Environmental Engineering Reference
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less than 2 percent to 6 percent of all domestic natural gas production. Some analysts
predict that by 2020 , shale gas will represent half of total domestic gas production.
Now the boom is attracting global attention. In April 2010, Reliance Industries , a
petrochemical company based in India, paid $1.7 billion for a 40 percent interest in At-
las Energy's gas fields in Pennsylvania. The United States has agreed to help China de-
velop gas shale exploration, while fracking has ignited a debate over water contamin-
ation in Queensland, Australia. Energy companies have targeted Sweden, Poland, and
Germany for the next gas bonanza.
Originally developed by Halliburton, the oil-field-services company once run by
Dick Cheney, hydrofracking was introduced in 1949. But it has never been subject to
federal regulation, and state regulations have been spotty. In the Energy Policy Act of
2005—the contested energy bill crafted by Vice President Cheney in closed-door meet-
ings with oil and gas executives— fracking was granted an explicit exemption from the
Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Air Act. This is known
as the Halliburton Loophole. The act exempts drilling companies from having to dis-
close what chemicals are added to the frack water, millions of gallons of which can be
pumped into the ground near aquifers during drilling.
At the national level, the EPA has undertaken an investigation of fracking, due to be
finished by late 2012, as has the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
One concern is that fracking creates terrible air pollution, which is generated by
drill rigs and by the trucks used to move fluids, waste rock, and supplies. According
to a preliminary 2010 study of the emissions generated in fracking by Professor Robert
Howarth , a Cornell ecologist, hydro-fracking is dirtier than drilling for oil and possibly
dirtier than mining for coal (usually considered the “dirtiest” hydrocarbon). Although
his work is incomplete, due to a lack of public data about fracking, Howarth told Vanity
Fair,“Society should be wary of claims that natural gas is a desirable fuel in terms of the
consequences on global warming.”
A more insidious concern is the makeup of fracking fluid, and the slurry of wastewa-
ter and chemicals that flows in and out of fracked wells. Much like the poultry integ-
rators who refuse to reveal the recipes for the chicken feed that is polluting the Ches-
apeake Bay, drilling companies claim the makeup of their fracking fluids is proprietary
and refuse to divulge their contents. According experts such as Dr. heo Colborn , an
environmental health analyst known for her work on endocrine disruptors, at least half
of the chemicals in fracking fluids are toxic, such as benzene, toluene, boric acid, form-
aldehyde, and xylene. But many other chemicals used in fracking remain secret.
Shale is hard and requires intensive blasting, which can create unpredictable cracks
in the rock, potentially allowing gas and toxic water to be released into aquifers. In
2010, James Northrup , a former ARCO planning manager, wrote a memo to the Otsego
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