that hydraulic fracturing is “accident free,” Texas-based XTO Energy has racked up 31 violations at 20 wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania in 2010. XTO’s latest accident involved a leak of up to 13,000 gallons of chemically contaminated drilling wastewater that polluted a stream and a spring in north-central Pennsylvania’s Lycoming County, says the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. The leak was caused by a valve which was left open.

"drilling wastewater" is not fracturing fluids. I see that this thread has become a compendium of misapplied terminology, cross-linked (lol) issues that are applied to fracturing when, in fact, they are poor servicing of wells and appear to have nothing to do with fracturing, and then Egyptian's hyperbolic apocryphal proclamations that this is the worst thing since PCBs and DTD.

There is a blatant misunderstanding of hydraulic fracturing being shown here. You can link all manner of sites that are posting data to back a position they want others to buy into, but when the data linked doesn't match the issue being discussed, it becomes worthless...and obtuse. Either we are going to really discuss fracturing, or we are going to pile all piss-poor well servicing accidents into one category and call them "fracturing accidents". One way is correct, the other is disinformation.

All oilfield environmental accidents are not due to hydraulic fracturing. In fact, very very few will equate to such.

reply to post by Valhall


Fair enough, but I did mention that there does not seem to be any enthusiasm around safety standards and regulations. I admit to know knowing enough about fracking, but the fact is that there are far too many environmental mishaps taking place which occur as a direct or indirect result of fracking.

Let me apply a simple analogy:
Ford manages to finally build the ultimate family car: the Ford Fanfrakkintastic GLS.
It is so safe, that it is guaranteed that the driver and passengers will not get injured in the case of an accident as long as the driver is fully trained in the operation of this car as well as knowing the rules of the road (it is a complex creation, kind to bunnies and trees ... and fully recyclable too!).
The government decides that they don't need to apply the usual rules when assessing the drivers of this new class of vehicle - Ford lobbyists have "convinced" them that they should start cracking down on cyclists who don't stop at intersections - as they are the real cause of car accidents.
Cyclists all over the nation are persecuted for a couple of years.

Of course you can guess the rest - the "World's Safest Car" soon begins to have the highest death and injury rate due to their drivers being unfit to operate a shopping trolley.
By then it's too late, all the other manufacturers have copied Ford and have retooled all their factories for the new models.
The government, realising that the public is on the verge of lynching them, decides to invade Canada(accusing them of harbouring potential suicidal WMD bombers - the Canadian Geese).


Long (silly) story short, you cannot discuss fracking without assessing or addressing the support systems, people and the companies that are practicing this kind of extraction. To do otherwise would be naive or ingenuous at best, and self-serving or blatant spin at worst.

Edit to add: The wastewater is a byproduct of fracking, it cannot be avoided. How can you say that is not relevant to the discussion?

The fracking methods that are deployed by the natural gas and oil explorers only involve two similar kinds. There is hydrofracking and propane fracking. Both use a similar slurry of frac sand and surfactant of about 0.5% of the overall components, but the main component is where the difference lies. Hydrofracking involves the use of water as the main fluid source. This is a known substance that is non-toxic and non-hazardous to use and work with. This method involves a slurry mixture of 99.5% water and the remainder consisting of frac sand and surfactants. This slurry is pumped down into the borehole of the well at 100 barrels a minute, and the fracking pressure can be as high as 15,000 psi to crack the rock bed below. The fracking medium is recovered after the rock bed is cracked. The water returns to the surface and is held in a collection pond close to the borehole. Propane fracking involves the same components but instead of water, a LPG in gel form is used. This, too, is non-hazardous and non-toxic while it is in gel form. Once it becomes a gas, there is a flammability issue that has to be addressed. The main difference is the way the medium is recovered. The LPG gel evaporates after the pressure is released, and the gas is contained in a tank instead of a pond.

Fracking Methods

I would have to say in ANY industry that has been around for a long time, there will always be areas that have been historically done in some certain manner that are viewed as "well, that's the way we have always done it" (you can find that in ANY industry). So, for anyone (no matter what side of the fence you sit on about the question "is hydraulic fracturing an environmental menace?" no one can say that ALL the practices of drilling wells, servicing wells and producing wells have been improved to their ultimate level. In fact, I don't think you can say that about ANY process in ANY industry because (hopefully!) we will ALWAYS be improving all processes in all industries. That's technological advancement, and it's process improvement (not just from an efficiency standpoint, cost savings standpoint, or even safety standpoint, but for minimization of raw material, energy requirements and ABOVE ALL environmental protection).

So when we start looking at "oilfield accidents" that lead to environmental issues, yes, I would hope that EVERY entity involved in that incident is looking at 1) what went wrong?, and 2) how do we prevent it?

That is what has led to a myriad of improvements in drilling practices, completion processes, well-servicing and production enhancement techniques (the category that hydraulic fracturing falls into) and the long-term "life of the well" (i.e. sustaining the integrity of the well itself over the life of its production). I'm not going to sit here and say that all those processes are where "they should be" and that there is no further improvement. That would make me a self-admitted idiot.

