WEBVTT - How the Frick Fracking Works 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.199 Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camry. 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.960 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:17.080 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.040 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.480 you should don't very serious edition, So don't even laugh 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.080 once we're the whole episode. We're just a couple of 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:32.200 fracking podcasters. But we can't do that the whole time. 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:35.400 I wasn't going to do it at all. Well, you know, 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:42.200 I would I find a distasteful to something. For the effort. Yeah, 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.880 even the effort. I can barely get that out calling 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:47.960 it the F word. Oh yeah, yeah, right, you just 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.000 want to say it. Yeah, don't say fudging right, I 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:55.120 hate those people, Yeah, fudging Midwesterners. Yeah, just don't even 0:00:55.160 --> 0:01:01.560 say anything at all. Yeah, just yeah, or say entirely unrelated. 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.440 But all it does is make people think of the 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.080 real left word, which is like loses the spirit of 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.759 your intent, which is did not curse. Oh yeah, that's 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:15.600 definitely a way to put it. That's one problem with it. All. Right, 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.680 what's your intro? What's your frecking intro? Well, you know, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.840 we did that episode on peak oil. And it was 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.080 really funny that we recorded it when we did, because 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.600 like two days after we're talking about the US running 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.600 out of oil, a report was released that basically said 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:41.600 the United States is predicted to be energy independent by 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.959 UM and we actually are. We probably are never going 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.720 to achieve true energy independence. That's just I mean, a 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.160 hundred percent of our supplies of oil and fossil fuels 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.560 and all that stuff created here. It's just it's never 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.280 gonna happen. But we're gonna closer and closer and closer. 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.480 And in fact, in two thousand ten, John Kerry, famous senator, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.119 possibly a future Secretary of State. Oh yeah, he's being 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.200 bandied about UM, he said that the United States is 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.040 the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. And definitely natural gas 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.200 is one of the reasons one of the ways that 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:25.519 US has suddenly experienced this huge boom in oil production. Yeah, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:31.080 oil production, gas production, fuel production, clean clean burning natural gas. Uh, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.520 but we will learn that doesn't necessarily make it clean 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:37.200 over its life cycle. It's a big difference. Yeah, So 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.760 I say it's as dirty as coal over its life cycle, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.440 especially people who love coal. Yeah, that is one problem 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.720 I had with this fracking article is, and not just 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.959 the article that the whole topic is. Everybody has a 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:58.440 slant depending on who they're working for. Like if you're 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.200 an environmentalist, you're gonna have your slant. If you're working 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.840 with the big oil companies, you're gonna have your slant. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.880 And they all say, like, these are the facts. Yeah, 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.400 it's really annoying. Well, one of the reasons why everybody 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:11.120 is able to get away with saying these are the 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:15.480 facts is because this stuff is so new and so 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.799 um unstudied. I guess at this point, yes, as far 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.960 as published, pure of viewed studies are concerned, and as 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.120 far as massive amounts of fracking, like it's been around 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.040 for a while. But yeah, not like it's going on today, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.560 right exactly. Um, apparently there's in some form or fashion, 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.720 it's been around since the nineteenth century. This the concepts 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.320 of fracking. But the fracking like you just described massive 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.520 fracking operations carried out by huge energy concerns, that's a 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.400 couple of decades old. Yeah, I think Haliburton started it 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:54.640 in Yeah, they invented it, did they really? Dick Cheney? 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:56.560 I don't think Dick Cheney invented it. He's like, give 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:00.840 me that pipem gone to try something new. Uh uh yeah, 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.080 so they they developed the process at least, but it's 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.160 really started to take off in the last few years 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:08.880 and in the in the last decade or two is 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.800 when you started to see real concerns about what's going 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:13.360 on here. Wait a minute, what are you guys doing? 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.200 And that's where this idea that oh, it's perfectly safe, 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.600 Oh it's gonna cause a catastrophe has come about and 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.520 that's why we should probably say, like we this isn't 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:28.159 gonna settle the issue, but um, you should keep your eyes. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.159 I hope this raises people's awareness of this. Well yeah, 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.599 I just on that note, I saw a study today 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:38.800 that Americans have never heard of fracking and about said 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.400 they've heard of it, but don't know what it is. 