Fracking Synthesis

     The peer reviewed article I picked is titled, "Natural Gas: Should fracking stop?" This article was written in September of 2011. The point of this article is to inform the reader about how dangerous fracking is to natural gas. Although natural gas from shale is typically known as a clean fuel, this article clearly states that it is does not believe it is. The two new ways to extract shale from the ground are fracking and drilling. However, fracking is much more common than drilling. 

      This article is very similar to the article titled "EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination." Both of the articles agree that fracking is harmful to the environment. The EPA article is more focused on how fracking is bad for water contamination, and the Natural Gas article is focused on how shale gas from fracking is bad. However, both of the articles talk about the government's involvement in dealing with fracking. In Natural Gas, the author states a very interesting point, "Many of the fracking additives are toxic, carcinogenic or mutagenic. Many are kept secret. In the United States, such secrecy has been abetted by the 2005 'Halliburton loophole' (named after an energy company headquartered in Houston, Texas), which exempts fracking from many of the nation's major federal environmental-protection laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act." This point reminded me of when the EPA Article talks about how the Senator called the EPA's investigation of fracking "offensive." It is just so surprising to me that the government would allow loopholes to fracking and for a Senator could call it offensive to investigate more on the effects of tracking to the environment.

      Both of the articles give clear points on why fracking is bad for the environment. The Natural Gas: Should Fracking Stop article gives a point about water contamination, "It found that about 75% of wells sampled within 1 kilometer of gas drilling in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania were contaminated with methane from the deep shale formations." This point even further proves the points about how fracking leads to water contamination in the article EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination. The fact that both articles have exact facts on how fracking is bad for the environment makes it even more startling that the government has been able to let fracking have a loophole, and not promote the investigation of the side effects of it. However, both articles state that the reason the government isn't involving itself in stopping fracking is because it is a cheap resource to use. Even though it is cheap, we should still be focused on how it is harming our environment. As a reader, both articles have convinced me of the dangers and risks involved with fracking. 


The Link to the Natural Gas article is: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7364/full/477271a.html