Green Energy (Part 2): Just Leaf the Fuel Cells to the Flora

Yesterday at To Infinity And…In Theory we talked about Fuel Cells and their background story starting with the first man to dream them up (William Grove) and concluding with the man who sent them into space (Francis Bacon). If you missed yesterday’s entry don’t fret, you can catch up here. [Green Energy (Part 1): Four Score AndTwenty Years Ago Fuel Cells Were Born! …(ish)] Today we’re going to see how these pioneers who laid the very important groundwork for Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology are pushing the energy crisis out of the way.

After NASA witnessed the hidden potential of these tiny molecular powered batteries firsthand they were ecstatic to say the least. They jumped onboard the Green Tech train and launched some 200 projects using Fuel Cell research as the backbone. Sometimes it only takes one huge influence to boost innovation to invention. Since the 1960’s, laboratories all over the world have delved into these powerful technological marvels of science.

We’re going to talk just a little bit more about their history today (not much, we covered the history pretty well I think yesterday) starting from the bulky models used on Apollo to the silicon sheets half a nanometer thick today. We’ll also talk about how they work, how they charge them up, and a new harvesting technique that could make Fuel Cells the most cost effective energy option on the market to date.

Think you know Green Technology in and out? Well then, let’s put that knowledge to the test shall we.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

When Grove conceptualized the Fuel Cell in the late 1800s I doubt he had space travel in mind. Heck, at that point they barely had a grasp on it. But Francis Bacon’s Hydrox Fuel Cell blew everyone away in the middle of the 20^th century. Yet the technology didn’t catch on, Ford still had a monopoly on propulsion, no one was interested in a product that had not been tested. After all, who in their right mind would want to be a guinea pig?

But NASA saw the promise. (Oh NASA, how I love you. For real.) It launched 200 projects into Fuel Cell technology and sure enough in the late 60s, Bacon’s Fuel Cells, with some slight modifications, made their journey into space a reality. They were also used again in a little project you might have heard of. Apollo, perhaps? Ring any bells? I really hope so because the Apollo program accomplished one of the greatest feats of all time.

Apollo 11 put a man on the moon.

Yep, Apollo 11 was far more important than just the prequel to Apollo 13, (no Tom Hanks here, sorry folks!) it was the mission where Neil Armstrong planted the American flag on the lunar surface. (We really have to stop claiming things that technically don’t belong to us…) But how did this happen? Well there were millions of parts in motion, but an important aspect of the mission was a Fuel Cell.

More importantly, not only was the Fuel Cell capable of splitting Hydrogen and Oxygen in order to produce energy, it could reassemble the molecules to turn them back into water. I’m sure it was filtered, but this is what the Astronauts drank. Hydro Fuel Cell H2O.

So how does it do this? It’s pretty cool actually; I’ll break it down for you.

The Bacon Cell is essentially an Alkaline Fuel Cell, and boy are they efficient. What’s happening is called a Redox reaction. (Red = Reduction, Ox = Oxidation). This can be as simple as oxidation of carbon to yield Carbon Dioxide, or as complex as producing glucose inside the human body, both are forms of a Redox reaction.

Well this concept is happening inside the battery. (A stack of fuel cells). At the anode hydrogen is being oxidized. When this happens it enters its liquid state, water. It then re-enters the module and returns to the cathode where the water is then turned back to hydroxide ions. The cycle keeps repeating itself, thus creating a regenerative supply of energy. The best part of all you ask?

Electricity and heat are the byproducts. That means powering the ship, according to a molecule, is just their waste.

The electrodes are separated by an aqueous alkaline solution. It’s the catalyst for the reaction to produce water and electricity. There’s only one slight problem. If Carbon Dioxide gets into the Fuel Cell it can “poison” the entire system, compromising everyone onboard the ship. (Seen the new Sandra Bullock flick? Being compromised in space is scary stuff!) Because of this both pure oxygen is used and a scrubber is incorporated into the system so as to filter it after each pass. So why don’t we use this for the general public?

The poisoning effect we just talked about is one of the reasons. It can happen fairly easy, and if it does, it’s pretty much irreversible. Considering we expel carbon dioxide as waste from our lungs, we could potentially destroy the vehicle ourselves by just driving it. Ford would love it, but we’d be in the poor house. Pretty much, technology just wasn’t there yet for small, affordable, consumer models, after all, it was only the late 60’s, we didn’t even have Internet yet! (Or Google. What did we do before Google? I think it was like a library or like, something about Dewey…oh well.)

