An introduction to fracking

There's talk of fracking starting down the road, 5 miles from where I live, and I thought what the frack is fracking? Will I like it? So I looked it up.

Fracking is the process of drilling deep into the earth’s surface, then using high-impact liquid to fracture bedrock and bring gas or oil (or anything handy that we find while down there) to the surface.

Neat, tidy, no impact on the surrounding areas whatsoever, and relatively cheap. The US has done a lot of it, the UK wants to try too.

So if I want to set up a little fracking in my back yard, here’s my shopping list:

Water. LOTS. Budget on a million gallons for a single well. Fortunately we’re a wet little island and unlikely to run out, but hey, we’re used to hosepipe bans in the summer anyway. So we can well spare the water.

Sand and chemicals to mix – approx. 40 000 gallons of chemicals for that million gallons. Lead, uranium, mercury, ethylene glycol, radium, methanol hydrochloric acid, formaldehyde. Oh, stop looking worried, they may be lethal but don’t worry, they are only released way, WAY below ground level, 10 thousand feet down, under high pressure.

True, the recovered waste fluid is left in open pits to evaporate into the atmosphere, but that’s only 30 to 50% of the fracking fluid anyway. Those who are pro fracking assure us that all the dangerous carcinogenic chemicals know to stay below ground and not come up to evaporate into our air. Just as well, don’t want those around. Bad enough that people have the nerve to smoke within 100 feet of you, risking your health and all.

The rest – 50 to 70% of a million gallons of water - stays below ground, and those chemicals are non-biodegradable. Still, 10 thousand feet down. Not our problem.

Oh, and there might, just might, be the occasional tremor or two. In 2011, energy company Cuadrilla suspended test fracking operations in Lancashire, after two earthquakes of 1.5 and 2.2 magnitude hit the area. However there is no conclusive proof that the high-pressure fracturing of bedrock had any link whatsoever to the tremors.

All in all, we should go for it. Win-win. No risk, no fuss, no mess, practically free for the taking, and what could possibly go wrong?

Excuse me, I have to go pack.