Study: Less Than 1% Chance Of Fracking Resulting In Unintentional Cracking

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Written By:
Rob Port

Apr 30, 2012
8:21am

One of the claims made by environmental hysterics about hydraulic fracturing is that it will contaminate ground water. This was an unlikely claim to begin with as most fracking operations take place hundreds and even thousands of feet below the level of water aquifers, but now a new study shows that at a depth of 350 meters (roughly 1,148 feet) there is less than a 1% chance of unintentional cracking.

Many environmental groups have claimed that hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – contaminates groundwater but one recent study has found that the technique to extract unconventional gas can be done safely.

According to research published in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, fracking has well below a 1 percent chance of causing unintended cracks in the ground beyond 600 meters. The research was led by the U.K.’s Durham University and used data from hundreds of both natural fractures and fracking operations in Europe and the U.S.

This research may show that if operations are kept an adequate distance from aquifers that there is virtually no chance of groundwater contamination.

Just to put this into perspective, most Bakken oil wells go down at least 9,000 feet with the best producing wells going as deep as 10,000 – 11,000 feet. The Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania, home of some of the most obnoxious anti-fracking activism, runs from about 3,000 feet deep to as much as 9,000 feet deep.

At that level, the chance of unintentional fracking is almost non-existent. And even if unintentional fracking occurs, the likelihood that any water supplies would be contaminated is non-existent.