However that reality may not be so far away. In 1999 a transport boat that ran on AFC’s was put into commission. It was called the HYDRA. (Run Captain America!) Before they took it out of the water and decommissioned him he transported some 2,000 passengers and even won a few energy related competitions.

But now Fuel Cells, once again, have come out of the world of obscurity and are back in the spotlight. Yet now they aren’t just being looked at as a replacement technology because we might run out of gas. Now we need them because soon, we might kill the Earth if we keep it up, and running out of a planet is far more treacherous of a prospect then no more driving. At least to me, I don’t know how you feel about it.

So what are we doing to stop this bleak future from occurring? Researchers in Tennessee came up with a clever answer to that question. Let’s see what Popeye has to say about Science.

Eat Your Spinach, Sailor…

If you’re old enough to remember the man pictured above, then your childhood was most likely AWESOME! If not, I’m sorry…anyway. Do you know how Spinach makes the food it consumes? A little process called photosynthesis. Did you also know this produces chemical energy? Huh? Did ya!?

Well this chemical energy can be converted into another kind of energy, something of a kinetic variety. Mechanical energy to be exact, and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, that’s exactly what scientists are looking to exploit.

It takes light 8 minutes to reach the leaves of the Spinach. In five trillionths of a second the plant is already converting that sunlight into energy. Where Alkaline Fuel Cells were efficient and their obvious replacement Silicon Fuel Cells was more so, the environment’s natural processes have billions of years ahead of us. While we’ve been trying to manufacture artificial versions of Mother Nature, Mother Nature has already created the perfect practice.

So how are they achieving this goal? Turns out you can infuse the leaves of spinach with platinum. Because chloroplast is already a conductor for the plant to make energy with, this platinum just enhances its natural abilities and suits it toward technology we can use. The best part of it all, it’s 100% green.

The platinum turns the spinach leaf into an electrical switch. Biometric scientists are looking toward this technology for use in the blind. It has the potential to be very effective for biotic eyes. Speed-of-light computers are also a potential for the same reason. The human retina registers light faster than anything we can currently build, but by using these platinum chloroplasts, it could provide the building block to make something that not only matches the speed at which the eye operates, but surpasses it as well.

Time will tell but I’m looking forward to this technology in the future. Want to know more about Spinach powered super computers? You can by clicking here.

So by now you’re probably asking yourself, “yeah that’s cool and all, but I thought this was about Fuel Cells.” Well…not that part in particular. But I just wanted you to understand the potential for plant based biotechnology, before I blew your mind. While they had one bionic eye on supercomputers when they were working with University of South Carolina to extract Spinach proteins, they had their other one trained on the future of sustainable energy.

Standing Fern on Green Energy

That complex tangle of green, yellow, and blue is actually fairly important to all of this. It’s called the Light Harvesting Complex, or LHC-II for short. It’s the protein that they pulled from the spinach responsible for the function of photosynthesis. The guys over at Clean Technica break it down the best:

Oak Ridge writer Bill Cabage describes the latest breakthrough as a biohybrid photoconversion system. The researchers were able to confirm that a particular light-harvesting protein derived from plain old supermarket spinach can be induced to assemble itself into a membrane, by putting it into a liquid solution containing synthetic polymers. The protein, called LHC-II (LHC stands for Light Harvesting Complex) interacts with the polymers to form a membrane, which in turn produces hydrogen. In other words the membrane acts as a kind of photovoltaic cell, but instead of generating electricity it generates-hydrogen.
Read more at Clean Technica

In short, clean, renewable, affordable, sustainable, and literally green as you can get energy. There is a catch though. This technology doesn’t come cheap. Platinum is incredibly expensive. But researchers at MIT may have an idea that could reduce that cost significantly.

“Leafing” It All Behind…

As I mentioned before, Platinum is super expensive stuff. Not to mention, it’s fairly uncommon as far as rare Earth elements go. Another problem with Fuel Cells was the ability to keep them self-contained and contaminate free. But that could theoretically be a thing of the past thanks the brilliant mind of Daniel Nocera. Toiling hard night and day in the bowels of MIT, he finally seemed to figure it all out.

