2 more illustrations of fracking – both educational but for different reasons

Marathon Oil has a great visual showing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. In contrast, I also found a joke of an illustration.

Here’s the good stuff:

 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VY34PQUiwOQ#t=256s]

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VY34PQUiwOQ#t=256s

This video includes above ground pictures to help tell the story. Also describes recovery steps when the well is taken out of production. It has more background than just the drilling, well lining, and fracking.

From the description for the video:

Safe, cost-effective refinements in hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking), horizontal drilling and other innovations now allow for the production of oil and natural gas from tight shale formations that previously were inaccessible. This animated video introduces you to the proven techniques used to extract resources from these shale formations in a safe, environmentally responsible manner.

And now for a contrast….

Got a chuckle from another video I just watched. It drew the depth of a well as only three times as far underground as the bottom of the aquifer. That would mean the horizontal run is about 300 to 1,500 feet down instead of 6,000 or 8,000 feet.

Oh, and did you know that fracking creates cracks in the rock all the way from the horizontal run up to the aquifer? That is how methane wafts in the rock like a cloud in the sky and gets from 6,000 feet underground into the water table.

Finally, at the bottom of the aquifer, the three layers of steel and the concrete between each layer allows methane to escape which then also drifts through the solid rock into the aquifer. There obviously is no pressure testing of each layer of casing which leaves the steel and concrete functioning more like a helium-filled latex balloon.

Oh, and the methane that floats out of the rock like the chocolate scent out of a mall candy store contaminates the entire aquifer which creates explosive levels of gas in homes.

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