Environmental Pollution's costs and benefits

Environmental costs - and benefits - of "cracker", which requires the dynamiting of the enormous quantities of water, sand and products chemical deep underground rock formations and are the subject of new research synthesizes 165 academic studies and government databases. The investigation relates to the effects of gases greenhouse not only, but for the crushing effect on local air pollution and earthquakes, in particular, the provision of clean water.

The authors are seven environmental scientists who are distinguished from the actual consequences for strategic decisions on people who live near the wells, as well as important questions remain.

Certain community extract more gas and oil because the cracker, "Stanford said environmental technologist Robert Jackson." who led the study The key to reduce environmental as possible costs, while maximizing the benefits for the environment.

Disintegration rising consumption of water quickly, at a time where many of us suffer from drought, but the natural gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling and compares well with traditional energy sources, the study concludes. Cracker requires more water than the drilling of traditional gas, but when using natural gas instead of coal or nuclear power plant fuel, it allows to save water. Mining to generation, power coal is consumed more than twice by water generated from non-conventional gas not megawatt hours.

Application of non-conventional water drilling could be better or worse that alternative energies, the study concludes. Using almost no water solar PV, wind, emit no greenhouse gases, but cheap and abundant natural gas can limit the spread as new sources of electricity. On the other hand, requires less than 100 gas frakid water corn ethanol per unit of energy.

Effect of crushing, on climate change and the pollution of the local air similar to the impact on water study finds 'environmental costs and benefits of the cracker,"published in the annual review of environment and resources.

Go well fractured more intensely for the conventional oil and drilling, with potential health risks caused by increases in the volatile organic compounds and toxic substances in the air.

But when natural gas replaced coal as a fuel for electricity generation and the benefits to the quality of the air including the reduction of the CO2 emissions from coal and almost no mercury, sulphur dioxide and ash.

At the global level, despite the mitigating climate change are uncertain, the study concludes. He said "while reducing supplies of gas increased pollution air in American cities downstream from coal-fired electric plants, do not know whether they outweigh the methane from pipelines and platforms of operating losses decrease carbon dioxide emissions", said Jackson.

And concerns of contaminated drinking water in Eastern United States, concerns about the consumption of water for cracking. Gas and chemical products of homanmadi broken thousands of metres below the surface and rarely seep into the groundwater of drinking water, according to the study. The real threats are the inability to cover the wells more near the surface of the steel, cement, sewage disposal, the study also found. Numerous studies have shown that the covers fail between 1% and 10 percent time, according to the geology and the construction of the wells.

Was hotly debated in the case of contamination of groundwater, but a new study finds that the evidence indicates that there has been, if not common. He observed contamination of drinking water to other toxins - the different salts and arsenic and radioactive radium and other metal manufacturing made methane slowly? Researchers do not know yet. According to some recent studies can answer 'Yes' in rare cases.

How to occupy oil and gas, companies waste water-liquid used to break the rock that flows toward the top of the well, water with oil and gas shows the importance of the policies of the State. "The evacuation of waste water is one of the biggest problems associated with the hijacker," co-author Avner vingosh, Professor of Geochemistry at Duke University.

Most waste water cookie in the United States are injected deep underground, and an increasing number is recycled for further drilling or sent to treatment plants of water. A handful of States allow, waste, water used for watering livestock, sprayed on roads to control dust or sent for the drinking water treatment plants are not equipped to manage the chemical products concerned.

All bad ideas, according to a new survey, the authors who work at Duke University Massachusetts Institute of technology, Ohio State University, University of Newcastle, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Stanford University. A study, pointing out that the agricultural use of waste water cracker killed more than half of the trees close in two years.

Injection of deep groundwater presents its own problems, the study concludes. The practice sometimes caused earthquakes powerful enough to be felt by humans, while broken shale km below the surface, but rarely did so. Seismic risk can be reduced, however, if the energy companies, follow these basic guidelines and carry out careful monitoring.

Study highlights many of the policies and practices to improve the balance of the costs and environmental benefits of the pirate, it highlights the need for further research. For example, a direct impact on the health of the inhabitants of the neighbouring virtually non-existent. "Summer is almost no research on the health effects," Jackson said, "but decisions on approvals cracker manufacturing-drilling-ban all the time based on assumptions about the health risks."