Earth & Environment - Posted by Ellen Goldbaum-Buffalo on Monday, October 25, 2010 15:27 - 2 Comments 
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(1 votes, average: 2.00 out of 5) Loading ...Fracking havoc with the environment
Uranium and hydrocarbons in Marcellus shale are not just physically bound, they are chemically bound as well. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
U. BUFFALO (US) — Disputes over drilling Marcellus shale for natural gas have focused on the environmental effects of pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep underground.
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The text of this article by Futurity is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License.
Hydraulic fracturing—or “fracking”—to release natural gas also causes uranium that is naturally trapped inside Marcellus shale to be released, according to new research, raising additional environmental concerns.
Marcellus shale is a massive rock formation that stretches from New York through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and is often described as the nation’s largest source of natural gas.
“Marcellus shale naturally traps metals such as uranium and at levels higher than usually found naturally, but lower than manmade contamination levels,” says Tracy Bank, assistant professor of geology at the University at Buffalo.
“My question was, if they start drilling and pumping millions of gallons of water into these underground rocks, will that force the uranium into the soluble phase and mobilize it? Will uranium then show up in groundwater?”
To find out, Bank scanned the surfaces of Marcellus shale samples from Western New York and Pennsylvania.
Using sensitive chemical instruments, they created a chemical map of the surfaces to determine the precise location in the shale of the hydrocarbons, the organic compounds containing natural gas.
“We found that the uranium and the hydrocarbons are in the same physical space,” says Bank, and “are not just physically, but also chemically, bound.
“That led me to believe that uranium in solution could be more of an issue because the process of drilling to extract the hydrocarbons could start mobilizing the metals as well, forcing them into the soluble phase and causing them to move around.”
When samples were reacted in the lab with surrogate drilling fluids, uranium was indeed found to be solubilized.
Also, when the millions of gallons of water used in hydraulic fracturing come back to the surface, it can contain uranium contaminants, potentially polluting streams and other ecosystems and generating hazardous waste.
“Even though at these levels, uranium is not a radioactive risk, it is still a toxic, deadly metal,” Bank says.
“We need a fundamental understanding of how uranium exists in shale. The more we understand about how it exists, the more we can better predict how it will react to ‘fracking.’”
More news from University at Buffalo: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/
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2 Comments
Even though it is only in minute amounts would it be practical to try to extract the uranium and other materials for concentration and commercial use?
I don’t think the toxicity of low levels of mercury, lead, cadmium, and so on are well understood (or perhaps readily admitted) in the medical community in the US. Uranium in ground water may get better press–meaning scare people faster than, say, low level mercury toxicity, but realistically what are we talking about in ways that grab public attention? Slight increases in cancer incidence, baby deformities, lower school testing scores, build up in fat tissues and the brain, binding with something in your breakfast cereal or cow’s milk–what? And what does water filtration or other treatment do?
Yes, it may be too early to tell, especially in a litigious context. Sigh.