A little research shows that old money paid to invent fracking. Amoco purchased

rights that go back to John D. Rockerfellow , who started standard oil in the early

1900's. There is a Senator Rockerfellow from West Virginia. Old money never go's. away.

100 years is 'old' money?

 

Your fracking water will be sent down an Injection well for storage. Human

comsumpion wells ,when you get on site and learn more.....just follow the water. The

Around here the flow back and production water which is primarily made up of the water used for the frack job gets reused for the next frack job or if sent to a disposal well gets pumped down to a salt water brine aquifer about 5000 feet below never to be seen again.
All of our local ground water supplies come from upper level aquifers that are less than 500 feet in depth. Most are far less than that even.

The company I am working with has developed its own process for being able to use raw flow back water and production water for the next fracking job opposed to bringing in fresh water for every well.

Right now on this site we had a 36 hour shutdown so that the flow back crews could get set up to start refilling our tanks with the water we just used so that we can do the next well that is on the same pad here.

 

When I was 10 years old, the local oil well drillers bounced a big iron slug against the shale. They could drill several feet in a day!

What kind of drill rates do you have now?

 

Around here the flow back and production water which is primarily made up of the water used for the frack job gets reused for the next frack job or if sent to a disposal well gets pumped down to a salt water brine aquifer about 5000 feet below never to be seen again.
All of our local ground water supplies come from upper level aquifers that are less than 500 feet in depth. Most are far less than that even.

The company I am working with has developed its own process for being able to use raw flow back water and production water for the next fracking job opposed to bringing in fresh water for every well.

Right now on this site we had a 36 hour shutdown so that the flow back crews could get set up to start refilling our tanks with the water we just used so that we can do the next well that is on the same pad here.

Before I say this, I must say, I love Loosie! But people like him are whats giving fracking a bad reputation. They believe the propoganda the anti's put out and tell others, without understanding the process.

Around here the injection wells go down into a layer of 'precambrian' sandstone. On new years day 2012 we had a 4.0 quake they claim was from an injection well. it went through the sandstone too far and caused a shift between layers below the sandstone.

 

Before I say this, I must say, I love Loosie! But people like him are whats giving fracking a bad reputation. They believe the propoganda the anti's put out and tell others, without understanding the process.

Loosie might be onto something. A "shallow" earthquake is considered to occur down to 40 miles below the surface, the range of which is within fracking depth. Of course, the industry will invent it's own science to support whatever position allows them to continue.

 

Many years ago we had the little earthquake problem in Colorado when the arsenal was pumping nerve gas down 12,000 foot wells to get rid of it. They were only low 3's to 4, but they stopped when they found ways to burn the 'stuff'.

 

When I was 10 years old, the local oil well drillers bounced a big iron slug against the shale. They could drill several feet in a day!

What kind of drill rates do you have now?

I don't know being I am on a fracking crew not a drilling rig. Best as I understand it is that they drill 18,000 - 22,000 feet of 16" - 18" bore in about 3 - 4 weeks.

The new well we just moved to will be getting pumped at 5 Bbls a minute for the first stage ending at around 45 - 50 bbls a minute in the last #30 - 32 zones..

The last well took around 58,000 bbls of water.

 

Loosie might be onto something. A "shallow" earthquake is considered to occur down to 40 miles below the surface, the range of which is within fracking depth. Of course, the industry will invent it's own science to support whatever position allows them to continue.

Huh? 40 miles is within the range of fracking depth?

The record depth for any borehole is well under 8 miles. Of the more than half a million earthquakes a year, most are at depths of less than 50 miles. In the U.S., the deepest well (on land) is under 6 miles and there are only two or three dozen wells that exceed 5 miles.

So just what is it that Loosie is onto?

 

So just what is it that Loosie is onto?

Sniffing well gas maybe?

The wells here are going about 2 miles down and then horizontally nearly two more so their actual depth is pretty shallow compared to a 40 mile deep earthquake zone.

Energy release wise a 4.0 earthquake is equivalent to about 500 gallons of gasoline which is pretty small considering that during our fracking job we will burn about 8,000 -10,000 gallons of diesel fuel running our pumps.

 

Huh? 40 miles is within the range of fracking depth?

The record depth for any borehole is well under 8 miles. Of the more than half a million earthquakes a year, most are at depths of less than 50 miles. In the U.S., the deepest well (on land) is under 6 miles and there are only two or three dozen wells that exceed 5 miles.

So just what is it that Loosie is onto?

I said down to 40 miles. I meant drilling range is within the range of shallow earthquake foci.

 

it appears that even though this thread was started by someone who is actually working in the industry, and has actual information on fraking, the screamers have taken over with propaganda wars. wasnt this thread started so people could get actual info, not propaganda?

 

the screamers have taken over

No, they haven't Just a couple of moans among a bunch of good info posts. We can ignore the screamers. Keep the real info flowing Tcmtech; this is an excellent thread.

 

I'm following it with interest. If people don't bring up the negative points how can they be rebuked? That is the point of a discussion, anything else is just a cheer leader squad.

I have a very negative opinion of fracking, but I'm willing to listen and learn. We do need the products of it very badly too. All the world does. So the question is are the risks worth the benefits, and who reimbursed the losers?

 

the problem with both the cheerleaders and negative people is that they probably aren't going to be convinced by any facts presented, having a total belief in what ever they have heard from the people with a stake in the subject and passed on as "truths".
frackking has been going on in Kansas for many years without any negative effects. in the real old days they just sent a can of nitro down the hole to loosen up the oil formation. then they used water, then they used detergent in water. and no ill effects noted. the industry does bring some on its self by keeping fraking fluids secret, if it were known what they were, maybe some of the stuff people find in their water supply could be proved as related or not. but instead, a lot of screaming and falsehoods come out that people believe as gospel.