He would grow trees that produced hydrogen instead of oxygen.

…

HA! Nope, but I had you going for a second there didn’t I? It might as well be that though considering the principle they operate on is exactly the same as a leaf.

No not the leaf, the thing on the leaf. And no, you don’t have to attach them to a leaf, they are self-contained and operational. No planting required. But the million dollar question is how do they work? It’s not a mystery, it’s just science.

When sunlight hits a leaf it begins to cause a chain reaction. The sunlight begins to convert chemicals within the leaf into free oxygen by breaking down water. That oxygen is then released back into the environment for us to breathe. This is basically how photosynthesis works though there are much more complex things happening, (HowStuffWorks.com will tell you all about it here.) But we should quickly clarify what we mean by “leaf”.

The artificial leaf may be a bit misleading; it’s actually called a Photoelectrocell. Photoelectrocells differ from Photovoltaic cells significantly. Voltaic cells generate voltage when light hits them, while Photoelectric cells generate electricity from light. Voltage determines the electric potential, meaning how much power there is going to be. (i.e 9V batter, 12V battery etc.) A Photoelectric cell converts it into electricity, like a solar panel, and its power is determinative of its capacity and how much energy is available. But anyhow, back to fake leaves.

By using the same basic principles of photosynthesis with only a few slight adjustments, Nocera created the little wafer pictured above to basically do just that. Except instead of producing free oxygen for us to breathe, it breaks down water into oxygen and hydrogen for us to use to power our cell phones, cars, laptops, and robotics. By placing it in a tankard of water (refilled daily) the Photoelectrocell can make all sorts of things happen.

And it’s fairly cheap.

Instead of running mostly on Platinum it uses very little of the precious element. It’s mainly comprised of Cobalt, Zinc, and other fairly inexpensive metals and minerals. The wafer is then coated in a sheet of silicon that is thick enough to better protect the metals from oxidation (rusting is a form of oxidation. Oxidation is what destroys the electrodes.) Yet thin enough to allow the reaction to take place effectively.

But in order for everything to work proper, clean water is the essential ingredient. Testing is currently underway to make one that can survive in slightly more contaminated environments but after a while it still clogs the chip and the process stops working. They also discovered another unique property of this, to a degree the silicon area of the chip will repair itself. Nocera and his team noticed this when they roughed up the surface in an attempt to discourage grime and biofilm from building up on the artificial leaf.

Unfortunately keeping contaminants out continues to be a problem. While a closed cell is possible, water is still needed for the initial catalyst. Clean water at that to avoid degrading the material faster than necessary. Not all parts of the world that could certainly benefit from this technology have ready access to clean water. Plus, in order to keep it cost effective, an open cell where water can continually be refilled is preferable as it wouldn’t have many special requirements that quickly add up to total wallet devastation over time. 

A Green Future (Literally)

As the price of solar technology continues to drop and the mass production of artificial leaves becomes a priority, Dr. Nocera claims we may see this technology in every household worldwide in as little as five years. But if there is one thing I know about the world it’s that the people with money don’t like to let go of it, and major power companies are not going to like this tech one bit.

Because of its potential to be extremely cheap to produce, it would be reasonably priced for the Consumer. If two panels cost $60, and two full size panels (we’re speculating here only) could potentially run a two story house, then pretty much anyone in the world could afford them, even in the most impoverished areas. Let’s face it; it would put Consumer’s Energy out of business and all other power countries worldwide.

Right now it’s estimated that the current cells cost around $6.50 USD to produce. While fossil fuels are sitting pretty at the height of popularity still, Fuel Cells are back. And just like when Grove powered the telegraph and truly became the definition of Avante Garde, they’re in line to change the way we live in this ever developing world.

-       Ryan Sanders

Thanks for reading! And as always if you want to know more about solar powered spinach, wireless Fuel Cells, or the artificial leaf and its creator follow any of the links below. Share it around, after all, everyone loves science!  Happy learning!

