A fine grained shale rock is typically composed of quartz & clay minerals.
Fracking is no joke. It’s been a media sensation the last five years as a matter of serious contention for environmentalists and oil & gas companies combined. Through media, fracking has been pointed to as a cause for earthquakes that topple chimneys and produce minor causalities experienced in the US States of Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Fracking is also believed to be the origin of contaminated water sources from which we drink, which has been a major factor in a new trend of state mandated fracking bans practiced in New York, for example, and entire countries such as France. But what if I told you that fracking is our future to self-sustainability and support of our land in the global green revolution? It’s a lot to bite off at first, especially for the skeptic, but I met with a 30-year experienced and retired petroleum engineer, Dr. Ian Palmer, who set the dispute straight. This is what he had to say…
Dr. Ian Palmer at his New Mexico home.
Dr. Ian Palmer worked a whopping 30 years in the oil and gas industry and for some of the biggest names in the business: Amoco, BP, before joining the consulting company HiGGs/Palmer Technologies. For years, he studied gas and oil molecules, their movement within fracs, how fracs are measured by geophones, and the engineering process of installing wells a mile deep below the earth’s crust. Before the 2000 shale revolution, which transformed the process of fracking we know today, Dr. Palmer worked in an era that faced limited gas and oil molecule flowability. Each well, based on the technology of vertical installment, was only able to produce a narrow flow of oil, leaving loads more to remain unobtainable below the earth’s surface… but not for long.
Dr. Palmer's display of a horizontal well (wooden stick) with multiple fracks (blue felt) & a verticle well (white pipe) with applied geophones (green straws).
The year 2000 marked the turn of the shale rock revolution which, through a 20-year process of trial and error on behalf of the Mitchell Energy Company practiced at the site of the Barnett Shale located around Fort Worth, Texas, birthed the concept of a horizontal well fracked many times along its length. Just like the vertical well, the horizontal well is typically a mile deep and a mile-long horizontally. The horizontal well proved radical in the industry of oil and gas as it provided a very effective way of covering the entire gas reservoir by means of a network of complicated fractures.
“Shale rock is the most common rock in the earth’s crust. It was known for many years that shale rock had oil and gas, but before 2000 we didn’t know how to get it out. So when the horizontal well, plus multiple fracs, were discovered, it was a revolution,” said Dr. Palmer. It was at this point that fracking became truly and undoubtedly profitable.
Furthermore, before this technology was discovered in 2000, America’s gas and oil production was declining and had been for many years; we were importing billions of dollars of oil from other countries, like Saudi Arabia, on which we were scarily dependent. But now, with the introduction of the fractured horizontal well, America will soon have enough oil to be self-sufficient; meaning, we won’t have to import and will, thus, save billions of dollars. Despite this knowledge, however, fracking continues to be feared because of the many controversies that surround it; some of which are due to a lack of understanding.
Therefore, fracking, if done properly, is safe. There are isolated cases of contamination that are not due to the fracs themselves, but are the indirect effects of fracking. To clearly understand this, imagine the world before you, split in half with everything below the earth’s surface visible to you. Now, about 5,000 ft. below the earth’s surface is the typical oil/gas and shale bed; which can also measure 10,000 to 15,000 ft. below the surface depending on the bed’s geographic placement. Between the earth’s surface and the shale bed are aquifers, or layers of groundwater that only measure about 1,000 ft. in depth. This means there are 4,000 ft. of rock between the shale rock and the aquifers near the earth’s surface. So, when gas & oil companies make a frac in the shale bed, the height of each frac is typically only a couple of hundred feet, making it literally impossible for those fracs to grow a mile from base to surface.
“In other words, fracs don’t route their way up to the earth’s surface, fracs don’t pollute the ground water, and most importantly fracs don’t contaminate well water. The issue is explaining fracking correctly,” articulated Dr. Palmer.
Nonetheless, contamination of water and aquifers can happen, although rarely, but again it’s not due to fracs. Occasionally, when we do find contamination, it’s because of the incorrect cementing of the well- yep, that’s right, a major human error. The well hole is drilled with a jagged edge, after which a steel well with a smooth surface is put in place. What remains is a gap between the steel pipe and the rock walls which then needs to be sealed, otherwise gas and chemicals can rise up from the shale source below; the sealing process is accomplished by pouring cement that fills the gap.
“If this sealing process is done improperly, then frac fluids, gas, oil and chemicals can make their way to the surface, which can then cause the well water to be contaminated. Although this has only happened in rare cases it is the fault of the companies that put in the wells,” emphasized Dr. Palmer.
The other source of contamination has nothing to do with fracs at all, but occurs occurs because of spills during the operation of fracking (or drilling) which can arise at the surface of the well and can therefore diffuse fracking chemicals into the aquifers and well water. Again, this is also relatively rare, and as Dr. Palmer reiterated,
“Oil companies need to be held responsible for this.”