 

the problem with both the cheerleaders and negative people is that they probably aren't going to be convinced by any facts presented, having a total belief in what ever they have heard from the people with a stake in the subject and passed on as "truths".
frackking has been going on in Kansas for many years without any negative effects. in the real old days they just sent a can of nitro down the hole to loosen up the oil formation. then they used water, then they used detergent in water. and no ill effects noted. the industry does bring some on its self by keeping fraking fluids secret, if it were known what they were, maybe some of the stuff people find in their water supply could be proved as related or not. but instead, a lot of screaming and falsehoods come out that people believe as gospel.

It goes both ways, if you are absolutely convinced then nothing can change your mind. The number of mini quakes around fracking sites does go up, the evidence is hard to argue on that one. The people who will pay for the repairs or worse, be displaced will likely just have to eat the costs involved, while the folks who make money off it will only reap the profits.

If the ground water is polluted (note that I said if) then it will likely not come back in our or our children's lifetime. We need that water for life, not transportation or energy. The latter two are luxuries compared to the former.

The big problem is scale, what you talk about with the oil wells is a minor drop in a lake compared with the millions (billions?) of gallons of water we are displacing into the earth. Efforts to reuse it are to be applauded, but something has to fill the void. They are no big deal if they are in another state, but a sink hole in your backyard is no laughing matter.

It behooves us to pay careful attention before fouling our drinking water and make sure all the facts are in.

Like I said, I am listening. I have not made up my mind, but I don't ignore the negatives because they go against my need for cheap gas.

 

The number of mini quakes around fracking sites does go up, the evidence is hard to argue on that one. The people who will pay for the repairs or worse, be displaced will likely just have to eat the costs involved, while the folks who make money off it will only reap the profits.

I think there are two things involved here and that there might be a correlation-implies-causation fallacy as well. The USGS has studied the increase in earthquakes are concluded that felt-earthquakes related to fracking operations are very rare and that none appear to have ever caused damage. However, with or without fracking, there has been a major move toward using deep injection wells for permanent disposal and sequestration of wastewater. It is these wells that appear to be the cause of the increases in felt-earthquakes.

Note that most water injected for fracking purposes comes back out -- just think about what the whole objective is and you see that this almost has to be the case. Furthermore, a large fraction of the wastewater that is pumped into the permanent disposal wells is water that was produced along with the oil and gas as opposed to surface or drinking water aquifers. What I don't have any feel for -- and perhaps something that the OP can look into -- is how much of the water used for fracking is water produced by other oil and gas production and how much of it is water that otherwise would be in the useable water supply. On a related note would be finding out how much of the water used to frack one well is recovered and, of that, how much is used to frack a later well, how much is returned to the useable water supply, and how much is injected into a wastewater disposal well.

 

If people don't bring up the negative points how can they be rebuked? That is the point of a discussion, anything else is just a cheer leader squad.

I can live with that.

The way I see this thread is that tcmtech is going on an adventure, he is learning, and we can learn. I don't expect him to know whether fracking causes earthquakes, but I do expect him to observe how much of what stuff goes into the well and how it gets down there. The fact that I worked on satellite communication radios doesn't mean I know how they affect the ionosphere. I just know what the wattage, modulation schemes, and frequencies were.

So, Yay, tcmtech. I'm cheering for you. Have a great adventure, and thanks for sharing.

 

I don't mind the back and forth debates by any means. If anything I encourage it so that I can have better question for the engineers I work with.

From what I know the wells we are doing are being fracked with about 55,000 - 60,000 barrels of water. One barrel is 42 gallons so from that you can figure around 2.3 - 2.5 million gallons are being used.

Now relating to flow back and production water returns over the life of teh well all of it will come back and with the current used water recycling process the company I work for uses a good percentage of it may very well be used to frack other wells and so on.

As for the initial sources of water they use a combination of public utility water and natural surface pond water that comes from lakes ponds and rivers.

Relating to the shear volumes aspects a little math will quickly show that the overall volumes compared to what nature tosses around are trivial at best. For example a 1 inch rain over a one mile square area would drop around 17.4 million gallons of water on the ground or enough water to frack about 6 - 7 wells without recycling or 10 - 12 wells with present recycling methods.

Relating to the chemicals being used the oil industry is not the least bit secretive about what they are using. In fact anyone can find out exactly what they are using at any time at any well site just by going to which ever companies website they have a question about. From there they even have phone numbers to people who will tell you exactly what they use as well.

I will try and get actual links to the actual world wide industry standard SDS (Safety Data Sheets, used to be MSDS) for the stuff we use.

FOr a bit more info on what is happening beneath us the wells here run out about 10,000 feet horizontally once they hit the oil formation. From there the actual fracking cracks the formation up around the well bore in all directions for roughly 500 feet.
Given that imagine the path of the well bore having a spiderweb of hairline crack radiating out from it roughly 1000 feet in diameter for about two miles long.

Actual oil recovery given present tech from that is estimated to be around 25 - 35% of what is actually in the formation which means that another 65 - 75% of the oil is still down there.

Service life on these wells is estimated to be around 10 - 15 million gallons or about 200,000 - 300,000 Bbls of oil over 20 years.

If I understood things correctly.

 

The chemical industry loved the idea of fracking... initially. Then the oil service companies got smart and realized they better use safer fluids for fracking. Now, most of what they use is dissolved salts in water or food grade thickeners, surfactants and pH control. About the most 'dangerous' chemicals in the mixture is a few 100 to a few 1000 ppm of corrosion inhibitors and biocides (yes, they actually have to prevent algae from growing in their food-grade water mixtures).

 

Exactly!!!! The typical cleaning chemicals you have under your sink that everyone dumps down their drain are more concentrated than what we are using
.