Fracking Argument Essay

Fracking has been a worldwide talk for a couple years on whether it is efficient to get the oil and gas from the Earth or non efficient. A way that it would be non efficient is that it has many negative effects against the Earth. Especially to the environment and people’s health. Many people have taken notes of these effects, and are now nervous or not on board with the concept. A solution that would get people on board with fracking is to make sure that it is done in a clean and efficient way. How fracking is done today arise many environmental. Right now fracking is done by injecting a high pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemicals deep into the Earth to break through rock layers and shale rock in order to extract the oil and/or gas from the rocks (Dechert). This causes small earthquakes to happen after time to time. By making sure that fracking is done in a more efficient way, there could be less to no earthquakes happening from fracking. Eliminating this output will get more people ready to accept fracking knowing they don't have to
worry about an earthquake ruining their house. There are two ways to dispose of contaminated water from fracking: flowback or produced. Flowback is when the fluid from fracking flows back up to the surface after completion. One way to throw out all of this waste water people would put it into deep-wells. However by doing this, it has been connected to expanding earthquakes (Brown). Finding another way to put the wastewater will lessen the chance of an earthquake happening. Water is becoming a big problem in fracking. Fracking water is not only linked to earthquakes, but is also linked to water pollution. The sites that fracking is done is mostly by areas with fresh water. Therefore the chemicals and other pollutants from fracking drifts over to the freshwater and contaminantes it (Dechert). After that happens the water is now unsafe to drink from, and eliminates the amount of freshwater we can give to those in need. Fracking needs to find other places to drill so this doesn't keep happening. Fracking is also done by underground water sites. Since they do it so close some of chemicals seep into the underground water contaminating it with chemicals (Dechert). This is the same as before; however, this displays that fracking does not only pollute freshwater but also underground water. Finding other places to frack can dismiss the fear of water pollution coming from fracking. Not only does fracking pollute the water, it also pollutes the air. Fracking uses chemicals such as methane and benzene, a carcinogen, to do the job. When those chemicals are released they contaminate the air (Rn). The methane gas is known to be one of the worse greenhouse gases (Hoffman). Greenhouse gases are why there is global warming going on. Therefore a greener way of fracking could help minimize the amount of greenhouse gases, and possibly global warming. These gases, when released, can also cause ground level ozone (Rn). These kind of ozone is considered bad ozone, and if we could use other chemicals that do not harm the air fracking would be a great solution to get the oil and/or natural gas from the earth. Both of these kinds of pollutions can cause many health problems. 73% of the chemicals used in fracking causes 6-14 different health problems (Dechert). From water pollution, some health problems are cancer, respiratory problems, neurological issues, and/or high birth defects (Dechert). These health problems that occur from water pollution are mostly the people who have drank the polluted water. Also the people who have drank the water were most likely by the sites of fracking, or by the water. If we can move the sites away from the water, then there would be less people getting sick from the drinking water that was contaminated by fracking. There are many health problems from air pollution as well. Some of the problems such as really bad nosebleeds, rashes, fatigue, burning eyes, dermatologic irritation, and headaches have occurred to people living nearby the sites (Rn). As said before in this paragraph, if the sites were moved away from the people these problems would not be as big as it is right now. Some other health issues from air pollution are short-term illness, cancer, organ damage, nervous system disorder, birth defects, and even death at extreme (Hoffman). Again the closer people are to the sites the higher risk of obtaining these health problems are. Also if there was a way of cutting down or even completely taking away come chemicals, the better fracking would be for the environment and people. During our world today, fracking is one of the smarter ways of getting oil and/or natural gas to use for energy.
There are still many setbacks to fracking for example earthquakes, water pollution, air pollution, and health problems that need to be worked out in order to make it the best it can be. By using different chemicals during the process of fracking can make it cleaner and less destructive to the environmental. Another way to solve the many setbacks could be to not use fresh water as apart of the mixture that is drilled into the Earth to get the oil and gas. That way we are not struggling for clean water, and getting sick from drinking water. The last solution would be to move the fracking sites away from houses, so it does not harm the people greatly. Fracking could be an amazing way of securing a new and efficient way of getting energy to use if we first fix some problems of the
process.