Boulder County's extension of the temporary moratorium on
processing new oil and gas drilling applications (Daily Camera,
Jan. 25) has essentially put on hold any new oil and gas
drilling that uses the hydraulic fracturing process called
"fracking." This is an opportunity to examine the broad
environmental aspects of fracking from an engineering
perspective. Until recently, underground supplies of gas
provided only 1 percent of the total natural gas consumption. As
a result of developments in hydraulic fracturing combined with
advances in horizontal drilling, today natural gas from tight
formations provides about 30 percent of our total consumption.
This could be good news for the environment, because burning
natural gas emits less carbon dioxide than combustion of coal or
building a nuclear power plant and extracting uranium to operate
it. But fracking, like any energy production technology comes
with some risks and public fears have recently been expressed
about contamination of drinking water supplies from