Shame on Congress for writing laws that allow any unknown substance to be pumped into the earth. Shame on the administration for not regulating that as well. Pols are nothing but smarmy lawyers writing smarmy legislation that you can slide a Transformer sized monster-truck through although they'll give it a real pretty name (title).
Don't misunderstand, I am an "All of the Above" person and think the Obama administration 'winks' at their support for this policy. I think we should drill more, in more places and I believe that all our resources should be used until we get clean energy ready for prime-time; which at last reading is still 50-years or more in the future.
We need to spur R&D to clean-up coal and other fossil fuels so that we can use those abundant resources to supply power we'll need or see our economy substantially falter. We need to promote the use of natural gas where possible. Nuclear energy should not be left out of the mix either. We should add R&D to develop technologies that make each resource as safe as possible.
And, of course, we need to continue to put R&D monies to develop clean energies but we can't have clean energy sources that are prohibitively expensive; it would damage the poor and middle-class entirely and destroy any economy relying on them alone. Ideals are good but practicality is demanded in getting from here to there..
Wastewater before and after treatment.
A surge of toxic hydrofracking wastewater has given rise to new chemical free treatment technologies with the potential to solve other nagging environmental challenges ranging from coal mines and pig farms.
I recently spoke with Charles Vinick, CEO of Ecosphere Technologies, to learn about its ability to reduce oil and gas mining operations’ dependence on chemicals that are potentially harmful to people and wildlife. Wells throughout the United States are injected with biocides, friction reducers, and scale inhibitors to protect equipment, but ultimately create a toxic brew of wastewater.
Ecosphere utilizes a proprietary oxidation process called “Ozonix” to treat industrial wastewater. Its energy subsidiary has built mobile treatment facilities with that can currently handle 5,000 gallons per minute. Water is “recycled” and can be reused in other wells, eliminating the need for an injection well to keep pollutants out of groundwater, said Vinick.
The technology has been approved by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission for soil farming, and third party laboratory tests has demonstrated a drastic reduction in microbes - from high to undetectable - after just one past, Vinick says.
Treating the water also eliminates the need for the aforementioned chemicals, but some mining operations will continue to use chemicals nonetheless to reduce risking their investment, Vinick added. “It is a cost effective alternative to chemicals. [Mines] wouldn’t use it if it added costs.”
Ozonix treated over 1 billion gallons of wastewater in 2011 at over 500 onshore oil and gas wells. Ecosphere’s oil and gas revenues have increased 10X over the past two years. Other companies, including OriginOil, offer competing solutions. “Because states are persuading themselves to let fracking go on, they will create a booming market for cleanup,” said Riggs Eckelberry, CEO of OriginOil.
However, water pollution is not limited to oil and gas. Ecosphere is in discussions to license its technology to companies that treat coalmining waste and pig farms located within the Chesapeake Bay watershed. It currently partners with Hydrozonix in the United States.
Vinick, who spent 25 years as managing director of the Cousteau group, believes that companies like Ecosphere are solution providers that will help solve the world’s environmental problems.
“I think that you need activists and solution providers,” he said.
Untreated wastewater must be contained or hauled off sight for storage. Ecosphere allows mining operations to recycle wastewater to be reused in hydrofracking operations.
(Image credits: Ecosphere Technologies)
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- Farmers hope to cash in on fracking phenomenon
- EPA: hydrofracking may have tainted Wyoming groundwater
- Ohio: frackers caused earthquakes
- Fracking triggered British earthquakes
- Toxic fracking fluids revealed in Congressional report
- There’s no fracking way polluters won’t be bad actors
- Hydro-frackers to EPA: We used diesel - tough
- Controversial mining practice may return to the Empire state
- Scientist: gas industry is withholding hydro-fracking contamination data
- Marcellus shale fail - estimates of natural gas reserves were overstated
- Hydro-frackers to EPA - ‘tough, we used diesel’
- Everything you know about shale gas is wrong
- The questionable economics of shale gas
- study: hydrofracking sickening animals, people
- Marcellus shale fail: estimates of natural gas were inflated