-       Nature article on the artificial leaf

-       Clean Technica’s article on the artificial leaf (equally as well written as the above)

-       BBC Horizon video with Daniel Nocera

-       Daniel Nocera’s TEDx talk about sustainability

-       Designboom article on turning grass clippings into solar panels

*Correction: In yesterday’s article I said the technology to turn Spinach into electrical switches was patented in the 1990’s. That was a typo. I meant 1980’s; the actual patent was issued in 1985. Sorry about that folks but mistakes do happen. - Ryan Sanders

Green Energy (Part 1): Four Score and Twenty Years Ago Fuel Cells Were Born ...(ish)

We’ve talked about green energy here at TI&IT before (Fossilizing Fossil Fuels ForFundamental Molecules) but coming up we’re going to get a bit more literal with it. In the 1990’s, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) in Tennessee, United States put a patent on electricity producing Spinach. Well Spinach proteins to be exact, but I mean, if a salad can provide the energy for our bodies to function, why can’t it power our cars too?

And that is exactly the strange line of thinking that brought us gel-like artificial chlorophyll in North Carolina and the hydrogen fuel producing solar powered trees at MIT. But how does this craziness actually work?

Well unlike electrolysis, which uses metal connectors and electrical currents to separate Hydrogen from Oxygen molecules in water, this method uses solar power through a form photosynthesis. So from start to finish, it’s a clean, green, energy producing machine. And do you want to know the best part about this? It’s cheap.

That’s right. For so long Hydrogen fuel cells seemed to elude us due to the fact that the production methods byproducts were harmful to us, not energy efficient, and above all, were not cost effective for the small quantities of power it yielded. In fact, depending on which process scientists used for past extraction methods, the energy loss percentage could sometimes be as high as ¾. That’s a lot of waste when you think about it.

Not everyone can keep paying seven dollars a gallon here in the U.S. for gasoline. In truth, even the ones who can afford it don’t want to. We burn through billions of gallons of the stuff worldwide every year, polluting the environment and avoiding clean energy. For our next multi-part series at TI&IT, let’s take an in depth look at just how the brilliant minds at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are looking to change this. But first, let me tell you a little bit about a War, the telegraph, and four men named Grove, Bacon, Olds and Ford.

Telegraph For Mr. Grove

Believe it or not, fuel cell technology goes back a lot further than you think. In fact, it technically predates the Civil War. I know what you’re thinking, “You’re full of crap guy. The combustion engine came way before the fuel cell.” The truth is, you’re wrong. But at the same time, you’re also right.

In 1839 a man named Sir William Grove went to work on what would later earn him the sobriquet “The father of the fuel cell.” It was a power cell of sorts that consisted of a zinc anode in dilute sulfuric acid and a platinum cathode in concentrated nitric acid, the two separated by a porous ceramic pot.

Grove discovered that by arranging two platinum electrodes with one end of each immersed in a container of sulfuric acid and the other ends separately sealed in containers of oxygen and hydrogen, a constant current would flow between the electrodes. The sealed containers held water as well as the gases, and he noted that the water level rose in both tubes as the current flowed.

This invention changed the technological landscape. The Grove Cell was quickly implemented into American telegraph systems. The cells were grouped together and soldered on a wooden table to increase their output. This configuration was known as a battery. (And as we all know a “cell” is the smallest component of a “battery.”) This became a staple in the Telegraph system until the time of the Civil War.

But a problem soon set in. The high volume of traffic across the lines would sometimes cause the Grove Cells to overheat and convert the chemicals to gas causing them to discharge Nitrogen Dioxide. This is bad. Nitrogen Dioxide is toxic if inhaled. The good news? NO2 has a distinct and acrid odor to it, so detection is relatively easy. However it can anesthetize the nose, meaning after you smell enough of it, you don’t notice it anymore. In a large quantity it will lead to Pulmonary Edema (fluid in the lungs). If overexposed you basically drown from the inside out.

Luckily it was replaced by the Daniell Cell, but that’s another story for another day…now what was I babbling about? Oh yes, fuel cells.

While the concept of hydrogen power was nothing new, (British scientists William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle had already described the process of using electricity to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen in 1800), Grove took it a step further by describing a new kind of battery. In 1843, he developed what he called, a gas voltaic battery. The funniest part of it all however was that, while it operated by producing electrical current through the melding of hydrogen and oxygen, the technology and understanding of chemical properties was limited by the times.

In short, while it was neat to look at in awe, nobody really knew how it worked.

German scientist Ludwig Mond and his assistant Charles Langer were the next to capture the public’s attention with what was truly the first fuel cell. In fact, they’re the ones who coined it the name. Even though Grove is considered the founder of the technology, these two took everything to a whole new level.

