Environmentally-friendly Waterless Fracking with Supercritical CO2

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Environmentally-friendly Waterless Fracking with Supercritical CO2

Fracking is considered extremely environmentally controversial, but one method can kill two birds with one stone. Actually, the stone will get cracked… but not by water. By carbon dioxide… This will not only save water but reduce global warming.

frack.pngHydraulic fracturing (fracking) uses vast amounts of water to crack the deep-rock formations and collect the natural gas.

As a result, millions of gallons of wastewater are produced.

Considering the water scarcity and the very small amount of fresh water, in comparison to the total amount of water available on earth, this is certainly not the best use of the valuable resource.

It is, however, possible to achieve waterless fracking using supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2).

Supercritical CO2 is in a state between a gas and liquid as it is heated just above the critical temperature (304.25 K) and kept above critical pressure (7.39 MPa).


Image: Pressure-Temperature Phase Diagram with the Critical Point, above which the fluid is in a Supercritical state
Image source: ommons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phase-diag2.svg


CO2 is convenient for this use since its critical temperature is relatively low, it is stable, non-toxic and non-flammable.

Advantages:

Disadvantages:


We are still a great way from widely using the waterless CO2 fracking but even fracking opponents are optimistic and see the environmental benefits of using supercritical carbon dioxide for fracking instead of water.


 

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