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.599 So that's that's a lot. Well, let's let's teach a 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:48.960 few people fracking a K hydraulic fracturing or if you're 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.600 a total square, hydro fracking. You know, like that's the 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.320 kid who's who thinks he's cool, but it's really kind 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:57.719 of out of the loop, so he's calling it hydro fracking. Still, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.200 we really just call it fracking. It's a UM. It's 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:06.520 a technique that's used to get to incredibly deep deposits 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.200 of fossil fuels, not always natural gas. But most of 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.839 our discussion will be on that, right. And I shouldn't 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.200 even say fossil fuels, because you can use fracking to 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.800 get to incredibly deep deposits of water, sure if you 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.880 wanted to UM. But the one thing in common that UM, 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.560 all of this, all of these techniques have UM is 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.520 that you go down in a vertical line and then 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.320 all of a sudden you just cut to the right 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.160 or cut to the left anywhere between six thousand and 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:41.240 thirteen feet down to get after shale, to get after it. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:46.120 And shale UM is this type of porous rock. Yeah, 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:50.200 we did right a long time ago, years ago, maybe 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.920 like two oil shale UM. And it's a type of rock. 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.480 It may contain oil and may contain gas, it can 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.520 contain water, but the stuff is trapped in it because 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.279 of the trim this pressure at these debts. And with 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:05.600 a fracking operation, you go down there, break it up, 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.560 get it out, and it comes back up. Yep. And 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:10.279 here in the US, UM we have a lot of 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.160 the shale specifically the Marcella Shale is one of the 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.040 main fracking grounds in the in the country. And what 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:22.000 does it cover Pennsylvania, Ohio, parts of New York, Virginia, Maryland, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.120 or West Virginia, Maryland. Yeah, it's huge. So that's where 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:26.719 a lot of this stuff is taking place right now. 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.360 And many more states and Europe are hot on the 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.239 the scene here to get into fracking. And they think that, Um, 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:40.919 there's about fifty two trillion cubic feet of natural gas 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.520 in the United States and about five hundred trillion of 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.120 that is in the Marcelli's region on so it's a 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.320 big deal. Yeah. New York just they were letting it 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.560 through and then um the governor kai boshed it and 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:58.760 for now and said, wait, maybe we should study this 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.799 some more. Yeah, because a lot of municipalities were taking 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.400 it on their own outlaw fracking in one form or fashion. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.560 And this has caused like a huge problem because there's 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:09.600 a lot of people out there who are saying, well, 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.280 wait a minute, I own land, I'm kind of happy 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.480 with this idea, and I want to get incredibly rich overnight. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:21.720 Like Jed Clampett, did you know where's my where's my 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.679 bubbling crude. Well, yeah, you gotta. You do have two sides. 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.080 You have some farmers that are like, this is contaminating 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.920 our land, and you have some farmers saying, I haven't 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.400 been able to farm and make money a year, so 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.360 I would love to sell my land off or least 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.240 my land and um make some serious money. So it's 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:41.880 not like every farmers like, no, I don't want this. 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.120 A lot of them do. No, it's very much divided. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.560 And this out in like town halls around New York 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:52.720 and around the country wherever fracking is is possible, I guess, um, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.640 and it is definitely dividing communities. All right, So let's 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.120 let's go a little more in depth about the process 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.120 of fracking in depth. Yeah, it's really pretty simple. Um. 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:08.280 It starts off like a conventional Well, so you drill deep. Um, 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.600 I think you said between six and thirteen. They said 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.800 the average is about seventy feet down and I think 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:19.400 chess peak energy as wells and so, um, Well, they 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.080 go to wherever the deposits are. So it just sort 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.960 of depends, Um, how do they find that? Out of wonder? Um, 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:31.360 what's a good site? They they detect radioactivity I believe 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.080 because this stuff is slightly radioactive. We'll get to that too, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.280 but I think that's one of the techniques they use 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.480 as they really analyze the radioactivity and say, oh, there's 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.800 a bunch right here. Interesting. Okay, So you got your 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.360 regular well and like you said, what's called the kickoff point. 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.800 It's gonna take a left or right and become a 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:55.080 horizontal um line and that can span anywhere from a 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.640 thousand and six thousand feet. Then they stick something called 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.440 a well board. It's just basically a steel uh casing 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.520 like a big steel pipe, and they stick that down 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.720 in there, and then they shoot a bunch of cement 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.360 down and it comes out the bottom and goes back 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.400 and fills it up on the outside further in casing it, 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:15.720 and they cleared out of the middle of the well board. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:17.680 Then they clear that out, so you've got a you know, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:22.640 a pipeline, I guess. And then the actual fracking uh 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.440 part takes place. Right So I'm setting you up for 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.679 that part. Oh you were sure, you'd think after all 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.520 these years I would have noticed that, um. Well, So 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.240 that you've got the well board completely cemented and in place, 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.439 and it's going down about a mile off from the 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.680 kickoff point, and it's right there in the in the 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.160 middle of this shale deposit. And they send down a 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.319 a little tool. It's like, um, a little cable scrambler, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.000 you know what I'm talking about. It looks kind of 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.079 like that, yeah, Um. And it it's an explosive device. 