They introduced porous electrodes which increased the productivity, and in 1889, they built the first working fuel cell that operated using air and coal gas to cause the reaction. It was truly phenomenal, but they still weren’t entirely sure about what was happening. It seemed some materials were more conductive than others and they just couldn’t figure out why.

It wouldn’t be until almost the turn of the century that Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, a founder of the field of physical chemistry, provided much of the theoretical understanding of how fuel cells operate. In 1893, he experimentally determined the interconnected roles of the various components of the fuel cell: electrodes, electrolyte, oxidizing and reducing agents, anions (a negative ion), and cations (a positive ion).

But there was still work to be done in order to perfect fuel cells. And a man named Francis Bacon was determined to make that happen.

Submarines and Spaceships

Pictured above is Francis Bacon standing proudly in front of the first somewhat efficient Fuel Cell ever developed. (And Lordy Almighty it’s a biggun!) See, Bacon’s design differed from Grove’s and Ludwig Mond’s significantly, as well it should. While the other two were researchers and scientists not used to working with high temperatures and huge pressures in heavy machinery, Bacon was an engineer. (Remember to respect your Engineers in the scientific community ladies and gentlemen! You may dream it up, but these guys are the ones who build it!)

He proposed that with the right changes made to the original design that the Fuel Cell could be a viable source of power for Submarines. Building off the work of Emil Bauer just a few years before him and his research into Fuel Cells and high temperatures, Francis Bacon hit the lab and began wrenching away on his invention. His discoveries opened the door for all modern research into Fuel Cell technology.

He first concluded that the diluted acidic solutions used to power the Fuel Cells currently available just wouldn’t cut it. The chemicals were far too corrosive to be truly efficient. He replaced the acid mixture with potassium hydroxide which wouldn’t damage the electrodes as much. The next change he made was even more significant. The platinum cathodes that Grove had used as his primary method of conducting electrolysis were switched out for much cheaper activated nickel electrodes.

In 1940 he moved to London to continue his research with a little more funding and equipment. It was here he discovered his “Eureka!” moment. Bacon developed the first double-cell with one unit for generating the hydrogen and oxygen gases and the other for the fuel cell. This could be reversed so that it acted as both an electrolyzer and a fuel cell. But problems were encountered due to the high operating temperatures and pressures and the corrosive nature of the chemicals.

The world was impressed to say the least and fuel cells moved from the realm of obscurity and scientific curiosity into the realm of, “hey, these may actually be useful!” The government gave him access to porous nickel, an invention so strange that it was actually protected under the Official Secrets Act. He used it to develop electrodes with large pores on the gas side and finer ones on the electrolyte side. This resulted in a much more stable product. The government began throwing funding at Bacon by the fistfuls.

Instead of embezzling this money (like we would in modern times *eye roll*) Francis actually used it for the betterment of mankind and in 1959 he built the Hydroxide Fuel Cell pictured above. But instead of going into the ocean the world had another idea for this wondrous new technology. And no, it wasn’t bombs.

Pictured above is a cutaway of the Gemini V fuel cell. As the Soviet Union was sending Sputnik up into Space, the United States knew it couldn’t just rest on its laurels, we had to compete. Bacon’s fuel cell model became the standard after outperforming standard battery power of the time by over 200 times the longevity of safe operation.

While the design may have changed over the years, variations of Bacon’s original fuel cell are used today to put spacecraft into orbit. During the Apollo missions, fuel cells were also used to produce clean drinking water. While they were capable of splitting hydrogen molecules from oxygen molecules they could also put them back together. (Hydrogen plus oxygen equals yummy nutritious water!)

It’s too bad that American’s favor cheap over innovation, a trend met with recent unrest over jobs leaving North America to head to China. But as Henry Ford discovered, an assembly line trumps manual progress every time.

Moving Forward

With the advent of the internal combustion engine, fuel cells seemed to fall to the wayside. While they were developed alongside fuel cells technically, the mass beginnings of petroleum excavation in the mid-1850s began to degrade public interest. After all, fuel cells weren’t widely understood, capable of producing toxic gases, and didn’t provide the same amount of power and efficiency that ICEs did.

