CNN explains fracking to us.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video and say whether the statements below are true or false.
The activity is suitable for intermediate students.
1 The traditional drilling for oil and gas and the new technique of fracking do not differ very much.
2 Fracking involves breaking the rock.
3 US is the leading country in the world as far as fracking goes.
4 US has abundant amounts of oil and gas if compared to other countries.
5 US laws allow fracking in the same places as traditional drilling.
6 Fracking companies use air to push fluid down into the rocks and fracture them.
7 Fracking companies are reluctant to explain their technique.
8 Fracking is safe as far as pollution goes.
9 Fracking is synonimous with money.
One of the things that oil companies and gas companies and geologists always kind of knew is that there were pockets of oil and natural gas under big rock formations, big layers of rock that you couldn’t get at by drilling straight down, so this process involves drilling horizontally.
Fracking gets its name from hydraulic fracturing. And what that means? Hydraulic, they are using water and a lot of chemicals and some sand and other things and they fracture the rock by pushing it out at a very high speed. That fractures the rock and releases the oil and the natural gas.
About 87% of the fracking that was done last year worldwide was done in North America. The Bakken Shale which is out in North Dakota, you have the Marcellus Shale, which spreads through New York and Pennsylvania, so that’s the kind of rock, shale, that you find these oil and gas pockets underneath.
The US doesn't have that much oil or gas if you look at it compared to the rest of the world. And also, remember there are a lot of places in the US where you can't drill for oil and gas: the governement only allows it in some places so they allow fracking in different places that they do, say, traditional drilling. It is also and can be less expensive to frack for natural gas in, say, Pennsylvania, than it is to drill for oil off the coast of Louisiana.
This is the image that people know about fracking, right? A drinking water tap catching on fire. That happens when you have methane in the drinking water. So what you hear from advocates, environmentalists or those who live near there is that the drinking water is contaminated either because there is natural gas in it or because there’s chemicals that is… that are being used to kind of push the fluid down into the rock, fracture it and it could seep into ground water.
A lot of these chemicals are dangeours. We don't quite know exactly what’s in it because nobody requires the companies to say exactly what's in it and they say that if they told us the secret ingredients, that would put their business model at risk.
This is the central debate about fracking : whether or not things get in the ground water. The companies who do this say, no, it's completely safe largely because there’s space, there’s a lot of rock in between the fracking operations and drinking water, be it wells or reservoirs.
Fracking can bring a lot of money, a lot of development and a lot of jobs to an area that didn't have that option. So there are places in Pennsylvania, there are places in North Dakota that because of fracking have put a lot of their residents to work. Then also you have these companies who pay home owners to be able to drill on their land so they make money out of it too.
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