Ethical Issues Concerning Hydraulic Fracturing in the Petroleum Industry.
In these present days we have a lot of ethical issue in our day to day living going from conflict of interest all the way up to cutting corners in the petroleum industry. A good example of an ethical issue would be why fracking is bad, which I find to be very dangerous and could lead to various disasters such as loss of life, danger to the community and thereby leading to bad credibility.
In this paper I would be talking about Fracking and why it is bad, because like I stated before it is a very delicate issue and must be treated with great importance. Firstly, Hydraulic fracturing is the process of injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release oil and gas from it. In order to Perform hydraulic fracturing, we will need a lot of water and chemicals, a mixture of water and over 200 chemicals like hydrochloric acid, Lead and Uranium and so are used to create a fluid called fracking fluid which like I stated before will be injected under high pressure down the well to the desired place of fracturing. As the injected pressurized fracturing fluid goes down through the well some of the chemical like methane gas and toxic chemicals leak out from the system and contaminate nearby groundwater. Methane gas concentrations are 17x higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells, and only 30 to 50% of the fracturing fluids are recovered from this process of hydraulic fracturing. Most cities get water from their aquifers which are located underground, and once the fracturing fluid goes through the well and chemicals leak out into the water table an environmental event may occur. We have to und...
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...al compound in her drinking water and also in her blood after Chesapeake began drilling on her land, Jaime Frederick in Ohio, discovered barium, strontium, toluene and other contaminants in her water after 25 wells had been drilled a mile from his home which lead her to experience different illnesses. In simple word, this process of fracturing has changed these people lives in a bad way and has to be stopped in order to prevent future damages or loss of lives.
References
"Hydraulic Fracturing." Dangers of Fracking. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Romm, Joe. "Shale Shocked: Studies Tie Rise Of Significant Earthquakes In U.S. Midcontinent To Wastewater Injection." ThinkProgress RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Shalefeild Stories. N.p.: Steel Valley Printers, 2014. Print.
"Home." Environment America Research and Policy Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
In today's global economy, energy is one of the most crucial and sought after commodities. Who supplies it and how much they supply determines how much influence they have over other countries as well as the global economy. This is why hydraulic fracturing is currently such an important and controversial topic in the United States. Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking" or hydrofracturing, is the process of using pressurized liquids to fracture rocks and release hydrocarbons such as shale gas, which burns more efficiently than coal. This booming process of energy production provides a much needed economic boost, creating jobs and providing gas energy for Americans. The efficiently burning shale gas reduces carbon emission from electricity production plants, reducing carbon footprints on the environment. However, the process of hydraulic fracturing uses millions of gallons of pressurized liquid, which contains toxic chemicals, and some of this water is left over undealt with. The air near fracking sites is often also polluted and unsafe for nearby community residents. Injecting millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals into the rock thousands of feet deep can cause earthquakes, causing a safety hazards for all nearby areas. Hydraulic Fracturing makes rare natural gases easily attainable, boosting the economy and reducing carbon emissions. However, the negative side effects such as contaminated water and air, make hydraulic fracturing a process that may not be worth the benefits.
There are concerns that fracking could be the causation of earthquakes. In areas where fracking operations occur and earthquakes are not the norm, there has been instances of seismic activity. For example, before 2011, the last seismic activity experienced by small town in Ohio named Youngstown was in 1776, but in a span of months during 2011, more than 100 instances of seismic activity ranging from 2.7 to 3.9 on the Ric...
Ethics is a topic that is argued about a lot in today's modern society. Ethics are the bases of standards of what is right and wrong that tell what humans should or shouldn't do. In the story "Flowers For Algernon", Charlie Gordon is a mentally disabled thirty seven year-old man who has difficulty learning and comprehending. Two doctors decide to offer a surgery to Charlie that could change his life forever. The experimental surgery would supposedly help his intelligence level. Charlie Gordons' doctors did not act ethically when they performed the experiment to improve his intelligence.
...Waxmann et al. (2011) 750 different chemicals were used by various oil and gas companies during hydraulic fracturing over a four year period, where a minimum of 29 were identified to contain carcinogens which are listed as hazardous on both the clean air and safe drinking water act. The USEPA (2011) suggested that chemicals used during fracking should be monitored according to specific criteria.
When you hear the word "ethics," what is the first thing that comes to mind? Having to make the decision of doing what is right versus doing what is wrong. Some idealists say that decisions of ethics should not be conditional. However, that is not as simple as it may sound. What constitutes "right" to one person may be "wrong" to anther; what clearly distinguishes the line between right and wrong? What some may look at as being unethical does not necessarily make it illegal.