The chemicals used in the process of fracking is also a large concern, and understandably so. The chemicals that are pumped down the well are used to make the water more slick and soapy so that the water pumps down easier, while other chemicals are used to stop the metal well from rusting, and there are also added chemicals used to stop the swelling of shale rock (shale is like a sponge, and therefore swells via the process of bonding with water molecules). So yes, there is evidently a variety of chemicals used, and many of them; sometimes as much as 20 different ones, but the concentration is only as much as you have in your backyard swimming pool; a 0.5% volume concentration. Also, a lot of these substances are household chemicals with which we’re very familiar, such as: detergents, plastic ware, deodorants, and hairsprays. This argument isn’t to say “the air is cleared, by golly!” but what it provides is a perspective on the types and amounts of chemicals which are pumped with frac fluids, and which rarely may cause contamination in groundwater, and well, frankly, who is rightfully to blame.
Furthermore, oil & gas companies are pumping large amounts of water down each well, during the multiple fracking operations, with a typical volume of 5 million gallons. A better way to think of it is a football stadium that is filled to a depth of 10 feet with water, requires 5 million gallons.
“That’s what companies are pumping down the well. But only 1 million gallons comes back up through the well when the well is turned on to production. The other 4 million gallons of water disperses and attaches itself to the shale,” explained Dr. Palmer, “Most of the frac water stays exactly there in the shale, which is the safest place for it to stay.”
Dr. Palmer demonstrating the energy of a frac by comparing to splitting a lot of wood with an axe.
Despite the media’s blowup of fracking contaminating well water, by far the biggest dispute has to do with earthquakes, and large ones experienced in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas by thousands of people.
“But…,” Dr. Palmer states, “...earthquakes are the indirect effect of fracking, and not because of fracking itself.”
At this point, I asked the question, “How does that even make sense?” so Dr. Palmer explained.
“Firstly, when you do a fracking job and you create fracs in shale, it’s similar to taking an axe and splitting a log of wood, which creates a noise of the log splitting. The same occurs when fracking; when a little frac is produced, a popping noise of low frequency (also called a micro-earthquake) is made. The energy of each micro-earthquake is equal to the energy of a gallon jug of milk hitting the floor from being knocked off your kitchen counter. That’s not enough energy to make its way to the surface to be felt; the energy will have died out before it’s made its way a mile up from the frac to the surface.”
Okay, makes sense, but how this theory is truly confirmed is by the use of little geophones that are installed onto the body of a well and which register the noise energies (micro-earthquakes) coming from fracs; when a rock fracs, the noise wave travels to each geophone that records the wave and the time delay between the frac and geophone, which can tell an engineer exactly where the frac is located, essentially mapping the size and shape of each and every frac in a horizontal well during the fracking operation.
So, if fracs aren’t the cause of these earthquakes experienced in the Great Plains and Interior Lowlands of the USA, then from where are they coming? Well, let’s define an earthquake: a real earthquake is a magnitude of 3 or greater and is often measured on the Richter scale, which is a logarithmic scale. If an earthquake registers below 3 magnitudes, then it’s not a proper earthquake; micro-earthquakes register below 0 magnitudes. You can feel anything scaled at 3 magnitudes and above at the earth’s surface.
“For example, a scale of 3 magnitudes just shakes things. A scale of 4 magnitudes produces cracks in walls. A scale of 5 magnitudes can affect the foundation, causing severe structural cracks in walls. While a scale of 6 magnitudes is when houses can topple and life can be lost,” illustrated Dr. Palmer.
So far, there hasn’t been a scale 6 magnitude earthquake experienced in the US regions currently affected by earthquakes that are blamed on fracking, but in Oklahoma, for example, the largest experienced has been an earthquake of 5.6 magnitudes. Yeah, that’s big, and it’s definitely not natural.
Before 2009, Oklahoma was getting two earthquakes per year for a span of 30 years. In 2015, there were 900 earthquakes documented in one year; and that’s just within a difference of five years. Then, Texas, Kansas and Ohio started getting these frequent and big earthquakes and around the same period, which, as you’ve guessed, is associated with the shale revolution. Furthermore, between 2005 and 2010 the production of oil wells in these areas quadrupled, and also the price of oil rose towards 100 dollars a barrel. What’s more is that each well doesn’t just produce gas and/or oil, but also produces water, extreme saltwater at that, which has to be disposed of because it’s not clean enough to use on the next frac job. Therefore, oil & gas companies created disposal wells; like in Oklahoma, in the Arbuckle limestone which is located below shale beds (shale beds are about 5,000 ft. below the earth’s crust, while the Arbuckle limestone is about 6,000 ft. below).