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.040 And it blows a hole into a little holes, a 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.600 bunch of little holes in through the well board, through 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.360 the sum and into the surrounding rock, just a few 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.719 inches each each one, will you know, be two or 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.840 three inches of a little mini shaft. I guess right. 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.360 So you've got you've got the horizontal well boar and 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.600 the cracks are then vertical, vertical perpendicular to it, right, 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.160 and then they plug that up and then move on 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.199 and do it again all the way down the line 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.800 of this the horizontal kickoff point, in the horizonal kickoff point, 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:28.520 and they blow them up and blow them up and 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.760 blow them up. You've got all these perforations into the rock. 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.640 And then all of a sudden, now you are prepared 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:38.040 to frack. Yeah, And I was setting you up at 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.760 this point. They pump um water. Well, they pump a 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.400 lot of stuff. It's mostly water though it's it's mostly 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.959 water and sand and then uh what they call other 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.200 chemicals and um, although sometimes diesel fuels are part of this. 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:56.320 Apparently they stopped doing that in two thousand three. That's 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.839 not true. Well, they were supposed to stop it. The 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.720 e PA came up the something that sounds like it 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.359 has a lot of teeth. It's called a Memorandum of Agreement, 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.000 and they asked the oil companies to sign it and 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.040 say that they won't use diesel as part of their 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.760 fracking fluid any longer. I didn't realize that people were 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:15.959 still doing Yeah. A recent congressional investigation found that thirty 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.760 two million gallons of diesel fuel has been injected UM 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.959 in nineteen different states between two thousand five and two 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.160 thousand nine. So it's still going on. Well, that flies 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:31.560 in the face of the memorandum of understanding. The memorandum understanding. Yeah, 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.480 they didn't have teeth that it. Yeah. Um, but you 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:36.560 can get a permit to do it. That's messed up. 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:38.200 Apparently you can get a permit, but there is no 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.160 office to process the permit at the e p A. 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.240 So it's an effective ban. But they're still doing it. Okay, 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.400 So you you've got you've got your fracking ready, you 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.200 pump your you start actually the process of fracking. What 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.280 you've just done. Everything we talked about up to the 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.000 water is preparing for fracking. Once you start pumping this 0:11:55.040 --> 0:12:00.800 water down at an incredibly um pressurized state like nine 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:05.559 thousand p s I. By contrast, you know air compressor 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.720 for your air tools and your garage that's like s 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.719 i H. Nine thousand p s I is just an 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:17.760 incredibly pressurized state. Um. The water rushes down and when 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:24.800 it hits those perforated areas, it cracks the shale even further. Uh. 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:30.760 And eventually the it also the particulate matter sand or 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.120 whatever else that they added, goes into those cracks and 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.679 then keeps it open, keeps the cracks open after the 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.360 water they are but it's enough, because what you're talking 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.520 about is like you're getting gas out of rock rather 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:47.040 than yeah, just a little bit UM. And then once 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.320 the once you stop pumping the water and the pressure 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.920 pushes it back up and eventually the water's done. The 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.160 water that you set back down there comes back up, 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.320 and then it's followed by U or whatever else. Yeah, 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.920 and that water is waste water that is UM and 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:05.960 we will get into. This is one of the controversies. 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.959 How that wastewater is handled is um kind of one 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.599 of the things at the center point of the controversy. 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:18.319 So that's that's fracking. Um. It's it's it's complex engineering wise, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.920 but it's actually kind of simple as a concept. And 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.440 then the whole thing lasts from preparation. I guess the 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.680 first drilling to the end of fracking about four months. 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.160 But then this well that's just been developed can produce 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:37.079 natural gas for decades, possibly years or decades. Yeah, I 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.200 saw up to like forty years even sometimes. Okay, So 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.640 that's that's fracking, and that's where the story ends. That's 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.760 where the story ends. Um. So we're gonna present both 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.160 sides of the argument, like we try to do, sometimes 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:53.240 more successfully than others at other times. Yeah, because if 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.240 you're an environmentalist, you probably just noticed eight things that 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:58.959 we said that are driving you crazy right now, because 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:00.920 it's like, well, what about this? What about that? We're 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.000 going to address that. Well, let's let's take the pro 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.959 fracking side, um first of all, Um, which right now 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.920 you know includes President Obama. You know, it's not like 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.800 we're not dividing this politically as best we can, like 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:15.840 he's in favor of it right now. And we also 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.440 need to point out that we had a listener mail 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.400 that point out that there was a there's an ep 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.320 A study that was commissioned in two thousand eleven that's 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.080 really the most comprehensive study ever and it will be done, 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.680 and I think it by the time this comes out, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:35.680 some preliminary notes should be should be in, so we'll 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.479 learn a lot more soon and maybe the Obama administration 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.000 will come out against it after that. But as of now, 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.640 there's not a lot of hard science, which is problematic. 