How fracking works
Figure 1. As the fracking fluids (FF) crack the stone, the natural gas (NG) escapes through the fractures and travels up the well.I am not suggesting that Mr. Scouten's views of the future come from a source of similar knowledge of the subject, but given his BP Amoco background, I would have expected him to know that the nearly 2000-mile Keystone XL pipeline or the drilling of horizontal wormholes are not "old and proved" technologies!
It is true that traditional forms of fracking have been around for many years, and high pressure pipelines have also been in operation for a long time. However, horizontal fracking has not, nor have pipelines of the size and length as the ones being contemplated. As to the safety of fracking, I would suggest that he review, for example, the Texas-based XTO Energy report that lists 31 violations at 20 wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania just in 2010.
I will give only two examples: On April 19, 2011, in Pennsylvania's Bradford County, in the township of Leroy, thousands of gallons of chemical-laced and highly saline fracking water (proppant) spilled from the drill site, racing toward a tributary of a popular trout-fishing stream and also forcing seven families nearby to evacuate their homes.
To illustrate another aspect of of fracking safety, let me mention that on New Year's Eve of this year an earthquake occurred in Youngstown, Ohio, only 100 meters from another quake a week earlier. These types of events provide evidence that not only the toxic lakes that remain underground can be unsafe, but that the drilling can also cause tremors.
As with the series of articles I wrote about the Deepwater Horizon or the Fukushima accidents, in which I described how automation could have prevented these accidents (see the March, July and September 2011 issues of Control), my goal of improving safety is also the same when I write about automating the presently largely manual operations of fracking, pipelining and oil-sand processing.
These articles all show the same thing: that automation can increase the safety of new and unconventional processes, and our profession can prevent future tragedies, the occurance of which is just a matter of time, if their mostly manual operation continues.
I would suggest to Mr. Scouten that he read my forthcoming articles and also become familiar with pipeline accidents like the bursting of the oil pipeline that spilled oil into the Yellowstone river to learn that these new processes are not yet reliable.
In my coming articles, I will describe automatic instruments, such as the self-propelled and intelligent "pigs," used for nondestructive inspections and using ultrasonic and more recently magnetic flux leakage methods to report pipe deterioration and the need for maintenance.