0
Oct 17, 2012 / in Blog Articles

The picture alongside is used by the anti fracking lobby to portray the condition of water as a result of fracking. We all know that huge volumes of water are used to fracture underground rock formations in order to release natural gas (aka shale gas, methane). We don’t know what constitutes the make up of the chemical additives as their composition is a closely guarded secret. We do know that millions of liters of water become contaminated and would be unfit for human consumption.We don’t know for sure whether hydrofracking causes earthquakes but there is evidence to suggest that “induced earthquakes (are) more likely from wastewater injection …”this is “flowback” water, the dirty fracking water which is pushed up to the surface and which has to be disposed of through pumping it back underground.The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in looking at a zone between Alabama and Montana concluded that “the 134 earthquakes in the zone last year is a six fold increase over 20th century levels….the surge (in number of earthquakes) in the last few years corresponds to a nationwide surge in shale drilling…”Fortunately the Karoo Basin is not a seismic hot-spot with few recorded earthquakes. So it really is the contaminated water we have to worry about. The trick is to be able to recycle the water, and at least one company is using ozone (which is not benign) in order to neutralise biocides and descaling agents. We at Filcon are exploring various processes to see what we can contribute to recycling the contaminated water. When it comes to contaminants in suspension we have back washing filters, centrifugal separators and bag filter housings to do their job. Filcon prides itslf in offering clear solutions.