From: colon.powell@tutanato.com   
      
   It seems that "we" will leave a toxic wasteland to future generations of   
   "Americans."   
      
   https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Very-Real-Problem   
   of-Fracking-Wastewater.html   
      
   By Kurt Cobb - Sep 29, 2025, 10:00 AM CDT   
      
   U.S. shale oil wells generate 27–45 million barrels of toxic wastewater   
   every day, with shale gas adding billions more gallons annually.   
   Traditional underground disposal is polluting groundwater, reactivating   
   old wells, and triggering earthquakes in Texas and Oklahoma.   
   Oil companies like ConocoPhillips and Chevron now warn that wastewater   
   could flood oil reserves and choke production unless alternatives are   
   developed.   
   rig   
   There's an old saying that I won't spell out completely, but which most   
   readers will certainly have heard at least once in their lives, to wit:   
   "Don't sh-- where you eat." It is an all-purpose warning about not   
   pursuing incompatible activities in the same place, particularly   
   activities that produce either physical waste or emotional complications.   
      
   In this case, the waste part is wastewater emitted by oil wells drilled   
   into shale deposits, which must undergo extensive hydraulic fracturing   
   (often called fracking) before the oil can be freed. What most people do   
   not know is that for every barrel of shale oil extracted, three to five   
   barrels of water laden with fracking chemicals and salt, toxic minerals,   
   and radioactivity (from the deep rock) also come up, most of it water   
   originally injected under high pressure to fracture the shale and   
   release the oil.   
      
   Some 9 million barrels a day of shale oil is currently produced in the   
   United States each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information   
   Administration. That means between 27 and 45 million barrels of fracking   
   wastewater is produced EACH DAY; in gallons, that's between 1.1 and 1.9   
   billion gallons. And, of course, multiply by 365 and you'll get yearly   
   totals. That's a lot of wastewater, and it has to go somewhere, and that   
   somewhere is starting to pollute underground water supplies and surface   
   soil and water, and to interfere with oil production itself.   
      
   Mostly, this wastewater is disposed of underground, at first deep   
   underground and now in shallower wells. The deep disposal began   
   triggering earthquakes in Texas that were felt hundreds of miles away.   
   Oklahoma has experienced a similar rise in earthquakes due to oil and   
   gas wastewater pumped underground. Because of this, regulators started   
   to move underground disposal to shallower depths, which led to other   
   problems.   
      
   (Yes, shale gas wells produce lots of wastewater, too. The United States   
   extracted an estimated 45.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas last   
   year, of which 79 percent came from shale wells requiring hydraulic   
   fracturing. An estimated 0.8 and 1.3 gallons of water are produced along   
   with the gas for every 1,000 cubic feet. That means between 29 and 47   
   billion gallons of wastewater from natural gas drilling needed to find a   
   home last year. This may be an overestimate since some gas, called   
   associated gas, is produced from oil wells.)   
      
   Groundwater used for human and animal consumption is being polluted by   
   these shallower underground injections. So much pressure has built up   
   underground that some old abandoned wells have sprung to life, spewing   
   wastewater that comes to the surface through old well casings. The   
   industry pretends to care about this, but generally fights landowners   
   who complain and sue. But what the industry is really increasingly   
   concerned about is that the wastewater is starting to break through to   
   producing wells and compromise production. One major producer,   
   ConocoPhillips, has warned that underground wastewater injections risk   
   flooding out oil reserves. "Flooding out" means that water infiltrates   
   into oil reservoirs from places where wastewater has been injected,   
   complicating production or even making profitable production impossible   
   as water comes to dominate extraction volumes.   
      
   If oil companies cannot find ways to dispose of the increasing volumes   
   of fracking wastewater, they will have to limit production. Some of the   
   wastewater is being treated, though there is concern about the level of   
   toxic materials that remain in the supposedly purified discharge water.   
   Underground injection is still the most widely used and cheapest method   
   of disposal.   
      
   The call for developing alternatives to underground disposal now has an   
   unlikely champion, oil major Chevron, a company at the center of the   
   controversy over fracking wastewater disposal. The industry will need a   
   solution soon, as water use is expected to balloon as the industry moves   
   on to less oil-rich reservoirs that will require more fluid to   
   successfully fracture wells. This is projected to lead by 2035 to a 39   
   percent increase in wastewater from the Permian Basin, the largest   
   producer of shale oil in the United States.   
      
      
   --   
   "Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to   
   aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic   
   transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring   
   unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to   
   enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and   
   abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits   
   bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States   
   in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection   
   1324(a)(3)."   
      
   “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” Dan Quayle   
      
   https://www.globalgulag.us   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)