A Faustian bargain

BRT has waxed poetic about the perils and foolishness of fracking, a short term solution to a long term problem with emphasis given to its destruction of precious aquifers in order to generate fossil fuel energy no matter what the cost may be.

An alarming new study reveals fracking is quite simply destroying America’s water supply.

That means we are losing potable water forever in many semi-arid regions of the country, while simultaneously producing more carbon pollution that in turn is driving ever-worsening droughts in those same regions, as fracking expert Anthony Ingraffea, a professor at Cornell University, explained to ThinkProgress.

The game-changing study from Duke University found that “from 2011 to 2016, the water use per well increased up to 770 percent.” In addition, the toxic wastewater produced in the first year of production jumped up to 1440 percent.

SOME OF THE BIGGEST FRACKING SITES -- LIKE THE PERMIAN AND EAGLE FORD BASINS -- ARE IN HIGHLY WATER STRESSED AREAS. CREDIT: DUKE UNIVERSITY.

End result ...

As Ingraffea put it, “shale gas/oil is exchanging absurd volumes of water for absurd volumes of fossil fuels at a time where using the latter is jeopardizing the availability of the former.” At the same time, fracking “is exchanging precious volumes of water usable for drinking and farming for toxic volumes of wastewater most of which has to be transported and injected underground,” at grave risk to underground sources of drinking water. Finally, “most of what is not transported and injected stays underground, an exchange of H2O for CO2.” Therefore, almost all of what arrives at a well is forever lost to the water cycle.”

Fracking is truly a Faustian bargain.

Yes indeed.