China had already proven to the world the efficient nature of division of labor. To explain it, let’s modernize it a little bit. Pretend you work at McDonald’s as a cashier. Your duties involve interacting with the customer, taking the order, exchanging currency, and handing the customer a receipt. The order then goes to the back where a fry cook makes the burgers and French Fries. Another worker then comes up, bags the food, and hands it to the customer. At the end of the day another worker cleans the dishes while a manager counts all the income that was made that day in the back office before dropping the deposit off to the bank.

The splitting and designation of these tasks is called division of labor.

And of course the brilliant Chinese had developed this process.

Industrialization also brought about the decline of the fuel cell technology. It gave us machines that could cut and smooth parts using jigs and fixtures to guide them. The only human interactions were pressing a button, moving a platform, and placing the material to be cut. These were called interchangeable parts. Fast, accurate, and efficient, this lead to the assembly line.

While a man named Ransom Olds (you may remember him from his namesake, the “Oldsmobile”) developed the assembly line process, Henry Ford is often incorrectly credited. Ford did NOT invent the assembly line; he just perfected the process by adding conveyor belts into the mix. This resulted in the ability to build an entire Model T automobile in approximately an hour and a half. Now that’s production.

Luckily though fuel cells didn’t die out entirely and were just pushed aside temporarily.

Until now.

The “Anodes” of History

We too often think of fuel cells as being “new technology”, but as you can see, their rich history takes us back now almost two centuries! While we may have improved on the materials and costs of building fuel cells, and we understand now how they do what they do, the core of them has never changed. They still require electrodes, they still require chemical production, and they still aren’t as energy efficient as the internal combustion. However…

Recent advances in Green Technology (and I literally mean “Green”) have put fuel cells back into the mainstream again. Now that scientists and OPEC executives are beginning to grow squirrely over potentially dwindling petroleum wells, this could be the technology that saves the human race from ourselves.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about how modern fuel cells operate and what they’re being used for currently. We’ll also discuss the various methods that go into creating them and who is pioneering the field now. Plus, a new way of gathering the fuel for the cells that should “leaf” you totally breathless. Hope you enjoyed the first part of this guys and gals! And thank you so much for reading To Infinity And…In Theory, it truly means the world to me.

-       Ryan Sanders

(Dilbert, from the gut-bustingly hilarious Scott Adams)

Thank you for reading this article on the history of the fuel cell. If you would like to know more about any of the above material you can by following any of the links below. Feel free to share this on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or any other Social Media site you may use. Happy learning everyone!

*Some time frames may be subject to discrepancy. Dates used in the article above are the assumed time frames within 1-3 years as information on specificities vary depending on the source. While I try to remain as accurate as possible, I am only as accurate as my sources. Thank you for your understanding.*

-       History of the Internal Combustion Engine

-       Applications of Fuel Cells

-       A timeline of events in Fuel Cell history

-       History of Fuel Cells and their correlation to modern trends

-       Full explanation and history of the Olds/Ford Assembly Lines

-       Early Fuel Cells in NASA applications

-       Wiki entry on Sir William Robert Grove

-       Brief history of the telegraph and use of the Grove Cells

The Inquisitive Reader #1: What the Frick is Fracking?

Anyone who has been paying attention to ecological news in the last decade has heard the term “Fracking.” They’ve heard it praised and they’ve heard it demonized by the media, politicians, CEO’s, and environmentalists. But what is Fracking? The short answer is Hydraulic Fracturing but the long answer is much, much more than that.

No matter what side of the coin you fall on, whether you support it or are strongly against it, there is one factor that neither side can deny; it is a lucrative and profitable industry, and the methods don’t look as though they will disappear anytime soon.

The reason for Hydraulic Fracturing is simple. Natural gas. But how do we extract this natural gas by drilling into the Earth and causing it to crack? Furthermore, how did this gas get there in the first place, and what is it even made of? But perhaps the most burning question of all that’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue is plain and simple.

Is Fracking safe?

Yes and no. It has its upsides but there are clearly pitfalls to it. Here at To Infinity And…In Theory I have no political agenda so I’m not going to cast my vote for or against it. What I am going to do is talk about all of the sciences that coalesce into this controversial and complicated technique of extracting fossil fuels from miles deep within the crust of the Earth.

All Shale To The King, Baby

That picture above isn’t just any old gray rock. It’s a rock called Shale. In a sense this is the very substance the gas companies are after, or rather, the contents contained therein. See Shale is a fairly weak rock and at a molecular level there are lots of little pockets that form inside it. It’s the pockets that everyone’s after.