BUT, some of the improvements that have taken place (not because of errant, hyperbolic claims of vast environmental spoilage of drinking water or land or whatever) came decades before anybody outside the oil & gas industry even knew what "fracking" was! The industry itself moved toward greener fracking products, safer fracking methods, better waste management techniques, reduction in fresh water requirements during well-servicing, etc.

The band wagon everybody is on right now due to people who are trying to scare the living hell out of the general populace is about 20 years behind the industry itself! While certain special interest groups are spending a LOT of people's time talking about errant data on hydraulic fracturing, the general knowledge of the overall process is not catching up to where the industry led itself starting 2 decades or more ago! If everyone would stop spending time trying to scare each other, and start doing true research into the processes, the products and the long-term data of hydraulic fracturing techniques those who want to be a part of improving the overall well-servicing processes would catch up to modern day practices and then could BECOME A PART of the process improvements of the industry.

Hydraulic fracturing has been taking place since the 1940's. If you want to get scared read how it was done PRIOR TO about the 1970's. Then look at how the industry moved to greener methods, safer methods and more environmentally friendly methods.

The highest risk of environmental damage in the oil and gas industry lies in the pipeline transportation, the storage and the refinement of produced hydrocarbons, not in the drilling, completion, enhancement or production end of it. If someone who lives near a oilfield has done a drinking water quality test and has found such things as are being claimed in certain posts on this thread (like toluene, benzene, etc.) it did not come from hydraulic fracturing. Most likely you need to be asking your county to provide you a map of pipeline locations, storage tanks, etc. You also need to see how far away the closest gas station with an underground storage tank is, and where your local mechanic shop is, because the odds are going to be greater that you've got Bubba down the road pouring used oil on his back lot, or the local $*** and Git with a leaking UST than anything else.

reply to post by Valhall


I just wish everyone in the oil industry had your attitude and common sense.

The reason people are up in arms is because (thanks to the internet) they are more educated and informed (and misinformed) than ever before about social issues. We are especially aware that the oil industry has a dismal track record when it comes to caring about anything except it's own profits. Their million dollar ad campaigns don't really convince us how caring they are because we have become cynical by nature and self-preservation - there is only so much bad news a human can take.

Yes, there are more greedy, more evil companies in the world than Shell, BP etc., but in my opinion, there are very few that seem to embody the kind of unethical business practices that are making people boil with anger, rage and frustration.

The knee-jerk reaction to fracking may seem like hysteria to you, but to me it is but one more clue that should be telling the oil industry that people are sick to death of the excuses, the oil spills and the destruction of the environment (while posting massive record profits). No amount of PR will change this perception as the tide of public opinion is changing, subtly, slowly, yet with massive unstoppable momentum

I am a capitalist at heart, and I strive everyday to maximise my income in a number of ventures. However, my eternal quest (to feed the appetite of a never ending cycle of consumption) is always tempered by the fact that I am only a guest on this fragile world.

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
reply to post by Atzil321

 

There are many things people take for granted in this life....If I have to buy bottled water instead of drinking FLAMMABLE water from a tap....

Did you seriously say you would rather buy bottled water and not step back oil consumption than have flammable liquid coming out of your tap?

No thanks, buddy. I'll take fresh clean water over higher gasoline any day.

The internal combustion engine has been known to mankind for better than a century. We went from punch cards to solid state memory in less than that. You mean to tell me that we can't (or haven't) drastically improve upon it?

Hogwash.
Cure the disease, not the system.

reply to post by netwarrior


notice he also said he hasn't had any bad experiences related to fracking. HE wouldn't be ok with flammable poisonous water, but he IS ok with it happening to other people.

come to think of it, he sounds alot like an executive to a large oil company.

Originally posted by deltaalphanovember
reply to post by Valhall

 

I just wish everyone in the oil industry had your attitude and common sense.

The reason people are up in arms is because (thanks to the internet) they are more educated and informed (and misinformed) than ever before about social issues. We are especially aware that the oil industry has a dismal track record when it comes to caring about anything except it's own profits. Their million dollar ad campaigns don't really convince us how caring they are because we have become cynical by nature and self-preservation - there is only so much bad news a human can take.

Yes, there are more greedy, more evil companies in the world than Shell, BP etc., but in my opinion, there are very few that seem to embody the kind of unethical business practices that are making people boil with anger, rage and frustration.

The knee-jerk reaction to fracking may seem like hysteria to you, but to me it is but one more clue that should be telling the oil industry that people are sick to death of the excuses, the oil spills and the destruction of the environment (while posting massive record profits). No amount of PR will change this perception as the tide of public opinion is changing, subtly, slowly, yet with massive unstoppable momentum

I am a capitalist at heart, and I strive everyday to maximise my income in a number of ventures. However, my eternal quest (to feed the appetite of a never ending cycle of consumption) is always tempered by the fact that I am only a guest on this fragile world.

I absolutely agree with you about that people are more informed (and more misinformed) and that is what is leading to the current situation. I do believe, in the long run, that the current situation (of people being scared crapless by fear-mongerers) will evolve to a point that both sides are close to the middle and then real work will take place. I'm always hopeful on these things. People should want more disclosure, more transparency and more data. I just hate to see people scared mindless by special interest groups. That bugs me.