Fracking rough draft

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The search for a good oil supply has been going on ever since cars first started to run on gasoline. Although while there are great ways to drill, there are extremely dangerous environmental hazards and risks to animals that come along with it. Fracking, many argue, is the best form of drilling that we have today. Fracking is the use of sand, water, and chemicals injected at high pressures to blast open shale rock and release the trapped gas inside. Still, many debate the use of fracking because while it provides jobs and helps the economy, fracking is awful for the environment because it uses many chemicals in the drilling process and it contaminates large supplies of drinking water.
Fracking is a fairly new drilling technique that uses a form of horizontal drilling through the earth to retrieve oil at certain depths. Once it breaks the surface of the ground, a “well” is drilled vertically down until the desired depth is reached. Once there it proceeds to make a 90 degree turn and will begin to drill horizontally for several thousands of feet where they believe the natural gas is. From there a mixture of water, sand, and various chemicals are pumped into the well at exceedingly high pressures. According to clean water action, “This is done to create fissures in the rock in which the gas can escape through” (“All about fracking” 1). Once the gas escapes through the fissures, it is pulled back up to the surface. There they proceed to process the oil, refine it and then ship it to the market. However the process is not over. The “wastewater” returns to the surface and is held in large steel tanks until a long-term waste solution can be reached.
One thing that fracking does provide is jobs to many unemployed Americans. Midwest energ...

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...gh that environmental hazards and even job hazards are extremely high?

Works Cited

Brzycki, Elaine. "Explore Shale." ExploreShale.org. N.p., 2011. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
"Earthjustice: Because the Earth Needs a Good Lawyer." Earthjustice. Earthjustice, 2014. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"Fact Sheets: All About Fracking | Clean Water Action." Fact Sheets: All About Fracking | Clean Water Action. Clean Water Action, n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
Fox, Josh. "Gasland 2: A Film by Josh Fox - NOW on HBO." Gasland. HBO, 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Lydersen, Kari. "U.S. Chamber’s Fracking Job Boom: Behind the Numbers." U.S. Chamber's Fracking Jobs. Midwest Energy News, 10 Jan. 2013. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
"Ohio Environmental Council." Ohio Environmental Council. Ohio Environmental Council, 2014. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
"Wilderness.org." Wilderness.org. The Wilderness Society, 2013. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.

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