CAS CONNECT 2013

7 To drill a single well, hydraulic fracturing uses the high-pressure spraying of millions of gallons of water to break up rock and release hydrocarbons. Using the method in Oklahoma and Kansas has drawn fire from some in the scientific and environmental communities because some of the worst droughts in history have plagued the areas since 2010. Grammer says that won’t be an issue with the Mississippian midcontinent limestone. The drilling water comes from deeply buried saline aquifers several times saltier than seawater. The aquifers are typically hundreds to thou- sands of feet below any potable water source. “The salinities are such that you basically could not use them for any kind of freshwa- ter purposes,” he says, noting that the water is then pumped back into the saltwater aquifer after it is used. Fracking has also drawn fire because of concerns that the drilling water with possi- bly numerous chemicals, many of which are hazardous if not properly disposed, could migrate into freshwater supplies. Those problems can be avoided, Grammer says, if companies do sound geological surveys of where they’ll be drilling. That’s part of what OSU is doing through this partnership. “It’s just like the potential for hazardous waste to migrate from landfills or underground waste injection programs,” he says. “These techniques, when done within the constraints of accurate geologic knowledge of the subsur- face, can be done in both an economically viable and environmentally sound manner by targeting zones that are encased by nonper- meable rock above and below the zone of interest.”