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:47.840 It is problematic. So on the pro side, you're gonna say, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.800 you know what, we can these horizontal wells are really 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.840 sort of efficient, and that you're not gonna have above 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:59.520 ground hundreds and hundreds of wells. This one well can 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.400 go horse only for six thousand feet and do most 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.720 of the work out of sight. Yeah. Of course, counter 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.400 that with their like tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.920 of these wells fracking wells, and there's still a lot 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:16.160 going on above ground. There is because the whole operation. 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:20.920 While once they finished drilling, they removed the drill rig. 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.200 But now you have pump trucks coming in. It takes 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:29.040 about two hundred trucks to deliver a million gallons of water. Yeah. Man, 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.480 I saw this one mini documentary on this small town 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.960 in Pennsylvania. They're like on main Street and the guy 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:36.320 was like, yeah, we used to sit out here at 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.720 the sidewalk cafe, and literally while they were filming this, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.080 it's like every other every third car that passed was 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.480 a huge tanker truck through like the middle of this 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.560 like little quaint town, carrying water to the site and 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.800 removing waste water and whatever else. So if it takes 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.840 two hundred trucks to carry one million gallons of water, 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.480 some of these some of these operations used ten million gallons, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.360 so two thousand trucks just to carry it there. Then 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:04.680 you've got pump trucks and it, I mean, it is 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.760 an operation. Even though compared to oil drilling above ground, 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:13.920 it's it's less Yeah, it's more nocuous, that's right. So um, 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.480 another pro is that natural gas is pretty great and 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.240 you're you're not gonna find a lot of people argue 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.520 with that. It burns very cleanly. It's a good solution. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.360 But it's the like we said over its lifetime. Some 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.600 contend that because of the practices, it's not any cleaner 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.560 than coal UM in the end. Yeah, like if you 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.240 burn it itself, if in a perfect world, as emits 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:42.640 one third the nitrogen oxides of coal, half of the 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:46.040 CO two, and just one percent of the sulfur oxides, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.600 so it is like a lot cleaner. But then again, 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.480 as part of the fracking process, you have like all 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.840 these trucks that are using all this diesel that are 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.640 coming to and from the site. Right. Another problem with 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.880 it is methane release associated with UM tapping natural gas. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.760 Apparently as much as eight percent of the methane in 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:10.680 a natural gas well is lost, and methane is bad. 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.760 It's a really serious greenhouse gas. It's worse than CEO 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.400 two as far as creating the greenhouse effect is concerned. 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.600 It's just there's typically less of it, and we usually 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.239 produce less than we produce CEO two, so there's an 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.760 air pollution factor to it as well. Yeah, that's true. Um. 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:28.679 We should probably point out if anyone's seen them the 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.760 documentary gas Land from two thousand ten, that was the 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:36.920 famous scene where the guy lights his tap water on fire. Impactful. Yeah, 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.280 did you see it. Yeah, and you know you can't 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.080 see that and not go holy crap, like they're letting 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.560 this happen. Um. As it turns out, in fairness, the 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.600 officials determined that it was a naturally occurring methane reserve 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.199 at this particular homeowners well, and it was not due 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.480 to fracking. Right, his well hit hit like a methane reserve, 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:01.800 So that would explain what his flaming water. But before 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.639 that came out, I think, um, truth Land, which was 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.000 I guess an answer to gas Land, came out. Did 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:12.240 you hear about that? Truth Land um was released by 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.840 Energy and Depth, which is a pro fracking group which 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.200 if you go into source watch, is funded by frank 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.800 by oil companies. But they released this documentary that said 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.320 nothing about the oil companies funding in and called it 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.760 truth Land. It was exposed to propaganda like right out 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:35.240 of the gate. But um, there's definitely this uh propaganda 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.000 war going on, um between you know, pro and con 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:44.040 sides speaking of prone country got any more prosum, I do, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.480 but quickly but just because that guy