Meneses Fernandes 1

George Meneses Fernandes

Carly Vogelsang
Writing 154-3
11 December 2014
Oil Shale in the United States
Humans have always needed energy from many sources, renewable or not,
to use in daily activities such as hot water, housing electricity, transportation, and
industrial needs. As the global population always increases, it always needs more
energy to supply human needs and that energy can be obtained from sources like
coal, oil, gas, nuclear, solar, and so on. The cheapest energy obtained is from oil,
and this is why a new method to extract is arousing interest from media and
science. By definition, oil shale is a sedimentary rock that consists of kerogen,
which is a bituminous material. From that type of rock, gas can be extracted using
a method called fracking. As oil shale is a rock, it can be deduced that it is a limited
energy source. The gas extracted from that rock will be used as energy to supply
human needs. Therefore, energy extracted from oil shale is helping the United
States necessity for an alternative source of energy to petroleum. However, it must
be stated that the method not only brings improvements, but also brings impacts to
the environment.
Basically, bituminous is a coal that contain a material called bitumen, which
is a black liquid with high viscosity. Thus, it is petroleum in a semi-solid form and
glued to the rock. Therefore, it was necessary to invent a cheap and effective way
to extract oil and natural gas from that kind of rock, whence, a method called
fracking was designed.

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When there is a huge shale formation on the subsurface, it is used a drilling
bit through a drilling rig to vertically perforate the shale formation. Then, directional
drilling equipment is used to perforate horizontally at the same layer. After all the
drilling and casing process, pumping water, chemicals, and sand are injected at
high pressure into the well. All substances injected cause fractures to the rock
formation and open passages, which allow oil and gas to freely flow to the wellbore
and go to the surface, where they will be separated using tanks. The first attempt
to extract oil and gas using fracking was in 1947 by Stanolind Oil, when they
injected 1000 gallons of naphthenic-acidand-palm-oil, which is a thick gasoline,
followed by a gel breaker, to stimulate and produce gas in a limestone formation at
2400 feet of depth. However, they did not obtain acceptable results. (The History of
Fracking)
North-Americans have huge reserves of oil shale. However, before 2006,
the available ways to extract the fuel from the rock were too expensive. In 2006,
petroleum companies started to use fracking and the results obtained since that
year are impressive. There are more than 20 thousand wells in operation in the
United States and the natural gas, which was responsible for 1 per cent of the
energy production in 2000, increased to 30 per cent in 2010 and it keeps
increasing. Although some experts affirm that production life of each well is about
20 years, the dimension of American reserves assures a long life to the sector. The
supplies of natural gas could supplement the domestic demand of the country at
the actual consumption level for more than 100 years. (Availability, Economics, and
Production Potential of North American Unconventional Natural Gas Supplies)

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There are many reasons that stimulate the production of oil shale in the
United States, making it a successful country in oil shale production. The first one
is that natural gas is the least pollutant fuel from the groups of fossil fuel. Another
reason is that the production of natural gas was increased, making the United
States an exporter of natural gas and requiring less petroleum importation. The last
notated reason is that an auto sufficiency of energy will discharge the United
States from problematic suppliers as Arabian countries and Venezuela.
In Kansas, there is some activity of capturing oil and gas using the fracking
method. However, the State of Kansas does not have huge amounts of shale rocks
and it is common to see limestone rocks with properties of bitumen similar to those
found in shale rocks. For that reason, fracking is used in limestone formations to
obtain oil and gas using the same process as used in shale formations.
The fracking process also brings attention to the possible environmental
risks. There are some impacts to the environment as leakage, contamination,
earthquakes, and pollution. Several shale reserves are below aquifers and if the
gasket of the well have a failure, the chemical products used in fracking could be
deposited into the water. Although a Halliburton CEO was on the news in 2011,
being very sensationalist when he drank the fracking fluid used by the company to
show that it is safe and trying to call attention from the media, there are some
doubts about the composition of that material. (Halliburton Executive Drinks
Fracking Fluid At Conference.) The fracking process can still can allow
accumulated gases in the rocks to reach the aquifers. Research from Duke
University, published in PNAS magazine, detected that 84 per cent of 141 wells
analyzed in Marcellus formation, northeast of Pennsylvania, are contaminated with

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methane, ethane, and propane. In the wells localized in less than 1 kilometer from
places of drinking water extraction, methane levels are 6 times greater than the
normal, and ethane levels are 23 times greater than the normal. The mix of water,
sand, and chemical products injected into wells goes up bit by bit to the surface
and can contaminate the soil and the water. It is calculated that a normal well
requires between 11 million and 30 million liters of water during its life cycle.
Therefore, removing huge amounts of water used in the process can damage the
regions ecosystems. Although some experts affirm that fracking does not cause
important seismic tremors, there are some divergences. To eliminate risks,
professor Richard Davies, from Durham University in the United Kingdom,
suggests avoiding perforations near tectonic faults. In research from Cornell
University published in Climatic Science magazine, it is estimated that the
percentage of carbon used in fracking process is 20 per cent greater than that
used in coil extraction, which is the most pollutant fossil fuel.
In conclusion, the methane is not poisonous, humans drink methane
dissolved in ground water just like they drink carbon dioxide dissolved in CocaCola, there is no much difference. The problem with methane is that if it is
accumulated in large quantities and in close spaces, then it is explosive and very
dangerous. The problems pointed out are engineering problems with an
engineering solution. An engineering role for this case is to go out, find the leak
and fix it. In addition, it is noticed that improvements in energy sources, mainly in
the petroleum and gas area, in the United States were achieved with success.

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Works Cited
Vidas, Harry, and Bob Hugman. "Availability, Economics, and Production
Potential of North American Unconventional Natural Gas Supplies." ICF
International, 3 Nov. 2008. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
"About Oil Shale." Oil Shale and Tar Sands PEIS Information Center. Web.
11 Dec. 2014.
Richardson, John. "The History of Fracking (A Timeline)." Quora. 23 Feb.
2013. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
"A Brief History of Hydraulic Fracturing." EEC Environmental. Web. 11 Dec.
2014.
Osborn, Stephen, Avner Vengosh, Nathaniel Warner, and Robert Jackson.
"Methane Contamination of Drinking Water Accompanying Gas-well Drilling and
Hydraulic Fracturing." PNAS, 17 May 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
Davies, Richard, Gillian Foulger, Annette Bindley, and Peter Styles. "Induced
Seismicity and Hydraulic Fracturing for the Recovery of Hydrocarbons." Elsevier
Editorial System(tm) for Marine and Petroleum Geology. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
Howarth, Robert. "A Bridge to Nowhere: Methane Emissions and the
Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas." Cornell University Department of
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Energy Science & Engineering, 22 Apr. 2014.
Web. 11 Dec. 2014.
Tsai, Catherine. "Halliburton Executive Drinks Fracking Fluid At
Conference." The Huffington Post. 22 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.