Is Fracking the Solution to Peak Oil?

 After reading a short article by the Telegraph on fracking in the US, this blog post is a response to the question: ‘If the article is right and techniques such as fracking mean that “it’s time to forget about peak oil” then do you agree with the final assertion that this “can only be a good thing”?’

 The fracking boom in the US and now its migration to Europe and the UK has, according to experts, postponed peak oil and its associated problems far into the future. It has increased oil self-sufficiency and maintained a secure oil supply in countries where peak oil was believed to have long been reached. Fracking and the shale industry has provided the US and Canada with a secure oil supply for the next 100 years. These techniques have lowered gas prices and provided more jobs in the resulting industry. Shale gas has the added environmental bonus of being able to generate electricity at half the CO₂ emissions of coal. How can this be anything other than a good thing?

 However, fracking does come with its fair share of negative impacts: firstly, it uses lots of water - 7 million gallons to frack a single well - which in areas of water deficit could be better used. Thirty percent of the water used is trapped in fissures and lost.

 Fracking is not the answer to every country’s problems; shale (the rock type primarily used for fracking) is not found everywhere and some countries have no recoverable reserves. In countries where exporting oil is the main source of GNP, then the fracking boom is having disastrous effects: US oil imports from Angola slid 67.5% between December 2011 and December 2012. The fracking boom is weakening already weak economies, generally in oil exporting Africa; for these countries, fracking is not a good thing.

 There are concerns that fracking may have negative impacts on the environment. For example, underground radioactivity and other contaminants are brought up to the surface in fracking fluid; this can be spilt into drinking water supplies if not done carefully and may contaminate groundwater supplies.  Carcinogenic chemicals are used in the process and water is brought to and from site at high environmental cost. There is also much evidence to suggest that fracking may cause earthquakes – two small earthquakes of 1.5 and 2.2 magnitude hit the Blackpool area in 2011 following fracking.

 In my opinion, the production of shale oil from techniques such as fracking provides a good bridging fuel while we try to find a more sustainable and renewable source of energy. Fracking and other oil recovery techniques will postpone the problem of peak oil and shale gas reserves are set to provided us with energy security for the next hundred years. To minimise the impacts of these technique, there must be sufficient regulation to prevent environmental damages and we need to buy and use our oil sustainably to prevent energy conflict. It is important that the fracking boom does not cloud the issue of peak oil or our ability to come up with an alternative and renewable source of energy.

To read the full Telegraph article this post responds to visit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/9905821/Fracking-to-the-rescue-as-US-oil-production-hits-20-year-high.html