When organic material dies it decomposes and rejoins the Earth. The Shale forms around this organic material and sinks deeper into the planet. As pressures and temperatures rise the remainder of organic matter is essentially burned off and reduced to a gaseous form. This “Shale gas” is the final prize.

But in order to get this natural gas you can’t just extract it from Shale on the surface. It hasn’t had the time or the right conditions to break down the organic material trapped inside it. If you started fracking surface Shale all you would be succeeding in doing is looking like an idiot and wasting a lot of water. So for the purposes of the gas companies we need to drill.

The drilling process spans about 2 miles in total but it’s not all straight down. In fact after about a mile deep the drill makes a slight turn until the drill path resembles a one mile deep, one mile long “L” shape. It’s not because the drill has difficultly digging down any deeper, it’s because it only works if you do it this way.

As I said before, Shale isn’t very strong. Because of this there are already tiny micro-fractures that run across Shale deposits. Once the core is drilled out in the L shape exposing these fractures, hundreds of thousands (sometimes MILLIONS!) of gallons of water, sand, and various chemicals are thrust into the hole at extremely high pressures. Once it’s full, with nowhere else to go, it begins to seep and worm it’s way into the small cracks along the drill path. Once the Shale breaks the gas is released and pumped into tankers on the surface.

Is It Supposed To Burn Like That?

Hydraulic Fracking is comprised of several parts. First the Shale deposit must be discovered, second the land must be legally obtained for drilling rights, third millions upon millions of dollars must go into specialized equipment in order to ensure environmental and worker safety. After those three conditions are met, the science begins.

As I mentioned above the way the gas is extracted is by splitting the rock using a mix of water, sand, and chemicals. But the word “chemicals” can be a rather scary one to some individuals, especially when it comes to those in areas affected by Fracking.

I know what some of your saying, “shouldn’t sand and high water pressure be enough?” Yes, technically that would accomplish it to a degree, but it wouldn’t be nearly as lucrative as it is now. You need certain chemicals like Hydrochloric acid in order to stimulate the micro-fractures. This is what opens them up into larger cracks that can be broken apart by the pressure.

But using that Hydrochloric acid has a serious drawback. Turns out, acid is corrosive… (Gee, I’m so surprised…) and a corrosion inhibitor must be used to protect the drilling gear and other equipment essential to extraction and safety. For this chemicals like Formic acid and Acetaldehyde are used.

You need biocides to treat the water to prevent damaging byproducts from forming during the drilling process. For that various ammonium chlorides are used. There are a lot of chemicals that go into Fracking, from friction reducers to stabilizers; citric acid is even used to prevent precipitation of metal oxides.

If you want to see a complete list of chemicals used in the process you can by clicking here. Most of them are fairly harmless, some can be deadly in massive quantities, but the vast majority of gas companies in the U.S. stand behind the Environmental codes and regulations laid out for them, however I cannot speak for all.

From Sea To Shining Sea

Depending on where you live you may or may not see Fracking equipment moving into your neighborhood anytime soon. But it might not be so bad if you did. See here in America, if you own the land above the resource, you own the rights. And if you own the rights, you got them by the…well, you get the picture.

See the company has to first purchase the drilling rights to your land from you. After that happens, if the well begins producing, you begin seeing royalty checks. In a BBC documentary titled Fracking: The New Energy Rush a rural farmer from Louisiana becomes an overnight millionaire, receiving monthly checks close to half a million dollars in royalties once the wells began producing.

The map above should give you a pretty good idea based on where you live in the United States whether or not you have a chance at becoming a Shale-ionaire (Sorry, watch the documentary, couldn’t help myself.). It’s important to know that even if you’re in an area rich in Shale, it doesn’t mean they can just start drilling.

You need a lot of open area for the piping, storage, and drilling equipment. If you live in a big city, it doesn’t matter if you own that whole acre parcel of land, gas companies aren’t interested. Sorry to shatter your Beverly Hillbilly fantasies, but I figure it’s better to do it now then to wait for you to run out and rent a backhoe.

