What are the challenges of fracking?
Exploring fracking: fracking’s economic and environmental controversy
Show transcriptIn this episode of The New Economy’s series exploring fracking we talk about the challenges and controversies surrounding fracking and fracking’s environmental impact.
So what are the challenges of fracking?
The economics of fracking is a big one, but the biggest challenge is the controversy around its environmental impact.
Public opinion continues to turn against fracking, with many people seeing it as a regression to fossil fuels when we should be focusing on renewable sources of energy.
The process of fracking uses huge amounts of water depleting local sources, a significant concern in arid regions.
Also studies have found that the wastewater that is left over is so toxic that it can’t be cleaned with modern filtration techniques.
As the wastewater is often left underground once the shaft is sealed the risk of contaminating groundwater is a real one. There is also some evidence that links fracking and the disposal of wastewater with inducing localised earthquakes.
Several regional and national governments have cited these environmental concerns as grounds to limit or ban fracking within their jurisdictions, prompting fracking companies to launch costly legal battles.
Fracking is expensive and controversial and in order to survive it would need to invest technology to reduce its environmental impact whilst drastically lowering its costs. With countries such as Saudi Arabia flooding the market to keep energy prices low this is somewhat unlikely.
Please watch our other videos on what fracking is and how fracking is changing on the market.