NO NEED FOR SUPERFUND WITH CLEAN ENERGY

Imagine that all the money appropriated to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund had been instead used to incentivized clean energy. First a little history about the Superfund:

Superfund is the name given to the environmental program established to address abandoned hazardous waste sites. It is also the name of the fund established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, as amended (CERCLA statute, CERCLA overview). This law was enacted in the wake of the discovery of toxic waste dumps such as Love Canal and Times Beach in the 1970s. It allows the EPA to clean up such sites and to compel responsible parties to perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanups.

From 1993 to 2005 the United States spent $19.142 billion on the Superfund, so roughly about $1.5 billion is spent yearly. My point is that we spend lots of money cleaning up mistakes that happen because we do not take the environmental impact of our actions seriously enough. As soon as there is a profit to be made, the wheels of progress (that is, pollution) go into motion.

Visit the Superfund site and look up your state. You’ll get an idea of what is wrong with some of the things that we do around the country. Companies get in over their heads and the cleanup is left to the tax payer. But even worse, the impact to our drinking water and to the ecology is tremendous.

For example, while admitting to no wrongdoing, Massey energy settled a case brought by more than 700 people who claim the coal company poisoned their water supply. The plaintiffs claimed the company contaminated their aquifer and wells by pumping 1.4 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry into worked-out underground mines between 1978 and 1987.

We are not talking Vegas here. What happens underground does not stay underground. Pollution from coal mines are a reminder that we need to stay away from any type of drilling that travels through our drinking water to reach gas and oil. I personally do not believe that the casings used in fracking to protect the environment, for example, will last forever and when they fail the Superfund will have to clean it up. Yes this is job security, but it’s the wrong kind of job security.

A hydraulic fracture is formed by pumping the fracturing fluid into the wellbore at a rate sufficient to increase the pressure down hole to a value in excess of the fracture gradient of the formation rock. The pressure causes the formation to crack, allowing the fracturing fluid to enter and extend the crack farther into the formation. To keep this fracture open after the injection stops, a solid proppant (a material such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates), commonly sieved round sand, is added to the fracture fluid. The “propped” hydraulic fracture then becomes a high permeability conduit through which the formation fluids can flow to the well.

While hydraulic fracturing can be performed in a vertical well, it is generally performed via horizontal drilling whereby the terminal drill hole is completed as a “lateral” that extends parallel with the rock layer containing the substance to be extracted. Laterals extend 1,500 to 5,000 feet in the Barnett Shale basin.

In contrast, a vertical well only accesses the thickness of the rock layer, typically 50-300 feet. Horizontal drilling also reduces surface disruptions as fewer wells are required.

Drilling a wellbore produces rock chip, fine rock particles that may enter cracks and pore space at the wellbore wall, reducing the permeability at and near the wellbore. This reduces flow into the borehole from the surrounding rock formation, and partially seals off the borehole from the surrounding rock. Hydraulic fracturing can be used to restore permeability.

Hydraulic fracturing is commonly applied to wells drilled in low permeability reservoir rock. An estimated 90 percent of the natural gas wells in the United States use hydraulic fracturing to produce gas at economic rates.

The fluid injected into the rock is typically water, but also gels, foams, and compressed gases, including nitrogen, carbon dioxide and air can be injected. Various types of proppant are added, such as silica sand, resin-coated sand, and man-made ceramics, depending on the type of permeability or grain strength needed. Sand containing naturally radioactive minerals is sometimes used so that the fracture trace along the wellbore can be measured. Chemical additives are applied to tailor the injected material to the specific geological situation, protect the well, and improve its operation. The injected fluid is approximately 99 percent water and 1 percent proppant, varying slightly based on the type of well. The composition of injected fluid is changed during the operation of a well over time, that is initially acid is used to increase permeability, then proppants are used with a gradual increase in their size, and at the end the well is flushed with water under pressure. Injected fluid is to some degree recovered and stored in pits or containers. It can be toxic due to the chemical additives and material washed out from the ground. It is sometimes processed so that part of it can be reused in fracking operations, part released into the environment after treatment, and some residual permanently placed in deep-well storage.

It’s not rocket science to see the need to increase electricity production through clean methods and we need to do it quickly. At this rate we will have destroyed the planet before we get it done. Methods that do not require clean up and/or have dangerous health risks are solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal, hydro, fuel cells to name a few. We have choices, so why must we keep making the wrong ones? It’s up to us. Don’t wait for Washington, or even your State leaders, to make the right decision for you.

Background on Fracking or Hydraulic fracturing from Wikipedia

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