Why America Needs Hydraulic Fracturing - 1876 Words

Why America needs hydraulic fracturing Hydraulic fracturing also called fracking has been around for many years despite the recent events of controversy to continue fracturing or not. With the earth’s resources depleting rapidly every year and no sufficient replacement for energy humanity needs fracking. The process of fracking has been around for more than six decades. Fracking has been around since the 1940s and was created to increase the removal flow of oil and natural gas. In the words of chemical engineer Robert Rapier â€Å"Fracking involves pumping water, chemicals, and a proppant down an oil or gas well under high pressure to break open channels in the rock holding the oil or gas (Rapier).† A proppant can be different materials,†¦show more content†¦Therefore with resources becoming scarce humanity needs to extract the most from what the earth has. In fact from adding gasoline to your vehicle, to power plant facilities using natural gas instead of burning coal to power homes, to compu tes and cell phones, almost everything in our lives depend on an oil based product and fracking is the solution for the depletion of fossil fuels. Three controversial issues with hydraulic fracking are nearly everything people use daily has a petroleum based product, contamination of drinking water also the surrounding soil, and the financial impact on the economy. Many people in America do not realize the positives that comes with fracking. It is a great way to help the economy in the United States. Fracking decreases the price of all petroleum products including the price in gas. When gas prices decrease it allows other products such as food, plastics, and other petroleum goods to also go down in price. With these savings being passed down to the consumers it makes the cost of living in America much easier for many people who are living with a minimum wage budget. Minimum wage going up in Oregon and gas prices declining creates a stir in people making them spend more and b uilds consumer confidence on what is spent. In turn this rapid spending creates a boom in the American economy. With fracking producing nine million barrels a day and decreasing prices by forty five