Is fracking dangerous?

FAQs about Fracking

5. Is fracking dangerous?

The supporters of fracking or hydraulic fracturing argue that this technology allows the extraction of large quantities of hydrocarbons that until recently were inaccessible. They say that the technique has no greater risks than the others used by the industry. They insist on the economic benefits of the enormous volumes of fuels that can only be extracted through fracking. They say that in cases where contamination has occurred, it has been due to wrong practices, such as failures in the drilling process, the cementing of the wells or inadequate treatment of the wastewater, but not the technology itself. The deniers of climate change say that the burning of fossil fuels will not change the climatic conditions of the planet.

The detractors of the fracking technology, or hydraulic fracturing, say the negative environmental impact that the process entails. They point out that the underground aquifers are close to the places where drilling is carried out can be contaminated with the chemicals used during fracking, without excluding the risks of contamination by the gas or oil that could infiltrate during the extraction. It is also feasible that during the process gas can escape into the atmosphere. Finally, they argue that massive fractures of subterranean rocks can produce earthquakes of variable magnitudes. We must add that fracking gives new impetus to the dependence on fossil fuels, which increases the greenhouse effect, global warming and therefore climate change, and therefore goes in the opposite direction to the use of clean energy.

Other FAQs about Fracking

1. What is fracking?

2. What products are obtained with fracking?

3. How is the fracking procedure?

4. When was fracking first used?

5. Is fracking dangerous?

6. How does fracking affect the environment?

7. How does fracking affect climate change?

8. What are shale gas and shale oil?

9. In what countries is fracking done?

10. Are there regulations for fracking technology?

11. In which countries is fracking prohibited?

Back to FAQs about climate change and related topics

Other sections of Fracking

Fracking fever, a real threat to Paris Agreement

The failure of the Paris Agreement would be the failure of Homo sapiens. If we do not reverse the increase in global warming and we do not support sustainability on our planet, we will all be losers. There are clear indications that we are going in a opposite direction to the 2015 agreements, as can be seen in this paper. The increasing fever of the fracking, due to the cheapening of the processes of extraction…