Perhaps someday there will be another method of extracting the gas that will allow us city slickers to get in the game, but it doesn’t look like that will be any time soon. Experts estimate that there is more Shale gas in the United States than there is oil in all of Saudi Arabia. Perhaps that’s why operations and explorations are underway in 30 states already, with more supporters jumping aboard every day

But for every supporter there is opposition. And like most scientific advances, there are great benefits to mankind, but there can potentially be catastrophic side effects. Next, let’s talk about some things that can go horribly wrong, what variables can cause these events to occur, and what steps can be taken to prevent these problems from happening again in the future.

Subterranean Politics

As much as I despise politics in any form and have no wish to discuss them in a sacred place of Science, it’s impossible to talk about Fracking without getting into them to a certain extent. The two have practically become synonymous with one another. On one side you have the environmentalists screaming at the politicians to put a stop to this Mother Nature manslaughter. On the other side of the fence are the politicians brimming with cold sweat over energy dependence. No matter how you look at it there’s no clear winner in any of this.

It’s hard to deny that we’re dependent on foreign oil. You also can’t deny that we are a very, very resource hungry country. We’re a developed nation after all with a lot of people, so it’s no wonder our consumption is so high. Fracking could lead to cheaper methods of powering foundries and chemical plants, effectively bringing jobs back that were once phased out to overseas labor. The cost of foreign labor would actually be more expensive than the mined Shale gas to run them here.

Energy independence may be a tantalizing notion, but poking a stick a mile down into our planet and pressurizing it till it explodes may not be so much. The long term effects of Fracking are relatively unknown as this technique of mining really into came into full swing around 2007. One thing is certain though, the Earth’s crust never intended to be drilled into and hyper-pressurized without fighting back at some point. Fracking destabilizes the geological structure in a region; if you do it too much you can sink that area, and trust me, if you’ve ever seen a sinkhole its way less fun than it sounds.

There’s also the problem of underground water supplies. In Pennsylvania it’s been noted by chemical engineer, Robert Jackson, that 115 out 141 shallow well water sites were contaminated with high levels of methane. Not just methane created by microorganisms around and in the well. The levels were far too high. They came from within the Marcellus Shale due to the destabilization of Fracking in the region.

Pipes can break (looking at you BP), casings can rupture, and chemicals and gas can leak out. Most of the chemicals are contained well below the drinking water line so the risk of contamination from them is extremely minimal. However, if a pipe breaks while pumping gas to the surface; it can leak out, contaminating water sources.

New safety measures need to be taken into account in order to ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future. But there’s one thing that reading all this should’ve brought to your attention that’s positive. If there’s all this new work coming into town…

Then by default it has to create jobs.

While some jobs on Fracking sites require specific training and skillsets in order to perform your daily duties, others are as simple as trucking water, sand, and other materials in and out, basic heavy machinery operation, and a general understanding of industrial construction. That may sound imposing, but believe me, there are many out of work contractors out there who have more than a general understanding about an extensive lot of different specialties.

But there are some towns that aren’t happy with this. The sudden economic boom has raised the standard of living in some areas and not everyone has been able to find work with these companies. It’s actually brought an entirely new plethora of social issues along with it raising the public’s questionable and doubtful eyebrows about fracking, and the last question on our list…

Is Fracking worth the risk?

So What The Frack Are You Saying Exactly?

In conclusion I will simply restate what I said at the beginning of this article. I am in no way trying to push any political agenda with this piece so please don’t mistake some of my sarcasm for anything but that (I have been told I’m rather cynical at times.) I will say two things however to close this out and you may take them or leave them.

I agree with the politicians to the extent that we are far too dependent on foreign sources for our energy resources. The biggest doorway we have to reopen is making it cost effective for big companies to have the incentive to move back to our shores and open old factories again. This will be the key in bringing jobs back to America.

I also agree with the environmentalists in that current methods of Fracking aren’t foolproof and some companies choose to take immoral (and often dangerous) roads in order to turn a larger profit. More research needs to go into improving methods and equipment in order to safely extract the gas without disturbing the geological composition of the area to a catastrophic degree.

This hot button issue will continue to cause media fire storms and public outrage in the future, but I hope this article gave you a better understanding of what Fracking really is.

-       Ryan Sanders

Thanks for reading, and as always if you enjoyed this article and found it insightful why not share it around! Knowledge is more fun when it’s socialized! Happy learning everyone and for further reading follow any of the links below.

-       Article about job potential and probable social crisis

-       Scientific American article on groundwater contamination from methane release within Shale

-       Article stating chemicals used in Fracking do not cause groundwater contamination