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posted by janrinok on Sunday July 12 2015, @12:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the every-bit-helps dept.

California's epic drought is pushing Big Oil to solve a problem it's struggled with for decades: what to do with the billions of gallons of wastewater that gush out of wells every year.

Golden State drillers have pumped much of that liquid back underground into disposal wells. Now, amid a four-year dry spell, more companies are looking to recycle their water or sell it to parched farms as the industry tries to get ahead of environmental lawsuits and new regulations.

The trend could have implications for oil patches across the country. With fracking boosting the industry's thirst for water, companies have run into conflicts from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. California could be an incubator for conservation efforts that have so far failed to gain traction elsewhere in the U.S.

If you were thinking California's drought might accelerate desalinization technology, you're wrong. It's actually helping the oil and natural gas industries make more money.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by davester666 on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:29AM

    by davester666 (155) on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:29AM (#208081)

    exactly. the only thing in waste-water from fracking or oil drilling is "dihydrogen monoxide".

    I'm sure every oil company CEO wouldn't have a problem with it being connected straight to their corporate headquarters and their homes and whatever company supplies their bottled water.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:26PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 12 2015, @01:26PM (#208134) Journal

    exactly. the only thing in waste-water from fracking or oil drilling is "dihydrogen monoxide".

    I'm sure every oil company CEO wouldn't have a problem with it being connected straight to their corporate headquarters and their homes and whatever company supplies their bottled water.

    I'm sure that no one in the developed world drinks "waste water" no matter what process generated the waste water. And once you've treated it so it becomes potable, then what's the big deal?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @03:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @03:18PM (#208152)

      > And once you've treated it so it becomes potable, then what's the big deal?

      How do you define "potable?" Are you so trusting as to believe that Chevron uses your definition and not something packed full of loopholes? Because corporations never cut corners in order to save themselves money. Right?

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 12 2015, @04:38PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 12 2015, @04:38PM (#208167) Journal
        I suppose we could regulate that just like most of the world regulates water used for agriculture and human consumption.
        • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:42PM

          by davester666 (155) on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:42PM (#208186)

          totally. so make sure some of the 'output' from this process goes to the homes and offices of the board of director's and top executives of these oil companies.

          I will bet that NONE of them will drink the water, other than for a press shot.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:57PM (#208193)

          > I suppose we could regulate that just like most of the world regulates water used for agriculture and human consumption.

          Regulations written on the basis of starting with water that's not hugely contaminated in the first place?
          I don't think so.

          A minimum first pass would be regulations that require a fully disclosed list of chemicals added to the water before it is injected and measurements of all of those concentrations on the other end of the decontamination process. But that wouldn't cover the by-products of interactions between those chemicals, nor any chemicals picked up in the drilling process from other sources that get mixed in, like the lubricants on the drill itself.

          One thing is for sure, nothing like that is happening today. The drilling companies have fought tooth and nail to keep the list of their chemicals a secret for 'proprietary' reasons.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 13 2015, @12:24AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 13 2015, @12:24AM (#208271) Journal

            Regulations written on the basis of starting with water that's not hugely contaminated in the first place?

            Sounds reasonable to me.

            The drilling companies have fought tooth and nail to keep the list of their chemicals a secret for 'proprietary' reasons.

            Why the scare quotes? It's obvious that oil drilling is a highly competitive field and that what goes into those fracking chemicals is a competitive advantage. It's reasonable to ask that you understand why things are done before you pronounce judgment on them.

            • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday July 13 2015, @01:09AM

              by davester666 (155) on Monday July 13 2015, @01:09AM (#208282)

              They get to keep it secret right up until the moment they try to sell it as water that enters the food system.

              Then they have to disclose everything they have done to it.

              Right now, the regulations are written for rain water, that has not had a lot of stuff added to it. They haven't been written expecting whatever mysterious compounds the oil companies have been using for drilling or fracking.

              Or are you going for the 'free market' solution, where we just start doing it, and 20 years from now, there is a significant rise in cancer and leukemia on farms that use the water, and in people who drink the water, and people who consume the food, followed by 10-20 years of litigation where the oil companies deny it was due to their water, followed by the shell companies that actually 'sold' the water going bankrupt, so the oil companies are off the hook. Time for the gov't to step in and offer rebates on health care plans.

              That's a great solution.

              • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday July 13 2015, @01:31AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 13 2015, @01:31AM (#208291) Journal

                Right now, the regulations are written for rain water, that has not had a lot of stuff added to it. They haven't been written expecting whatever mysterious compounds the oil companies have been using for drilling or fracking.

                Nonsense. If this loophole existed, then all manner of industrial plants would be exploiting it. You'd have farms in the middle of Houston, for example, for the express purpose of dumping waste water from many chemical plants in the area.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:38AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:38AM (#208327)

                  From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], with plenty of sources, including the law and amendments themselves, for your perusal:

                  The 1974 act authorized EPA to regulate injection wells in order to protect underground sources of drinking water. Congress amended the SDWA in 2005 to exclude hydraulic fracturing, an industrial process for recovering oil and natural gas, from coverage under the UIC program. This exclusion has been called the "Halliburton Loophole". Halliburton is the world's largest provider of hydraulic fracturing services

                  Through the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Safe Drinking Water Act was amended to exclude the underground injection of any fluids or propping agents other than diesel fuels used in hydraulic fracturing operations from being considered as "underground injections" for the purposes of the law [gpo.gov].

                  The fluids used in fracking are completely unregulated and ignored by the law and legally aren't even considered contaminants.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:41AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @03:41AM (#208328)

                That's a great solution.

                "Why should I bother trying to come up with any kind of solution? Its not my problem." - every capitalist ever.