By: Bryan Walsh
"Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is a water-intensive process—as critics love to point out. But by enabling the switch from thirsty coal to more efficient natural gas, fracking could be good for water scarcity" (Walsh 1). Many environmentalists are arguing that hydrofracking uses way too much water. Any average of 4 to 6 million gallons are used when there is fracking of either oil or gas. (Walsh) Even though there have been arguments, there have been new studies that have been done saying that fracking for natural gas saves water. What's correct? "Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin collected water use data from all 423 of the state’s power plants. They estimate that the water saved by switching from coal to natural gas is 25 to 50 times greater than the amount of water used in fracking to extract the shale gas in the first place". (Walsh 1). Researchers then soon discovered that Texas had consumed a larger amount of water, compared to times in the past. Irrigation is one of the most used water sources because of the several techniques that can be used. The U.S. has suffered from droughts in the past, so we need to be more aware of how much water is being used because sooner or later, water is will be so hard to get that we will be forced to shut down power plants. "Water use for fracking in Texas is also growing rapidly, from 36,000 acre-feet in 2008 to 81,500 acre-feet in 2011" (Walsh 1). To help with these problems, we need to start recycling this water from the fracking or create a substitute for all of this water use. This will test how our country is able to efficiently use these almost scarce resources. (Walsh)
http://science.time.com/2013/12/23/fracking-for-natural-gas-isnt-so-water-wasteful/
No comments:
Post a Comment