Ever since the process of hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—made its entrance to the oil industry, issues and problems surrounding the process have become a common occurrence. Fracking is the controversial process of horizontal drilling (see fig. 1), where millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals are pumped deep into an oil well to extract natural gas from the earth’s crust (Ehrenberg 20). This practice has even been banned in some places (see fig. 1). The methane that comes out of the earth and the water used—called fracking fluid—has the potential to cause problems with local ground water supplies. Whether or not fracking is the cause of these problems, concern should be observed during the fracking process to reduce the chances of water contamination among residential areas.
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Ethics, the study of whether something is right or wrong, is of great importance in the field of
BP was founded in 1908 under the name Anglo-Persian Oil Company. They changed their name to British Petroleum in 1954 and merged with Amoco in 1998. (BP Public Website, 2010) “The Texas City Refinery is BP’s largest and most complex oil refinery... It was owned and operated by Amoco prior to the merger of BP and Amoco.” (Michael P. Broadribb, 2006) Throughout their history, there have been a number of accidents that have been caused by negligence and disregard of safety precautions. Unfortunately many lives have been cut short or seriously injured as a result. My research will focus on the 2005 Texas City Oil Refinery Explosion. I will attempt to look into the ethical implications that surrounded this disaster before and after the event and suggest what BP could have done to prevent the incident then and in the future.
Before one can see the devastating effects of fracking, one must first understand how fracking works. As previously stated, the main intent of hydro-fracking is to access and harvest natural gas that lies below the surface of the Earth. Having formed over 400 million years ago by the collision of tectonic plates (Marsa 3), the Marcellus Shale plays host to a gold mine of natural gas, which is currently at the center of the fracking debate in the Northeastern region of the United States. Unfortunately, access...
Throughout the past three decades, energy has been a perennial issue in United States politics, economics, and media. The main concern surrounding this topic is the idea of energy independence and how the United States should proceed into the future. Energy independence relates to the goal of reducing United States dependence on importing foreign oil and other foreign energy sources. This desire aims to maintain energy dependence domestically so the United States can avoid reliance on any unstable countries and be detached from global energy supply distribution. It is currently being speculated that the United States might not be too far off from this goal. America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since 2007. In 2010, the U.S. imported less than 50 percent of the oil the country consumed -- the first time that’s happened in 13 years -- and the trend continued in 2011 (Zhang.) Experts credit new technology as the reason the United States is within several years of again becoming the biggest oil producer in the world, and perhaps two decades away from full energy independence. Hydraulic fracturing, fracking, is the “lead” technology in this technological revolution. Fracking is an economically more feasible way of drilling for oil or gas in harder to reach geological formation. Within the past decade or so, combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling has opened up shale deposits across the country. It has brought large-scale natural gas drilling to new regions that may not have had accessible deposits in the past. These areas have greatly benefited from the addition of this industry to their local economies. Certain are...
Natural gas drilling can cause water contamination. In his Academy Award-nominated documentary Gasland, filmmaker Josh Fox conducted interviews with families in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Wyoming whose drinking wat...
Fracking has become a highly controversial and publicized topic due to rising concerns and growing analysis into the mutual benefits of hydraulic fracturing to retrieve natural gas and oil reserves. With concerns of water pollution, mismanagement of toxic waste and irreversible
Numerous reports have been given on the dangerous affects of hydraulic fracturing. One such affect that has been noticed is that drinking water wells near the fracturing sites have been contaminated. During the hydro-fracking process, injected fluids that help to break and keep open the rock bed where the natural gas is kept, have “been known to travel three thousand feet from the well (Goldman).” This fluid could have the potential to enter and contaminate any water well for homes around hydraulic fracturing sites. This incident is one of the major problems that people want to figure out and know about before they allow a fracturing site by them. It has been the most feared outcome of having a fracking site nearby, and it is highly appropriate. One site in Wyoming had this happen, “…in August, EPA reported that eleven of thirty-nine drinking-water wells near a Wyoming hydraulic fracturing operation were contaminated with chemicals used in the fracturing process (Hobson EPA).” In Pennsylvania, another such case occurred, “There have already been severe pollution cases in Pennsylvania, mo...
Ethics are very important in any field. In cost accounting also ethics play an important role. Ethical situations can easily arise in any business setting when money is involved. . The whole Enron saga was the result ... ... middle of paper ... ...