“That’s where most of the disposal wells are drilled, and there are hundreds, probably thousands, of them drilled in Oklahoma. So, between the years of 2000 to 2010, we’ve seen thousands of wells drilled, with each well producing saltwater that has to be disposed of down disposal wells,” related Dr. Palmer.
You can look at the saltwater in a disposal well like a balloon of high pressure below the surface of the earth and expanding sideways into the Arbuckle formation. With an increase in volume over time, the balloon of high-pressure saltwater spreads out and down into the Arbuckle.
“These plumes of saltwater can go miles depending on how many shale wells are disposing into it,” said Dr. Palmer.
Still, this isn’t what accounts for these big earthquakes. What does account for them is when these high-pressure plumes of saltwater spread far enough that they may hit a fault (a fault is just a very big fracture beneath the earth’s surface). Also, faults can exist anywhere, and there are a lot of them that exist specifically in the basement rock (granite) which is below the Arbuckle. Eventually when the disposal wells' high pressure fluid goes into one of these faults, that is what causes the fault to slip, which in turn creates a big earthquake.
“Indirectly, these large earthquakes are due to the increase of shale gas and oil wells that produce saltwater, and thus the increase of their saltwater in disposal wells,” told Dr. Palmer.
This linkage was also identified by Stanford students in a study published in June 2015.
So, what's an alternative to disposing unusable well water? And what's been tried? Dr. Palmer explained a few methods, their effects, and what oil & gas companies are potentially left to do now:
Surface disposal into evaporation ponds is a no because it amounts to too much volume, and the water may leach down into aquifers;
Disposal into rivers is also a no, because it's too polluting;
Oil & gas companies could truck the disposal water to chemical cleanup plants, but that's an expensive process, and companies would still have to dispose of the salt after cleanup, which begs the question- to where?
Companies could do the research to find out if any faults are in the vicinity before they drill new disposal wells. For example, in Oklahoma, companies shouldn't drill wells as deep as the Arbuckle, because it's too close to the basement and faults;
Install geophones at the surface and monitor for earthquakes. When quakes get too big or too frequent, either cut back the rate of disposal or shut down the wells.
Dispose saltwater into alternate formations that aren’t so deep. One possibility is to dispose the saltwater back into the shale or formation from which the producing wells produce. This technique has been proven in so-called enhanced productions; when liquids are injected to drive remaining oil toward a production well;
Lastly, companies could clean up the frac water that is returned when a well is put on production, and reuse it to frac the next well. Note, however, only 10-20% of the frac water is returned (the rest stays down in the well, absorbed by the shale).
Nonetheless, Dr. Palmer remains adamant that it would be a big mistake for US states and countries to ban fracking, despite the frenzy of fears and issues which surrounds it. After all,
“it’s producing too much money. Why would anyone continue to pay billions of dollars in import fees from oceans beyond, when one could be making gas and oil in their own countries which could inevitably employ their own citizens, build infrastructures, and support greener technologies?” challenged Dr. Palmer.
Point well taken; Europe currently imports 1/3 of its natural gas from Russia, whilst Poland, for example, has loads of shale gas beneath its crust and ready for the taking.
Additionally, natural gas from shale gas wells is like a halfway house, because it burns cleaner than oil does, and their greenhouse gas emissions are only half as much as they are from oil. Also, if we’re heading toward solar and wind energy, and perhaps nuclear energy, then natural gas is a good stepping stone to get there because it’s cleaner and cheaper. In the USA, half of the electrical generating stations have changed over from burning coal to gas. Even some fleets of cars have switched to compressed natural gas to run their engines.
“This type of technology is not very common in New Mexico, for example, but it’s popular in Oklahoma. We could be running a lot more on natural gas, but the price of oil has gone down significantly, so nobody cares anymore,” added Dr. Palmer.
Shale rock (left) is tough with low permeability and contains gas and oil molecules that require a horizontal well for extraction. Sandstone (right) is pourous and also stores large quantities of valuable petroleum.
But the truth is, fracturing technology, despite its safe deployment & practice in the United States for nearly 65 years, is more than just a means of optimizing oil and natural gas production, it’s also a major investment in marketing campaigns that could change its acceptance and perception in the USA and the world, and a major stride that oil & gas companies will have to face sooner or later. As we become more globalized, the question of self-sustainability and greener technologies become big ones, and as long as we’re reluctant to accept current, effective production of energy to get there, we may very well have to continue to rely on others to provide us our energy sources.
Dr. Ian Palmer currently lives in Albuquerque, NM. Although retired, he has made presentations on Fracking and Earthquakes and Shale-oil-gas to universities and professional groups. You can check out his latest posts on fracking and the sort by visiting his website as www.iandexterpalmer.com. For inquiries, email Dr. Palmer at ian@higgs-palmer.com.
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