Literature Review: Hydraulic Fracturing

Literature Review: Hydraulic Fracturing
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Hydraulic Fracturing
Tapping natural gas has produced numerous benefits at the same time negative effects on the environment, health and effects on freshwater. For the past decades, natural gas production used an unconventional tank as natural gas was tapped. Natural gas was tapped in an old fashioned way as drilling of holes was done straight on the ground reaching the underground pockets of natural gas; this contaminates aquifers (Burton , 2014). This paper review five articles explaining the viewpoints of different authors on the adoption of hydraulic fracturing.
The new technique of hydraulic fracturing uses high pressure, deep underground, to fracture underground rocks containing natural gas. However, the process is not easy to control because sometimes the fractures reach the aquifer; the toxic chemicals in the fracturing fluid poisons the aquifer. The oil residue and certain chemicals enter the drinking water in that anyone who gets water from a well can get contaminated water. Hydraulic fracturing has certain benefits but also comes with allot of negative impact on the environment and humans (Burton, 2014) explains that.
How Hydraulic Fracturing Works
Burton (2014) explains that hydraulic fracturing is a process that produces oil and natural gas from natural gas derived from underground rock formations. Naturally oil and natural gas are found in the pores spaces of underground rocks instead of the underground caves. To generate oil or gas, the drilling process is necessary to reach the underground rocks containing oil or gas. After drilling the stances flow to the well from the surrounding rock reaching the surface to reached well oil or gas flows through the rock by moving from one pore space to the other one because of the interconnectedness between the pores. However the rocks where such flows occur are high permeable, if the pores are too narrow and few, he rock will have low permeability .this means oil or gas will not flow easily. If the rock formation is permeability is too low, it is not economical to produce oil gas (Burton, 2014).
Low permeability can be reversed by creating cracks fractures in the rock to make oil or gas flow easily through the fractures instead of flowing only through interconnections of the pores. This is the process known as fracturing. In recent years, hydraulic fracturing is one of the latest technologies used to tap natural energy. In his article, Marshall (2010) explains the same process as Burton (2014); however, he further adds that fracturing is done by pumping water into the rock formation at extreme high pressure causing rock fracture. This means water moves into the fracture, forcing the fractures to open slightly. To prevent the closing of the fractures when water is withdrawn proppants to support the fractures (Marshall, 2010).
Hall (2011) believes that there are many benefits that have been realized as a result of adopting this new technology of hydraulic fracturing, one of the biggest benefits is that the gas and oil industry have created allot of job opportunities; these include companies that produce and supply certain services like and, ceramic particles, manufacturers of high-pressure pum...