and gas Land, Um, 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:49.960 it turned out to be a different thing. The companies 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.120 have been fined um for negligence with methane reaching water 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.080 supplies like that has happened, right, which is not supposed 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.199 to happen. Because if you're talking about like a the 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:06.119 Marcellus region, this this, that's the typically very deep deep shale, 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.959 like seven thousand, ten thousand feet, that's how far you 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.760 have to drill down before you hit that kickoff point. Right, 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.560 Your um groundwater reserves, your aquifers are gonna be a 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.800 few hundred to a thousand feet. So if you pass 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.800 through them and then you use your steel well board 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.880 and in case it and cement correctly, you're not you're 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.679 not going to get any release into that groundwater. And 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:34.960 the cracks that you're making the fractures are so deep 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.720 and small enough that they're not going to travel all 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.320 the way up thousands and thousands of feet up to 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:46.080 the aquifer just the pressure won't allow it. Supposedly, that's 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.480 like that, that's the that's the logic behind it now. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.040 But there are things like coal bed methane fields that 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.720 are typically much more shallow and they're closer to aquifers, 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.160 and those are the ones. If you're tapping those using fracking, 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.440 you run amendous risk of of methane getting into the 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.280 water supply big time. But if you're doing deep shale 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.560 stuff as it stands now, all the evidence suggests that, No, 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.159 it's it's if you steal your well bore correctly, you 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.840 should be fine. Right, Well, that's the listener. Mail pointed 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.480 out that, um, you know, most of the issues of 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:25.120 the problems have been because of that concrete or incorrect Well, 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:27.919 you know this and that, not the fracking itself, but 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.000 it's the same people doing that, so it's still counts 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:33.320 as part of the problem with fracking. Yeah, you know, 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:36.280 you can't say, like, oh, the fracking segment of this 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.040 operation went well, but of course we had cracks all 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.639 up and down that ruined everything. So come on, that's semantics, 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.520 all right. Um, some of them. The more last couple 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:51.520 of pro arguments here, Josh, are UM revenue. It's a 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:56.000 big one. Seventeen thousand, six hundred jobs would be created 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:00.760 and a hundred million dollars in tax revenue if New 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:07.199 York State UM lifted their fracking ban. Yeah, so a 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.560 lot of jobs. A lot of these are former farming 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.240 communities that are somewhat depressed, and a lot of people 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.679 want those jobs. And anytime you're reducing our dependence on 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:20.119 foreign oil. That's a good thing, uh in a worldview. 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.760 So those are some of the pro arguments and they're 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:28.000 good ones. Yeah. So um, and again we should say 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.560 like the jury is still very much out, but there 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:38.639 is a lot of common sense criticism of fracking operations. Um, 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:40.920 some have already been discarded. Like a lot of people 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.760 are worried about that radio activity and um, the wastewater 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.840 that does come back up is slightly more radioactive than 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.760 it was when it went down, but not any That's, 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.159 as one professor put it, that's like the least of 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.280 your worries with fracking is the radio activity. Yeah. Another 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.560 one is that, um, it causes earthquakes, which is sensible. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:04.920 You know, you're down there, you're drilling, you're blowing holes 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:08.040 into the shale thousands of feet down. How can you 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:11.520 not cause an earthquake. Apparently, earthquakes are associated with fracking, 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.800 but it's not the actual fracking. It's when you store 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:20.040 wastewater in a retention pond reservoir induced seismicity where it's 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.160 coming from. Yeah, So there are a couple of earthquakes 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.480 that were associated with fracking, but not from the fracking process, 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:31.080 from storing the wastewater. Again semantics, but so, but the 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:36.159 wastewater is probably the single most UM. I guess if 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:40.159 you're an environmentalist, that's the smoking gun, Like, that's the 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:45.120 one that you can't get around if you're an energy company, 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:49.800 because fracking uses tons of water, lots and lots of water, 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:53.399 I mean millions of gallons of water to get to 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:57.840 these and recovers maybe between fifteen and fifty of that water. 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.880 And then the water that is recovered is now way 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.280 more toxic than it was before. So you're taking water 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:10.680 from a municipal water supply, drinking water people, people, water 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:14.120 people need, sending it down into the earth, and then 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:16.760 getting maybe fifteen fifty back, and then the stuff you 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:18.520 do get back is like, what are we gonna do 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:22.920 with this? Yeah? Well they um, the oil companies will 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.760 say that they dispose of it in ways that uh 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:31.359 adequately match state regulations, UM, which may or may not 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:33.800 be adequate. Yeah, may or may not be in depending 0:23:33.840 --> 0:23:36.240 on the state, the regulations are a little more lax 0:23:36.280 --> 0:23:38.960